The one thing I can say about those “special deals” is that they have great names.

So stupid.

The idea that ‘deem and pass’ was some kind of cover was stoopid on its face. Now the very people who are so afraid of both the sun and their shadows that they’d even consider such a thing cover are the first off the reservation.

As Atrios would say, “the idiots who rule us…”

I bet the Democratic leadership wishes, today, that there wasn’t an internet. Because all the sunshine on the special deals, the special methods, the special votes and the special procedures has made them all pretty toxic. Which they were not when the GOPs used them.

Oh well.

If they did move forward with deem and pass, it would hand the GOP a nice dagger to plunge into the Dems.

Since no recorded vote of yes or no would have taken place, the public will consider that ALL Democrats voted for it. They for sure will not consider that NO Democrats voted for it.

So, the Senate bill can be pinned on every Democrats whether he voted yes or no.

Democrats have bungled…

Who could have foreseen such bungling? Oh, yeah. Like, everyone.

I kind of like the term self execution. Does that mean you shoot your self in the head? The dems dont have the votes bcz no one wants to jeopardize their career to save Obama’s.

My quick read is that the GOP is using ‘process’ wailing as a feint to disguise their obstructionism, and to ensure that no votes will be taken.

As long as they can whine about ‘process’ they stall votes that would record their refusal to get rid of anti-trust protections for healthCos.

As long as they can whine about ‘process’ they avoid having to be exposed as enabling a for-profit system that damages the larger economy.

This is a really sinister form of budgetary blackmail they’re pulling.
The Dems need to call for votes if only to expose the fraudulent claims of these GOPers.

And if it also unmasks BlueDog hypocrisy, so be it.

I keep trying to think of something they have done correctly and I can’t. They are the most pathetic group I’ve ever seen. No accomplishments at all….except to look like a bunch of idiots. I’m done with them.

Fecklessness is an art to those jerks. They should draw salaries from NEA.

I know, if they’re worried about finding the votes, why don’t they just put the Public Option in…

;)

Of course Republicans agitating about this are being massive hypocrites. But as long as that doesn’t seem to matter to them, it certainly won’t matter to the traditional media.

The problem is that too many people (even in health care) are not clear about what is IN this bill.

If people were more clear about the benefits — to them — then nothing the GOP says about ‘process’ would matter.

Voters: “Here, Democrats, here’s power on a silver platter. All of you, hold on to it tight and whatever you do, DON’T DROP IT.”

Democrats 30 seconds later: “Oops. I dropped it. Sorry.”

Idiots.

Wouldn’t hurt if there were more benefits in the bill.

There’s an easier way to explain this.

1. The House will vote on one rule and pass it.

2. The One rule has two parts.

a) Approval of the Senate bill, as is.

b) Approval of the fixes to the Senate bill, as passed.

So in voting for the one rule, the House is voting for the Senate bill.

The value of this one rule is that it ensures the Senate bill is not approved unless the fixes are simultaneously approved. So in effect, the house is, when everything is done, approving a Senate bill that his fixed, but not a Senate bill by itself, or the fix by itself.

Makes perfect sense to me, both as a procedures and as a smart tactic, given what they want to do.

Again, more whining about the ‘double standard’ with the GOP. Stop whining and MOVE. This stuff falls on its face, because instead of just doing it, they talk and talk and talk and talk it to death, then step back at the public backlash (which DID exist during the GOP one-part-rule) and jump off the wagon. Instead of jumping behind the Dems and pressure on to GET IT DONE, you instead fall down, throw a temper-tantrum and point at the GOP and whail foul. Instead of backing the party, you back Kucinich, who is a moron, and reminds me of Ross Perot or Ralph Nader. He’s out on the fringe, nothing he proposes with this HCR is ever going to be a reality, so you back that knowing it will fail, or in part to prove how liberal you are. You prefer opposition to the ugly necessities and deal making of being in power.
The reason they might want to do this method is because they don’t have the votes to pass HCR. They don’t have the votes, don’t have the votes, don’t have them. Thanks in part to you- stop blaming the “right wing noise” and OWN the responsibility for trashing Obama, trashing HCR, trashing the process, and being oppositionists- playing into their hands. The Republicans do gain this fall, thanks to you. Thankyou.

Thanks, Scarecrow. That was my impression, that the reason for using this tactic is that the House doesn’t trust the Senate to pass their fixes once the Senate has what they want, which is for the House to simply rubberstamp the Senate bill. This rigs it so that the two things have to happen at the same time, when the Senate passes the fixes.

Right on, Scarecrow, kevincharlottenc, Mukei. People will care a lot less how this thing is passed, than that it gets passed. It’s a good first step.

Civil rights legislation in the 60′s wasn’t all accomplished with one bill. Neither was the New Deal in the 30′s. And the fight won’t be over, should it pass. The Republicans will be screaming that the apocalypse is upon us, and continue whipping up baseless fears about it without cease should it become law. It will take quite some time for reform this big to become an accepted part of the state.

And I do want a public option, eventually. But we should start here, and the deem & pass seems like the best way to do it.

From WaPo’s 44:

“If you don’t want to talk about substance, [you] talk about process,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said.

Which, if one is paying attention, is exactly what the D’s are doing.

I just heard on MSNBC that Kucinich will hold a press conference tomorrow to announce his final decision re his vote on the health care bill.

Some seem to think he’s going to switch from AGAINST it to FOR it.

?

I don’t expect you all to agree with one word of this, but hear me out. I’m a Democrat. I’m as frustrated as you are about the difficulty we’ve had passing meaningful healthcare reform. The lack of support for a public option is devastating and infuriating. But we have a change to put a 50% down payment on major reform, and you people are trying to tear this progress down. If you had been alive in the 30s, you’d have opposed the New Deal because it fell far short of what many Democrats at the time supported. WIthout any question, you’d have adamantly opposed Medicare, which was originally envisaged as a far grander reform.

I’m just a guy in Ohio who hopes his 3-year-old daughter has a country worth living in when she grows up, so we don’t have to move to Denmark or something. Quit hosing things up. Grow up. Deal with disappointment without throwing big hissy fits. PLEASE. Christ.

They don’t have the votes, don’t have the votes, don’t have them. Thanks in part to you- stop blaming the “right wing noise” and OWN the responsibility for trashing Obama, trashing HCR, trashing the process, and being oppositionists- playing into their hands.

No, wrong, incorrect, no, no.

The reason that “they don’t have the votes” has nothing to do with what anyone at this blog has been advocating. Instead of wasting your ire on one guy with progressive principles, why not go after all those useless Blue Cross Dog democrats who fled in terror at the prospect of actually having to support something in their party’s platform.

There are a lot more con-servile democrat holdouts than pols standing firm against the bill from the left, and yelling about Kucinich isn’t going to convince one of them to switch up to vote for this bailout-bill.

Why not take your misplaced anger and direct it somewhere useful, like at Rahm’s dog pound?

It was Howard Fineman saying that, so take it with a grain shaker of salt…! ;-)

Here’s the thing, medicare didn’t end up being a grand program where the government forced elderly people to buy junk insurance from crooked monopolies, and then had the IRS fine them if they didn’t. You sound like the one throwing hissy-fits to me.

You think that I would have opposed the creation of Medicare in the 1960s because I think that making a public option available to at least some Americans is a minimum requirement for real health care reform in 2010?

You’re not defending a compromise. You’re defending a selling out of the American people.

And let’s drop the lame comparisons between this bad joke on the American people and what was done during the New Deal and Great Society, ok?

Yeah, his assertion that he wanted to move from “speculation” to what he “thinks is going to happen” was odd. Still, it raised the question in my mind and will cause me some concern until I hear Dennis correct the record.

Hey David,
If the Dems can you “Deem & Pass” for a bill
why isn’t it being used to pass the PO ?

Friends, Do you really think the Dem care about us,ordinary americans.

Did Kucinich get the ERISA rules changes that will permit states to create single-payer plans? It’s a technical piece that could be easily buried.

Or is Fineman shilling for the White House trying to stampede Kucinich?

I think you overstate, because my father supported the New Deal I supported Medicare, and we both oppose Obamacare. Our belief is not that Obamacare falls short, but that it goes in the wrong direction.

Good grief.. dont Dems have public relations people working for them?

We’ll find out tomorrow. Meanwhile, we might reflect on the following:

It is imagined that nature goes by jumps, and that a whole community can suddenly sing in tune, after it has been caterwauling and murdering the scale for twenty years. The truth is, we ought to thank God when any man or body of men make the discovery that there is such a thing as absolute pitch, or absolute honesty, or absolute personal and intellectual integrity. A few years of this spirit will identify certain men with the fundamental idea that truth is stronger than consequences, and these men will become the most serious force and the only truly political force in their community. Their ambition is illimitable, for you cannot set bounds to personal influence. But it is an ambition that cannot be abused. A departure from their own course will ruin any one of them in a night, and undo twenty years of service.

— John Jay Chapman, Practical Agitation, 1900, 65.

thank you, dennis kucinich, for putting your support behind this bill tomorrow!!!
whatever agreement you struck, whatever changed your mind, thank your for your change of heart!!!!!!!!!!!
you will be doing the right thing tomorrow morning, when you come out in support of it.
thank you, on behalf of all the americans, and there are many of us, who are hoping and waiting for this historic legislation to pass.

you are doing the right thing!!!!!!!
thank you!

The only thing historic about this bill is the opportunity that was wasted to pass real reform.

“The only thing historic about this bill is the opportunity that was wasted to pass real reform.”

until you, like others will need its benefits.
and then you will have gratitude for the bill.
never say,
“fountain, i wont drink your water!”

we will all be better off for having this bill!
hopefully, we can all be celebrating its passage very soon:-)
tomorrow,
with kucinich’s press conference,
we will be a step closer.

Just think…Barack Obama could have not molted out of what he was during 2008 campaign season to get into the White House. Could have begun his time in the WH going backwards on Bush and Cheney and putting a world of hurt on those two malefactors.

Could have declared open season on any American torture and those Americans who thought doing torture by Americans was different than that done by the Japanese or Germans during WW2. As Americans we need to come clean on this business we are the exceptionals and the good guys. We are not and it is way past time to put that jingoism based myth to rest. Barack Obama could have been big and as POTUS led here. He did not.

As for Obama’s AHIP approved HCR where the reforms are all about more money going to AHIP or it’s sidekick PhRMA pals again Barack Obama could have been big. Declared he was going to modify the already well known and understood Medicare and Social Security programs to form a foundation for MedSecure American HealthCare — the base foundation for single payer healthcare for all Americans. He did not.

Now do you think Barack Obama ever gave any honest effort towards the above? Hell no — he did not.

Now his party and it’s leadership in Congress–being the cowards and profiles in quivering while trying so hard to do the lesser thing — the wrong thing — are showing us what rats they are.

Of course it all is the Republicans fault — oh — blame them for Barack Obama giving AHIP what it wants and fighting for what AHIP wants.

Or blame the progressives. Blame the liberals. We were good enough to court during 2008 when Barack Obama was running against Bush and Cheney. Then Obama and his “team” thought our support was AOK and gave us the full smooth and slicked up “Yes We Can” treatment. Now? Here in 2010? No.

They don’t get it. They really don’t. They actually do not get this.

They deserve what they have coming. In aces.

I had never heard of “deem and pass” before and now that I have, I think it is unconstitutional. It should never be used by another Congress again. “Process” matters – ignoring the process can lead to extreme abuse…it’s having the ends justify the means, but we are a nation of laws (or at least we used to be).

Also strategically speaking this still can screw over the House because Obama can sign the Senate bill without requiring the Senate to approve the House fixes. If the Senate bill is deemed and passed, that means it is passed and Obama can sign and then immediately pivot away without doing anything else….the Senate doesn’t have to adopt the House changes for Obama to get the Senate legislation on his desk to sign.

Both by process and product it is bad.

Its definitely the best move tactically for the Democrats, the Republicans were smart to quickly and massively attack “deem and pass” as unconstitutional.

You have to admire how competently the GOP counters Democratic tactics. It reminded me of the mission statement for the Marine Rifle Squad from an old Marine Corps manual, “The mission of the Rifle Squad is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by Fire and Maneuver, or repel the enemy’s assault by Fire and Close Combat and Violence of Action”.

Its that element of “Violence of Action”– striking fast and hard– that the GOP understands and the congressional (and WH) Democrats do not.

The only reason that “deem and pass” is necessary is that President Obama wants to play Captain Ahab and the Senate HCR Bill is his white whale. As Jon has explained a few times, at any time from last summer to today, President Obama could have passed a HCR bill– the downside (an insurmountable downside to this WH) is that it would be a reconciliation-only bill that would provided universal coverage through expansion of existing public program (oh, to pick one at random— Medicare). It would cost less, go into effect sooner and would have more political support from the American people. The President could have had this at any time but he chose not to. That’s not corruption, thats just crazy.

I am still waiting for someone to explain
if the Dems can use “deem & pass” for any bill
then why isn’t it used to pass the PO in the house ?

BMcGarth,

Last paragraph of the posting just above yours was my answer to your question. In short, they’re not using it to pass the PO because the President doesn’t want them to.

until you, like others will need its benefits.
and then you will have gratitude for the bill.

Pardon me, I wouldn’t ordinarily address this, but I hear this particular canard so often that I must respond.

You don’t know my, or anyone’s, situation on this thread.

Please do not assume that I am opposed to this bill because I have “no skin in the game”, that seems to me to be an indirect attack on a person’s character, rather than an argument. Many people who oppose this bill might indeed benefit from it, and yet still oppose it on principle and the facts.

Thank you Scarecrow for explaining the procedure and why they’re doing it this way. Now it makes perfect sense.

Well said and i wholeheartedly agree. Some progress is better than none. One step at a time.

What amazes me the most is that our party leaders totally failed to see the sheer ignorance in this whole “deem-N-pass” crap. What the heck were they thinking? We can only hope that this was a Harry Reid moment and not a Nancy Pelosi free style. This bill needs to die right where it is, because to me it seems to get worse by the minute.

Thanks beowulf,that was my point.
So all along they have given us the song & dance about not having the votes.
Well we see,it’s not entirely necessary to have actual votes in the house, they can do it through “deem & pass”.
And certainly their is 51 votes in the Senate for a PO.

This has always been aimed at getting more customers for the insurance companies while breaking the backs of the middle class.

Good night folks!

pinned on every Democrats whether he voted yes or no

blather and nonsense

The deem & pass isn’t to hide anybody’s votes. It’s to ensure the Senate bill doesn’t become law without the fixes.

Characterize it otherwise and you’re just blathering.

No, it’s not to ensure that the Senate bill doesn’t become law without fixes, but it does trick people into thinking that.
“Under any scenario, the aide says, the bill must be signed by the president before the Senate takes up the reconciliation.”
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/16/2229330.aspx
So deem and pass could let the Senate bill become law as the Senate doesn’t have to pass the House fixes before the President signs the Senate bill.