PolitiFact Wrong on Reconciliation, Calls Obama a Hypocrite.

PolitiFact gives  Obama a “full flop” on reconciliation largely based on this,

“But the fact is, the health care bill is not getting any Republican support, and Obama is pressing forward with a plan to push through a health care plan without them, and without a 60-vote majority.“

But the politi-FACT is that the Senate passed their health care bill with a 60 vote majority. And if a health care plan is to become the law of the land, the house will have to pass that same bill.

In fact news reports yesterday had the Senate parliamentarian ruling that the President must sign the bill into law before reconciliation can even take place.
Therefor it is incorrect for PolitiFact to conclude that Obama is pushing through a healthcare plan with out a 60 vote majority.

An attempt to use reconciliation to augment the bill in a manner completely consistent with how reconcilliation has been used in the past will be made. So if PolitiFact wants to give Obama a full flip on reconciliation based on his approving of augmenting a health care plan, not passing a health care plan, They may have a case. I wonder how they would rule if they took the proper, narrower focus?  I doubt that PolitiFact will find quotes of Obama trashing the traditional use of reconciliation.  I could be wrong. Anybody got any?

At the very least PolitiFact is guilty of sensationalism. Now that is what I call hypocrisy.

Congressman Joe Barton: “California health care premiums would go down 50% if Californians could by health insurance from Nevada or Oregon.”

Just about half an hour ago, at the health care summit, Congressman Joe Barton (R, TX)  made the statement, “There is a study just out… In the state of California health care premiums would go down 50% if Californians could buy health insurance from Nevada or Oregon. ” This was news to me. I jumped on the internet and and tried to find the study he was referring to. After several attempts, I got nada.

So I called the Congressman’s Barton’s office. A man answered right away and he was extremely nice. I asked him if he could direct me to the study . He said he could not because he did not know what study the congressman was referring to. I have to say I was shocked. To be fair he went on to say that the person in the office who was the expert on health care was not in the office because of they were at the summit. Totally understandable.

He invited me to call back, (stupidly I did not ask when would be a good time) and he supplied me with the number to the congressional health care committee saying they could tell me where to look for the study.  A man answered right away and he was extremely nice. I told him Barton’s office had directed me there and I asked him if he could direct me to the study . He told me that they were unaware of the study and since the congressman said it, his staff would be the best place to find it.

Funny stuff.

So I am gonna call back, later today, and tomorrow , and the next day…Until I find it.

Can anyone save me some time? Anyone know what study he was talking about?

Update. February 26.

I called the Congressman’s Barton’s office again to day. A man answered right away and he was extremely nice. Again I asked him if he could direct me to the study. I think it was the same man. (I should ask his name, don’t ya think? Rude of me.) He told me he still could not direct me to the study, and that Congressman Barton’s health care expert was out for the week. Bummer! He sounded genuinely disappointed that he could not help and invited me to call back on Monday.

I will.

Update 2, Feb 26,

WaPo has Congressman Barton’s compleat health care summit remarks here.

Update 3, March 3,

Well after several calls today was a bit different . The very nice man asked me for my information and said he will send it to the committee and they would get back to me with the study. I wonder how long that will take? Has my question just been sent to committee to die?

Well, I will give them a few days. And if the committee does not help, then I will call the very nice man at The congressman office again.

Republicans say: We Just Want to Compromise.

Tomorrow’s Health care summit, Trap or political theater?

Tomorrow Obama and the Republicans will meet on live TV for the death match of the century . OK, not really. Tomorrow’s six-hour meeting will be full of lots of detail and facts coming from Obama, countered by hysterical warnings of doom and faux common sense  from the Republicans. It is funny to think this meeting was actually asked for by the Republicans. Remember how they complained about being locked out of the debate? Now they are calling the summit  a trap and the press is calling it political theater.

It is a trap.   There is nothing wrong with trying to trap your political opponent. It is potentially just as much a trap for Obama as the repubs.

It is political theater. All politics is theater.  Good politics like good theater has to be entertaining. But great politics like great theater is illuminating; it can change the way people see the world.

Tomorrow will probably have a few moments of great theater for anyone willing to endure. Anyone that actually watches it with an open mind will come away very educated, and left with the inescapable conclusion that  health care reform should be passed. NOW.

Not many will watch. Who has the time? We count on reporters to watch it for us and give us an honest educated distillation. Too bad we don’t live in a time where that  happens. Fox will give us their unfair and unbalanced right-wing spin. MSNBC will offer its typically schizo spin of attacking Obama from the left while celebrating his victory over the repubs. Most of the other News sources will offer a mix of these approaches on the same program or printed page. Almost no one will actually do an in-depth analysis of all the complex facts. It does not sell. Welcome to the modern “free market of ideas”

One theme we will hear a lot tomorrow is that repubs want to compromise.

Every kid on the playground knows what compromise means. Compromise means you give up something if the other kid will give up something, so they can get on with it and play the game.

The Republican kids in congress have a different view. The Repub kids won’t agree to anything they don’t like. The Repub kids say compromise is finding what rules all the kids agree on.

The Repub kids sound reasonable. The kids in the media are buying it. But the Dem kids know it is bunk. For a year now they have been trying to get the repubs to play a game…any game.

The Dem kids say “lets Play Baseball!” The Repub kids say, “Yes we all want to play baseball, but no bats. On this we must agree”

The Dem Kids say, “Lets play Football!”
The Repub Kids say, “Yes all of the kids want to play football, but no one is allowed to use their hands, It is football after all. On this we can not budge an inch.”

Dem kids, “OK Soccer then”
Repub Kids, “As long as no one kicks the ball.”

Dem kids, “How about tag?”
Repub kids, “No touching.”

Dem kids, “You really don’t want to play at all do you?”
Repub Kids, “Of course we want to play. All the of the playground wants to play. If you dem kids would just compromise we could all play. Ya know what? You dems have messed this all up. Let’s start over ! “

Senate Dems adopted 161 amendments and key GOP planks while soft-pedaling the public option. read more.

Obama to Write Own Reconciliation Friendly Health Bill.

Earlier today I blogged about the growing momentum in the Senate to pass a health care reform bill through the reconciliation process.

I wondered if Obama would throw sand into the gears of the non- bipartisan  reconciliation process.

I wondered if our President, would place bipartisanship above the need to pass real reform when he goes on national television to talk with the repubs on the 25th.

I need not have wondered.

From the New York Times:

“Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.”

Full story here.

Whew ! The president is on board with getting it done the only way it can get done.

Now let us all hope that his proposal is not a watered down cave in to repub demands.

I doubt it will have a public option, despite the public’s support for it.

Senate Has Votes For Pubic Option in Reconciliation, Will Obama Stop Them?

Ryan Grim pens an article in today’s HuffPo that will excite anyone still holding out hope for comprehensive health care reform. In it Grim reports of the growing movement to adopt the Senate bill with the public option or expanded medicare added, and then pass it in the reconciliation process. According to Grim’s sources there are now 51 yes votes in the Senate. One more than the 50 needed.

So what could upset the process? As Grim explains, an unelected parliamentarian:

“Because of the rules surrounding budget reconciliation, the process that would allow health care reform to move through with 51 votes, any Senator may bring up an amendment to the package. An opponent of the amendment will then likely make a point of order and argue that the amendment violates the “Byrd Rule”** and is out of order. If the parliamentarian sustains the point of order, the amendment would need 60 votes to pass. But if he deems that it complies with the rules of reconciliation — that it has a substantial effect on the budget and is germane to the legislation — then the amendment passes with a majority vote.”

Imagine the most important legislation of a generation being axed by an unelected Senate referee. The Dem base will be livid. Anger, when properly appealed to, produces voter turn out.  The calls for killing the filibuster will grow louder and have more weight, setting up a potent campaign argument for keeping a dem majority to “kill fill” on the opening day of the next session.*

The best case is getting comprehensive health care reform passed, be even in defeat, This is a no lose situation for the dems strategically. Hopefully they will have the brains and the guts to push this to a conclusion.

But all of this could be made moot by one man, President Barack Obama. On the 25th of February, Obama will meet with repubs in a televised health care summit. Obama potentially could make it very dangerous for dems to go this very partisan route. Obama has been an advocate of bi-partisanship to a fault. A huge fault. And this summit is supposed to be all about bi-partisan solutions.

Will Obama, heavily criticized by the left for not putting himself into selling health reform, now kill meaningful reform on the altar of bipartisanship just as he finally does put himself in the center of the debate?  How horribly ironic would that be ?

*”…the “constitutional” or “nuclear” option revolves on the argument that, on the first day of a new Congress, Senate rules, including Rule XXII,
the cloture rule, do not yet apply, and thus can be changed by majority vote. Under this argument, debate could be stopped by majority vote as well. A Senator would
move the adoption of a new rule or set of rules. The new rule or rules would be
subject to a majority vote, supporters argue, because the mechanics of cloture as set
out in Rule XXII, which requires a supermajority to invoke cloture and end debate,
would not yet apply and the Senate would be operating under general parliamentary
law. One variation would be a claim that on the opening day of a Congress a simple
majority could invoke cloture on the motion to take up a resolution that proposed a
rules change, or on the resolution itself. Again, this scenario would rest on the
proposition that Rule XXII was not yet in force and did not control action. Senators
also could seek to have the 60-vote threshold declared unconstitutional, either for
cloture in general, or only as it applies to Senate consideration of presidential
nominations, or perhaps a subset of such nominations, such as of federal judges.
This scenario might take place in at least two different ways. The presiding officer
might make a ruling from the chair, or a Senator could make a point of order from
the floor that the supermajority requirement for cloture is unconstitutional.”

From Congressional Research Service report for congress Changing  Senate Rules: Entire report here. Highly recommended, but wonkish.

** “Byrd Rule” link added by me, link not in the original.