A little rage and a few phone calls … plus a few hours can do a lot of good. Barney sez he'd vote for the Senate bill:
“I should not have put out a statement late in the evening last night when I was upset because I didn't really–I think I overstated the pessimism,” Frank told me. “I really was worried–I put out a new statement–I was worried about some Democrats doing crazy things, like 'don't seat him', 'let Kirk's vote go.' I was worried about that.”
Even Kent Conrad says he's up for doing part of the bill through reconciliation, i.e. House passes Senate bill plus complementary legislation, with the understanding that the Senate passes the same extra language with 51 votes.
And Matt points out: House members already voted for health care reform. No turning back now.
bills die at the end of session. There’s no law that ties people up until there’s a vote on it. It’s dead, Charley, and it’s corpse could very well save 2010.
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p>I’m not giving up on HCR, but this monolithic approach to “solving” in one-fell-swoop health care was disastrous. Let’s get a patient bill of rights. Let’s get a separate bill setting up a national exchange. Let’s get a bill for the public option to be on that exchange, and do it through reconciliation. Big victories that are simple, easy to define and easy to sell back home, which will build off of one another, is the way to go. If Obama and (most) other politicians didn’t have such inflated heads, we’d have gone with this approach from the beginning. Who says we need huge, all encompassing bills that take years to accomplish, if ever? We just need to stay focused and get shit done.
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p>And, by passing a series of smaller bills, we can work on other fundamentally important bills at the same time, getting past the gridlock and passing things that will get the base excited again. If we don’t get things like EFCA and a repeal of DADT through, I think we’re going to be very, very hard pressed to keep those core constituencies on board in 2010, instead of staying home. Ditto climate reform, though I feel very much the same way about that “bill” as I do HCR — why does it need to be one, big, monolithic bill that will allow the GOP to confuse, distract and control the message? Pass the damn thing in clear-cut, natural pieces. It not only makes those bills easier to pass, but it also keeps those constituencies active and excited.