Democrats should stop being clever and pass the bill

Democrats should stop being clever and pass the bill.                                                                                 By Ezra Klein

March 15, 2010; 7:10 AM ET

Every time I write something like "health care has entered its end game," it turns out that there's another overtime just around the corner. So I'm going to stop writing that. But the expectation is that the House will pass the Senate bill within the next week or so. "Whoever sits here at this time next week, I think will not be talking about health care as a proposal, but as the law of the land," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said on Sunday.


But there are a number of ways health care could become the law of the land, some of them more absurd than others. The House has to pass the Senate bill, and then both chambers want to pass a package of tweaks and fixes through reconciliation. The House, as we've heard at length, is worried that the Senate won't manage to pass the reconciliation addendum. So they're getting a bit creative. Jon Cohn lays out the options:

The House has leeway for how it debates and votes on those two bills. And according to the sources--which include a senior House leadership aide--three options are on the table:
1) The House would vote on the two bills separately. Upon passage, the Senate bill would be ready for the president's signature. The amendments, meanwhile, would go to the Senate for approval there. Call this the "Schoolhouse Rock" option.

2) The House would vote once. The vote would be on the amendments. But with that vote, the House would "deem" the Senate bill passed. (Yes, it can do that.) At that point, the main bill would be ready to go to the president for his signature, while the amendments would go to the Senate for consideration there.

3) The House would vote once, just like in option (2). But in this case, the House would deem the Senate bill passed only after the Senate had approved the amendments. Once the Senate approved the amendments, then--and only then--could the main bill go to the president for signature.

Oy. Options two and three are bad, bad, very bad ideas. Indeed, the fact that they're under consideration suggests the House has let its anger at the Senate drive it temporarily insane.

Option two is bad politics. No one cares whether the House passed the bill or "deemed" the bill passed. People don't pay attention to whether you voted using the passive voice or not. But by falling back on this bizarre locution, the House signals to voters that it thinks it's passing a bad bill. Some members of the House may indeed think that. I disagree with them. But for their own sake, if they're going to let this bill become law, they'd better pretend they agree to me.

Imagine the ads. "My opponent thought the health bill such a bad piece of legislation that he wouldn't even vote for it. But nor was he brave enough to stand up to Nancy Pelosi and say no! Vote for the guy who's not a wimp." And what's our hypothetical House members response? "No, you don't understand. I only refused to vote yes or no because I was hoping to pass a small package of amendments and was worried that the Senate wouldn't act on them fast enough?" You have to be kidding me.

Option three combines the bad politics of option two with bad legislative strategy. It signals to Republicans that this isn't over until the reconciliation amendments pass, which means that anything they can do to obstruct those amendments makes perfect sense because they are obstructing the whole of reform, not a small package of popular amendments.

If the Senate bill is passed and Democrats are just getting rid of the Nebraska deal and easing the bite of the excise tax, Republicans will have a lot of trouble standing in the way and becoming defenders of the Nebraska deal and the excise tax. At that point, they're not opposing health-care reform and instead opposing small, popular changes that make the bill better. They're literally obstructing good government that fits with their recent rhetoric. After all, having spent the last few months hammering the Nelson deal, it doesn't look very bipartisan to keep Democrats from taking your advice and reneging on it.

But if reform isn't passed until the amendments pass, then Republicans are battling the whole of reform rather than just the amendments, and the stakes are high and their procedural obstructionism seems more legitimate. The result is a gruesome Senate fight with Joe Biden potentially having to rule Republicans dilatory and all the rest of it. Delaying victory hasn't served the Democrats well thus far, and it's not likely to be a good idea now. It's time to stop being clever and pass this bill.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak.

By Ezra Klein
March 15, 2010; 7:10 AM ET