He’ll deserve the credit, he’ll deserve the blame, and Harry Mason Reid, not Nikolai Ivanovitch Lubachevski, is his name. And don’t let him try to tell you any differently, because it’s just not so.
Here’s the way things can play out now. Harry Reid, under cover of merging the Senate HELP and Finance Committee bills, can pretty much write anything he wants. He can really merge these two bills, and create any one of a variety of mergers, or he can substitute Bernie Sanders’ single-payer S 703, or even write a Senate version of the Conyers/Kucinich HR 676 single-payer bill. The other people he’s included in the merging process: Chris Dodd, Max Baucus, the President’s representatives, Empress Snowe, have no formal authority in this situation. They can advise him. They can figuratively stamp their feet, or express encouraging words, or express opinions about process and content. But he’s the only one in authority to decide what the bill that goes to the floor will look like. So, again, he will deserve the credit, or the blame for its content.
Let’s say he writes a bill with a Public Option (PO), or even something stronger like an enhanced Medicare for All bill (yes, I know this last is very far-fetched, but Harry can do it, after all; so if he doesn’t, he can be held accountable by those who favor single-payer). Then when he tries to go the floor with that bill, he probably won’t get unanimous consent to introduce it. He will face a filibuster, and he may not have the 60 votes needed to overcome it. So, he will have to invoke reconciliation to consider the bill, or, with others, he will have to use “the nuclear option” to get rid of the filibuster, and the need for more than a majority vote to consider the bill, and to amend it. Not many folks think that Harry is willing to use either reconciliation or the nuclear option to get a bill passed. But he can and needs to do that to get a PO done, because, again, he won’t get a unanimous consent agreement, or 60 votes, for a bill that has it.
Alternatively, Harry could incline his bill towards the views of Baucus and Snowe, and probably the President’s people, and not include a public option, or any cost control measures to regulate price increases by the private insurers. When he introduces that bill, he is more likely to get the 60 votes he needs to bring it to the floor, especially if progressives want a chance to amend it. But once it gets there, it’s very likely that amendments to it will fail, because they won’t be able to muster 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Also, if, after the amendments are voted down, Harry wants a vote on the final bill, then he’ll have to command 60 votes again to stop a final filibuster, if some Republicans think the bill is still too progressive. But this may also prove to be a big problem, because progressive Senators may be unwilling to vote for cloture on a final bill that is not acceptable to them. Harry can then still get a bill passed, but, to do it, he’ll have to invoke reconciliation or the nuclear option. So, either way he goes on the bill’s content, reconciliation, or the nuclear option may be necessary.
Other analyses on how health insurance reform might be moved forward, suggest other scenarios. David Dayen relates the view of a Senate leadership aide:
”Crucially, the aide confirmed that it is probably the case that every amendment to the merged bill will require a 60-vote threshold as per the unanimous consent agreement. This protects the bill itself, but will make it extremely difficult to amend the bill meaningfully on the Senate floor. While this means, for example, that it will be virtually impossible to add a public insurance option through an amendment, it also means that it will be virtually impossible to REMOVE one through an amendment as well. So the Reid/Baucus/Dodd/WH confab really will determine whether any public option gets in the bill that goes to conference, in all likelihood.”
If this analysis is correct, then Harry Reid will still bear the primary responsibility for the bill’s outcome. But I don’t think the analysis is right, because it relies on the notion that a unanimous consent agreement will provide the context for the amendment process. But why would a proponent of a strong PO bill like Jay Rockefeller, or a single-payer advocate like Bernie Sanders, go along with unanimous consent? I don’t think they will (even though David Waldman has provided a possible scenario, which I consider far-fetched, that might involve their standing still for unanimous consent). If they don’t, then the two scenarios I’ve laid out above are the more likely ones.
In all three of the scenarios, I’ve described, Harry Reid is the primary actor in determining the outcome of health insurance reform legislation. Other actors, including other Senators and the President’s representative will have a say in the process, but little authority to shape the final bill, unless some of them are willing to defeat it on the floor. In the two most likely scenarios, Harry Reid will probably have to use reconciliation, or the nuclear option to get a bill passed. In either case, however, he will have the responsibility for determining the content of the bill and for using the procedures necessary for getting it passed by majority vote. So, as I said at the beginning, he’ll deserve the credit, and he’ll deserve the blame. Don’t let him escape either one.
(Also posted at firedoglake.com where there may be more comments)