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Historic health care bill clears Senate hurdle

Well, they do. Don't know what to tell ya.

Some do, some don't. Some conservatives do too. So all it does is inflame things for no good reason.
 
catawba croons:

all we need is fifty one
why sweat nelson and lieberman
don't worry
be happy

LOL!

"For some reason the media and even our politicians keep pounding the vital importance of the Senate obtaining 60 votes in the Senate to pass the health care reform legislation. There's the non-stop 'what will (Traitor) Joe Lieberman do'...or 'will they get (R) Olympia Snowe'...or 'will Harry Reid get the 60 votes he needs...'? 60...60...60 !!! That's all we hear. I'm not sure if the media is trying to add drama to the health care issue in an attempt to stimulate audience ratings or if it's an orchestrated tactic in hopes of keeping Americans ill-informed through the direction of our great politicians, but the FACT is, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid DOES NOT need 60 votes to pass the health care bill but in fact ONLY 51- a simple majority, which makes a huge difference-through a procedure commonly used and known as RECONCILIATION.

Reconciliation is " a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow a contentious budget bill to be considered without being subject to filibuster (only needing 51 votes to pass). Because reconciliation limits debate and amendment, the process empowers the majority party ". The reconciliation procedure is limited to being used for budget related legislation that costs or raises substantial amounts of money. In the case of the Senate health care bill, that would include the expansion of Medicare or Medicaid, revenue-raising tax provisions, and even the creation of a public health insurance option, depending on how it's written. So the reconciliation procedure CAN be used to pass the health care bill with only 51 VOTES !

The downside of the bill being passed through this procedure is that, due to a ruling known as the Byrd Rule, non-budget legislation designed to regulate the insurance industry could not be included in the bill and would have to be voted on in a separate bill which would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. But there is a strategy that can be used to overcome even this obstacle as described by Ryan Grimm of HuffPo:

But there's another alternative, according to Martin Paone. Paone, who served as a Democratic Senate floor staffer for 29 years, has been advising Democrats as they craft their legislative strategy. He proposes that Democrats try to get 60 votes to waive the Byrd Rule -- which would then allow the inclusion of those non-budget-related provision in one bill that would require only 51 votes for final passage.

What's the advantage? And why would any senator who opposes the entire bill vote for such a waiver? The answer can be found in the specific proposals that would be in violation of the Byrd Rule. Mostly, those would include reforms to the way the insurance industry operates -- for example, a ban on using preexisting conditions to deny coverage, or a law that insurance companies can't drop a client just because they get sick.

Those are wildly popular reforms. Getting 60 votes to support those policies is much easier than getting 60 for a public health insurance option, which Republicans and some conservative Democrats oppose.

Conservative senators such as Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) or Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) could, in voting for a Byrd Rule waiver, put themselves on the record as being in support of popular insurance industry reforms, while still opposing final passage of the bill -- a political strategy that may be appealing to them."
RECONCILIATION: Should Be A Household Word ! - Greg Jones - Open Salon

Don't worry, be happy! :2razz:
 
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