George Orwell proposed that the best way to obfuscate a fact is to simply state the opposite. Republican strategists must be taking notes, because they’re now labeling the Democrats’ attempt to pass health care reform through reconciliation as undemocratic – a term that very aptly describes what the Republicans are doing.
The overall narrative that Fox News and Republicans are painting is that by using reconciliation, the Democrats are “cheating.” Megyn Kelly, the midday sophomore reporter who is portrayed as Fox’s dispassionate helping of hard news before we get to the enthusiasts, said the main thing we need to know about the process is that “the bill will be pushed through the Senate with 51 votes instead of the usual 60.” Senator Orin Hatch said that using reconciliation to push through such a bill is “unprecedented.” A little disingenuous.
First, understand that Obama already “passed his healthcare bill.” The House passed the Affordable Health Care for America Act on Nov. 7. The Senate passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Dec. 24. This is simply the stage where the two bills are reconciled into one and then signed.
Second, reconciliation isn’t a constitutional loophole. Rather, it’s a process invented in to circumvent a loophole. The constitution calls for a simple majority in both houses. Sixty is the magical number in the Senate only because it’s the number of votes needed for cloture, which renders the filibuster ineffective. Because politicians would much rather bring our government to a standstill than let the opposing party pass any bill of political or historical salience, not being able to beat the Senate filibuster is more or less synonymous with not getting your bill passed.
Reconciliation provides a streamlining of debate and procedure meant to bring pre-existing legislation into conformity with budget resolutions. Republicans have used it much more often than Democrats to pass legislation, including, notably, their welfare reform bill in 1996 and the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. And while reconciliation usually applies to entire bills, Democrats will simply be using it to smooth out the differences in the Senate bill as it is adopted by the House.
Given that not a single Republican senator and only one House Republican voted for the bills in the first place, it’s hard to substantiate the claim that Republicans want to work together with Democrats to pass it. Paradoxically, they are working on it. Back when the bill was still in the Senate Finance Committee, the Democrats melded Republican ideas into it and watered down the efficacy of the public option for the sake of winning over the Republicans. The Republicans voted against it anyway. And the public option was tossed. And the Republicans keep working behind the scenes to insert their ideas into the bills while publicly bellyaching that they’re being ignored. Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein points out that all six points on the GOP’s “Solutions for America” homepage are in the bill in some form.
We’ve been debating health care for about a year now. Meanwhile, health insurance premiums are set to go up in ways that, depending on where you live, could be anywhere from incremental to staggering. California residents may see a rise of as much as 39 percent. Maine’s insurance monopoly is asking their legislature for a 23 percent rise. Meanwhile, Medicare is set to triple in cost as percentage of GDP by 2050 if it is not restructured by this bill. The Republicans are not interested in any of this.
Nor are they interested in “starting over.” They are there to drag ass as much as possible to make Obama’s tenure seem like a do-nothing presidency while simultaneously claiming that he’s plotting a socialist upheaval. Since Obama took office, they have filibustered 154 times. That’s not bipartisanship. That’s not even Machiavellian politics. That’s pure nihilism.
Josh Veazey is a senior majoring in telecommunication and film. His column runs on Wednesdays.
