“Nuclear option” readied
October 16, 2009
Are you feeling involved in the “process?” Here is Obama during the campaign.
“I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies — they’ll get a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.”
Yeah, I don’t remember any of that happening. In fact, the Democratic controlled Senate is getting ready to go nuclear to thwart normal rules.
A key House committee on Thursday quietly altered its health care legislation in a way that could allow the Senate to mow over Republican opposition to Democratic reforms by exploiting a budgetary loophole.
The Ways and Means Committee adjusted its health care overhaul package so that the Senate, down the road, could avoid a filibuster and pass health care reform with a smaller number of votes than normally required.
The long-discussed process, nicknamed the “nuclear option,” is known as reconciliation. It’s coming into potential play after the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday became the last of five committees to approve health care reform legislation, sending the overhaul proposals a big step closer to the president’s desk. Before it gets there, though, the bill has to pass from the committees to the floors of the House and Senate.
These people are NOT working for you.
