The halls of Congress are still shaking after Tuesday’s special election upset victory of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley in the race to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat. In addition to causing fear in vulnerable Democrats everywhere, the biggest impact the election has had is on the fate of the two comprehensive health reform bills passed by both the House and Senate late last year. With their fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate eliminated, congressional Democrats and the Obama administration have spent the week scrambling to figure out a way to move health reform forward.
Initially there was talk about an attempt to rush an agreement through on a bill before Senator-elect Brown could be sworn in and seated in the Senate. However, that option has been effectively eliminated for a number of reasons.
This leaves the Democrats with several different political options, each of which has problems. They include:
Attempting to quickly pass the Senate-passed legislation through the House, thereby avoiding another Senate vote. While this was initially the option favored by congressional leadership and the Obama administration, it has become clear in the last few days that it isn’t a politically viable one. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced yesterday that she does not have the 218 votes to do this.
Getting the House to approve the Senate-passed bill, along with a separate pre-negotiated bill to “fix” all of the problems House members see in the current legislation. This idea is being touted by Families USA President Ron Pollack and others, but it could be very difficult to achieve. First of all, House and Senate Democrats would have to come to terms on the substantial differences between their two bills, which they have been unable to do so far. Both bills would need to be scored, and then the “fix” bill would need to be virtually guaranteed to pass the Senate. That means Senate Majority Leader Reid would either need a 60th vote that he doesn’t have or the budget reconciliation process would have to be used to pass the “fix” bill, which is problematic for reasons described below.
Attempting to pass legislation through the Senate using the budget reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes. While lots of Democrats and pundits continue to throw around this option, it is one fraught with political perils. It would require that the bill go back to the Senate committees of jurisdiction to be reworked because only provisions directly related to the federal budget can be considered under these rules. This would effectively eliminate most of the insurance reforms, abortion language, language on undocumented immigrants and other key elements Democrats feel are essential for passage and it would limit the authorization of most provisions to just five years. Also, even though debate would be limited and just 51 votes would be needed for passage, any senator could challenge any provision at any time and send it to the parliamentarian for a ruling. Sixty votes are needed to override the ruling of the parliamentarian on any issue, which could lead to lengthy and embarrassing votes on the Senate floor that the Democrats could lose. Another obstacle is that a number of Democrats, including Senators Byrd, Baucus and Conrad, have been steadfastly and publicly opposed to the use of this option for months and Reid, who is in a fight for his political life in 2010 at home in Nevada, publicly stated in December this option was off the table.
Trying to get a Senate Republican to serve as the 60th vote. This would probably be an impossible task for the Democratic leadership at this point. Potential targets like Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine have stated in recent days they will not go at it alone, and Senator Reid insulted Senator Snowe in December by publicly stating that past negotiations with her had been a waste of time. In addition, the Massachusetts election has strengthened the Republican party’s hold on its members and their resolve for true bipartisan negotiations.
Negotiating a limited health insurance reform bill and/or trying to include some of the more popular health insurance reforms in a jobs bill. This seems to be the option that many Democrats and the Obama administration are leaning toward at the moment. However, it does involve some admission of political defeat and loss of political capital. Plus, the Democratic leadership still will need to obtain 60 votes for Senate passage, as well as deal with the 2010 election and related concerns of politically vulnerable Democrats in both chambers. Also, there is some question as to whether or not Republicans would hand Obama and Democrats even a limited victory before the 2010 election.
At least in the House, taking up several smaller “rifle shot” health care bills that break the package into smaller, easier-to-digest and easier-to-sell chunks, which may be pursued along partisan or bipartisan lines. Republicans would be wary of engaging in this process unless they have an iron-clad agreement in public with House leadership that it would be truly bipartisan and both sides would have policy input on what gets considered. Otherwise, they are likely to see this as a partisan exercise that does not take into consideration a holistic approach to the problems in the health care system. In addition, these bills would still need to achieve the 60 vote standard to win passage in the Senate.
A final option would be scrapping the current bills and starting from scratch on health reform. In addition to the political blow to the administration, which has in recent days repeatedly reiterated that they don’t want to lose complete momentum on health reform and has been reluctant to move back to the political center in the past, this course of action would certainly dampen core Democratic voter enthusiasm going into the 2010 election. If they really did go back to the drawing board and work openly with the Republicans, the Democrats might win political points for bipartisanship. They also could turn more attention to jobs and the economy. But it would be unlikely that a new bill would be finished before the mid-term elections—neither side would want to give the other anything to tout—and bipartisan cooperation could certainly blow up, as it has many times in the past in Washington.
