Key Senate Dems: Pass Public Option Through Reconciliation

By FireDogLake's David Dayen FDL

Four Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) have written a letter to Harry Reid calling for the Senate to pass a public option for health care reform using the budget reconciliation process.

Bennet was joined on the letter by Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR). In the letter, they discuss how the public option would save money (over $25 billion, even using the “level playing field” version), provide an alternative to private insurance companies and force competition on price and quality.

More significantly, Bennet and his counterparts made a strong case (using the AEI’s Norm Ornstein!) that budget reconciliation is a normal process to resolve policy issues that impact the bottom line.

There is a history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation.

There is substantial Senate precedent for using reconciliation to enact important health care policies. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicare Advantage, and the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA), which actually contains the term ‘reconciliation’ in its title, were all enacted under reconciliation.

The American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein and Brookings’ Thomas Mann and Molly Reynolds jointly wrote, “Are Democrats making an egregious power grab by sidestepping the filibuster? Hardly.” They continued that the precedent for using reconciliation to enact major policy changes is “much more extensive . . . than Senate Republicans are willing to admit these days.”

I think that the renewed push for the public option is nice, but the renewed push for using reconciliation to make the health care bill more palatable to pass the House actually might get this thing off the mat. It appears that the policy differences between the House and Senate are largely being ironed out; the process is more of a hurdle at this point. So if Bennet and his colleagues can actually calm the nerves of those skittish Senators who don’t want to use reconciliation because it’s “icky” and “partisan,” that would represent a significant step forward. It also happens to represent the only step forward; the House cannot do anything without reconciliation fixes.

Bennet, Gillibrand, Brown and Merkley are not the only ones itching to use reconciliation to finish off the health care bill:

Given the unified GOP opposition to their health care effort, Senate Democrats argued just before departing for the Presidents Day recess that Obama’s summit is no reason to shelve reconciliation as a potential strategy. The tactic would allow Democrats pass certain aspects of health care reform with just 51 votes.

“I think it should be constantly pursued,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Thursday when asked whether Democrats should take a break from drafting a reconciliation bill until after Obama’s summit.

“I think the Republicans are pretty committed to the notion that obstructing everything that President Obama would like to accomplish is very key to their base and their political success,” Whitehouse added. “I don’t see them departing from that strategy.”

Given that Democrats are choking in a desert looking for results right now, Bennet and these other Senators are at least offering that path out of the desert.