Senate to take up health care bill, pretend to care what the back benchers think while preparing for the conference committee
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) late Tuesday laid the groundwork for the Senate’s healthcare reform debate to start next Tuesday.
Reid filed a motion to introduce the bill on Monday, Nov. 16. Anticipating a Republican objection, the bill would be pushed onto the Senate calendar.
If I understand this correctly – and that’s a small-to-medium-sized “if” – the first thing they’ll have to do is overcome a filibuster. At least, we hope they’ll have to overcome a filibuster. Surely Senate Republicans have the stones to force them to do at least that.
To overcome a filibuster, they need 60 votes. As luck would have it, the Democrats have 60 seats.
In a warning sign for the White House, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska tells ABC News that he’ll vote to block any health care bill that looks like the bill passed by the House.
“Well, first of all, it has more than a robust public option, it’s got a totally government-run plan, the costs are extraordinary associated with it, it increases taxes in a way that will not pass in the Senate and I could go on and on and on,” Nelson said…
Plus, Nelson said he supports the Stupak amendment, which forbade the bill from including abortion funding.
In a scrum with reporters just now, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) was asked how strong his commitment to filibustering any health care reform public option really is. Asked if he saw any “wiggle room” on his pledge — say, a trigger for example — Lieberman said he’ll stand firm.
“I don’t feel like wiggling,” he said.
Lieberman has stated his disdain for a trigger option before.
Is anybody else having trouble getting that image out of their heads now? Of Joe Lieberman wiggling? No?
Me, neither.
So that’s two Democrat Senators already opposing the bill. Lieberman has said he’d filibuster. Dunno about Nelson. Is Olympia Snowe going to support it? She voted for the Baucus bill when it came to a committee vote, but said she wouldn’t necessarily vote yes down the line.
If she hangs tough, then the Dems are at 59 votes, at best. They’ll have to pick off a Republican somehow, or promise Lieberman that they’ll dump the public option.
Once that’s done, the rest doesn’t really matter. They’ll pass something, somehow, then go into a conference committee, where Reid and Pelosi will put together whatever they damn well please. If I understand this correctly – still a small-to-medium-sized “if” – whatever the conference committee does can’t be amended. Then it’ll be arm-breaking, get to fifty-percent-plus-one time.
And then we party like Canadians.
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