reconciliation

Nancy Pelosi and Louise Slaughter have come up with a parliamentary maneuver -- "deem and pass" -- reeking of evasiveness and trickery that Democratic members are going to have to embrace. But it gets better! The point of "deem and pass" is to allow representatives to vote directly only on the reconciliation "fixes" rather than on the Senate health care bill (which will be deemed to be passed if reconciliation passes). But the reconciliation "fixes" make the Senate bill even more politically unattractive.

Here's what Democrats will be asked to vote for Sunday (thanks to Keith Hennessey for his useful list):

* Additional tax increases, on top of the ones in the Senate bill. The reconciliation bill raises the Medicare payroll tax by 0.9% to a combined employer-employee 3.8% for individuals with income over $200K and couples over $250K, and, beginning in 2013, creates a new 3.8% tax on some capital income from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties, and rents for those individuals and families.

* Even deeper cuts to Medicare Advantage, which will mean fewer and less attractive Medicare Advantage plans available to seniors.

* Increases in the employer penalties for not complying with the mandates, which will hit all businesses with more than 50 employees.

Now, Democratic leaders will tell members that there are some popular things in the new package -- for example, the one-time $250 “rebate” in 2010 for seniors who reach the Medicare drug benefit coverage gap. But they're likely wrong that even this will be popular. In an era of concern about the deficit, the giveaway will be ridiculed as an attempt at pure election-year vote-buying, and will backfire.

What's more, the reconciliation bill the House will be voting on has several clear Byrd rule violations. Senate Republicans will be able to use the Byrd rule to strike these provisions from the bill. So if the Senate then passes a modified reconciliation bill, it will return it to the House, which will have to vote on a version of this bill AGAIN.

The Democrats would actually be better off -- well, less worse off -- simply voting to pass the Senate bill. But by embracing the Slaughter Rule and this package of reconciliation fixes, they've managed to make a bad political situation for themselves worse. Congratulations!

Michael Barone writes:

"Remember the old Tip O’Neill story: after an aide referred to the House Republicans as “the enemy,” O’Neill corrected him. “The House Republicans are not the enemy, they’re the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.”

Nevertheless, the Obama administration (itself fast becoming the truest enemy of the House) wants the House to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare, hand it over to the president to sign into law, and then trust that the Senate will then -- and only then -- begin to fix some of the parts of the bill to which the House most strongly objects.  Oh, and the Senate would do so using a "budget reconciliation" process that Americans strongly oppose, and would do so even though it would then be making the bill look more like what the House wanted and less like what the Senate wanted.  Meanwhile, the administration would have lost all interest and would therefore be putting no pressure on the Senate to act, because it would then already have its coveted comprehensive bill in hand.

Commentators who are convinced the Obama health bill still stands a chance of becoming law won't like Susan Ferrechio's Washington Examiner report on yesterday's Senate Democratic caucus meeting. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan said health care didn't even come up; "There was a lot of discussion obviously on jobs and what's happening with that."

The only hope for supporters of the bill is that the House will somehow miraculously pass the Senate legislation, leaving the Senate to pass "fixes" through the reconciliation process, which requires only a majority vote. But House passage requires 218 votes -- votes Nancy Pelosi does not have. And is it really likely she'll get them as the midterm election approaches?

John Kerry has the answer: "I don't know if that is achievable," he said yesterday. "I guess I feel the imperatives of doing nothing are very powerful and therefore I'm hopeful that in the end, common sense is going to win out. But I don't want to put odds on it. This is Washington."

He does not sound like a confident man.