Republicans Wrong, Reconciliation Used for Past Health Reform

by Karen Hatter | February 25, 2010 at 05:47 am

1029 views | 36 Recommendations | 33 comments

Republican Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Orrin Hatch of Utah have both recently asserted to the media that, in the past, reconciliation had not been used as a tool to reform health care.

Comments from several members of the Republican Party, including Representative and House Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, denouncing the use of reconciliation to pass the health care bill have escalated as the health care summit to be hosted by President Obama has neared.

The summit is scheduled for today, February 25, 2010. In fact, there is a 30 year record of the use of reconciliation in relation to health care, including the year 1982 and several years throughout the administration of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Reconciliation is the passage of a bill in the Senate by a simple majority vote, 51 or more votes, not the super majority, filibuster proof vote of 60, which Republicans have been insisting occur on all matters that have come before the Senate since President Obama and his administration took office in 2009.

The rules of the U.S. Senate allow filibusters—otherwise known as “talking a bill to death.” A Senator wanting to block voting on a particular bill can take the floor and talk almost indefinitely, until weary colleagues either agree with the orator or vote to end the discussion. Thus Senators can “hijack” the Senate and derail or detour the legislative process. The word “filibuster” comes from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, which means pirate.

The late Republican Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina holds the record for the longest filibuster, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes, blocking a vote on a civil rights bill in 1957.

A History Of Reconciliation

For 30 years, major changes to health care laws have passed via the budget reconciliation process.

Here are a few examples:

1982 — TEFRA: The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act first opened Medicare to HMOs

1986 — COBRA: The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act allowed people who were laid off to keep their health coverage, and stopped hospitals from dumping ER patients unable to pay for their care

1987 — OBRA '87: Added nursing home protection rules to Medicare and Medicaid, created no-fault vaccine injury compensation program

1989 — OBRA '89: Overhauled doctor payment system for Medicare, created new federal agency on research and quality of care

1990 — OBRA '90: Added cancer screenings to Medicare, required providers to notify patients about advance directives and living wills, expanded Medicaid to all kids living below poverty level, required drug companies to provide discounts to Medicaid

1993 — OBRA '93: created federal vaccine funding for all children

1996 — Welfare Reform: Separated Medicaid from welfare

1997 — BBA: The Balanced Budget Act created the state-federal childrens' health program called CHIP

2005 — DRA: The Deficit Reduction Act reduced Medicaid spending, allowed parents of disabled children to buy into Medicaid

Among the lawmakers invited to attend the summit are:

Invited by the White House:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Arizona

Invited by the House and Senate Leadership:

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

Rep. Rob Andrews, D-N.J.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.

Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif

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Karen Hatter

at 06:07 on February 25th, 2010

Staff, I have attempted 4 times to re-add the linked article and the excerpted text.

The error message reads 'Edit text field is required' when I attempt to publish the re-add/changes AND the entire text disappears when I publish!

I will keep attempting to repair this glitch. If I am successful, please re add the video as I'm STILL having the issue with losing video and photos if I edit.

OKAY, the problem seemed to have been attempting to add text from the internet source, that is the address AND the excerpted text.

After copying and pasting the address and excerpted text to a word document, THEN copying and pasting into the edit box ....

BUT, as predicted, I've lost the video!

So, please, Staff, re-add the video.

Thank you for your help.

Hugh Askew

at 06:25 on February 25th, 2010

Won't matter. Won't get past the House. Stupek says he has a dozen Democrats that will vote against the Obama version of the bill. Even Fancy Nancy says she doesn't have the votes to pass it.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/stupak-house-dems-said-no-way-passing-senate-bill

Karen Hatter

at 06:34 on February 25th, 2010

That possibility not withstanding, Hugh, the Republicans are being patently dishonest when they say reconciliation hasn't been used in the past for health care reform.

Also at NowPublic:

This Shouldn't Happen in America

Hugh Askew

at 09:25 on February 25th, 2010

Well, you may be "correct" in your statement, but please remember that the DEMOCRATS, nice hypocrites that they are (just like the Rupublicans) threatened to shut down the Senate in 2005 if the Republicans resorted to the same tactic.

Remember that?

If that doesn't make them hypocrites of the highest order, then they are obviously beyond reproach. I know that they think they are.

nanute

at 10:01 on February 25th, 2010

HA, The Democrats didn't threaten to shut down the government over reconciliation. The issue was that the Republican majority wanted to suspend the rule on cloture (60 votes), to move judicial nominees of the Bush Administration to a full vote in the Senate. Unlike the total government shut down led by Newt Gingrich, (because of seating arrangements on Air Force One), Senator Reid, as minority leader, was threatening all non essential legislation.

Bev C (not verified)

at 09:56 on March 22nd, 2010

Hey, "Hugh:" Think again, my friend, think again! You lose.

Karen Hatter

at 06:45 on February 25th, 2010

Thank you, Staff, for restoring my videos!

158

at 08:31 on February 25th, 2010

“You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating it is, to make sure that there's a broad consensus before the country moves forward,” then-Sen. Obama told the audience.

His remarks have garnered some attention in recent days given the current likelihood that Senate Democrats will next week use “reconciliation” rules, which require only a 51-vote majority, to pass health care reform legislation, bypassing the current Senate rules of requiring 60 votes to cut off a potential filibuster and proceed to a final vote.

158

at 08:33 on February 25th, 2010

Senator Reid and VP Biden also opposed using reconciliation when Bush was president. It is all politics, Now dems want to use it and reps oppose it.

Karen Hatter

at 08:45 on February 25th, 2010

What I have raised here, 158, is the Republican Party members from the House of Representatives and the Senate's dishonesty in their claim that reconciliation was never used to reform health care in the past, their statements being obvious falsehoods.

158

at 09:13 on February 25th, 2010

I agree with that. They are being dishonest. It is wrong to lie about the past. I personally think the filibuster is a good tool for the minority to at least slow the majority from a rush to judgment. The reps are lying but the dems while not lying are being hypocritical in trying to do what they condemned Bush for using.

Rory Cripps

at 09:18 on February 25th, 2010

Karen: Dishonesty? You're not implying here that only Republicans are dishonest and Democrats are as pure as the driven snow are you? LOL!

Karen Hatter

at 09:36 on February 25th, 2010

No, Rory, I am stating that, on this issue, with Republicans stating that reconciliation was never used as a means to accomplish health care reform in the past, the Republicans have been dishonest, desparately hoping to continue to fan the flames of discontent that are out there among the American people, which, in a large part, has been generated by their continued misrepresentation of a number of issues like this one, as well as those Right Wing extremist elements that tend to align with the Republican Party on many things.

cultsscareme (not verified)

at 08:54 on February 25th, 2010

The whole Founders thing makes me cringe. Americans talk about them as if they were some form of advanced aliens that laid out a sacred system of governance that can never be changed and that poor humble humans hundreds if years on can't conceive of advancements to it. It almost like a form of cultism. Things move on. Times change.If the system is bust, take it to a referendum fix it. The Founders did what they did, at the rime based on knowledge at that point in history. It is apparent the system is screwed, democracy sold to lobbyist, pressure groups, fundamentalists and partisanship. Change it already

Hugh Askew

at 09:06 on February 25th, 2010

We do have a system for changing it. Never heard of "constitutional amendments". Duh.

Rory Cripps

at 09:27 on February 25th, 2010

Hugh: You know . . . you're pretty smart for a Nebraskan! LOL! And coming from a cracker such as myself that's a compliment! HA!

americansreallyscreme (not verified)

at 10:19 on February 25th, 2010

Never heard of "constitutional amendments". Duh.Literalism - always the bastion of Americans intellectual superficialityYes you can apparently amend the constitution - very well done. A grade in American historyYour system of govt is busted and impotent. Please fix that, then the rest of the world will treat you more seriously rather than just sheep we want to fleece money fromAll praise the Founders Nanu nanu

Rory Cripps

at 09:26 on February 25th, 2010

cultsscareme (not verified):

Yeah! I guess that we can dismiss America's founding fathers as DWEMs! HA!

America's founding fathers were a pretty smart and worldly bunch of dudes. Their thinking and political philosophy was light years ahead of most other political thinkers throughout the world. Indeed they were brilliant in that they created a constitutional republic instead of simply a democracy and thus prevented the tyranny of the majority.

Karen Hatter

at 09:59 on February 25th, 2010

Rory, the founding fathers' construct allowed for ".... tyranny of the majority" as you say, as they wrote slavery into the U.S. Constitution, counting the enslaved of African descent as 3/5 of a man, as well as the legislative branch, for nearly 100 years after the end of slavery, allowing tyranny to continue against an entire segment of the American populous.

Until the form of chattel slavery practiced throughout the New World and developed, used and perfected by the United States for nearly 400 years, the world had never seen such a brutal existence or reality.

Rory Cripps

at 13:03 on February 25th, 2010

Karen: JEEZ! Why do you bring up slavery? Remember Karen that 600,000 Americans (mostly white) died over that issue in a bloody civil war? And President Lincoln ultimately took a bullet in the head over it.

I know that times were tough for African Americans in the U.S., but it's a helluva a lot tougher for blacks in Africa and other parts of the world to this day . . . The U.S. ain't perfect and never will be, however it's a lot better than most other places throughout the world and there's no denying it . . . .

Karen Hatter

at 13:41 on February 25th, 2010

Rory, your comment stated that the way the founding fathers structured the society was ".... light years ahead ...." and I believe what I have listed here points out and proves their so called 'wisdom' left something to be desired.

I didn't only mention slavery. I also mentioned the nearly 100 years after slavery where legislators, using the construct provided by the so called founding fathers and creating new laws, Americans of African descent were still denied true citizenship after being grandfathered into the U.S. as citizens.

In the case of the nearly 100 years after slavery, the laws written circumvented the newly granted freedoms that had been guaranteed to the formerly enslaved in the 14th and 15th amendments.

Remember, the Naturalization Act of 1790, enacted by those same so called founding fathers, which prohibited non Whites from becoming naturalized citizens, wasn't repealed until 1952.

As Condeleeza Rice stated, America was born with a "birth defect", since the founding fathers chose to declare their freedom from Great Britain while denying the descendants of Africa theirs, assuring the continued importation of African people until 1808, as written in the U.S. Constitution. Slaving ships still illegally brought African people to America until shortly before the Civil War.

I view the actions of the so called founding fathers as the height of hypocrisy as they boldly declared all of the perceived wrongs they were experiencing at the hands of the British, writing in their most revered document God gave all men the right to" .... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ...." yet, they ignored the plight of the close to a quarter million enslaved that were presumed to be chattel by those in the 13 colonies.

Rory Cripps

at 14:05 on February 25th, 2010

Karen: I stand by my assertion.

Funny thing about America as opposed to many countries throughout the world--everyone seems to want to come here--even people from Africa! I wonder why that is? Do you think that it's just for the money, or is there something else going on here also that attracts them?

I get a kick out of those that just love to beat up on America, but never want to leave once they're here. What a tortured existence they must have to bear! And we all know the reason why they never leave and continue to torture themselves: America, in spite of its faults, is simply better, freer, and provides more opportunity for them, than the hell-hole that they were born in.

cultsscareme (not verified)

at 12:21 on February 25th, 2010

DWEMs is what they are - with all the warts, imperfections and fallibility that entails. It was a well designed system. It has now apparently failed, made impotent by outside pressures, fiscal influence and corporations. Take for example the broo ha ha about foreign corporations are prohibited from influencing. How many domestic corporations have foreign primary clients, creditors, cross holding shareholder groups and on. The system has failed. It needs fixing. America is unable to govern itself at present. Democracy of any sort got sold out

nanute

at 10:31 on February 25th, 2010

Looks pretty factual to me.

YankeeJim

at 10:54 on February 25th, 2010

In the final analysis, government is in paralysis, and it is time to fold the cards and change the deck.

nanute

at 12:38 on February 25th, 2010

The deck seems to have too many Jokers.

Rory Cripps

at 12:51 on February 25th, 2010

52 pickup perhaps? Or perhaps 2010 pickup?

culstsscareme (not verified)

at 13:09 on February 25th, 2010

Changing the deck of cards isn't going to help. You need to fix the system of governance

Rory Cripps

at 18:28 on February 25th, 2010

culstsscareme (not verified):

"Changing the deck of cards isn't going to help. You need to fix the system of governance."

Where would you begin? Would you start with a purge of non-progressives and ultimately throw them in the ovens? And then kill off all the whites? Come on . . . be honest now . . . you're among friends--for the most part!

Karen Hatter

at 18:49 on February 25th, 2010

Oookaaay ....

Rory, how does "Changing the deck of cards isn't going to help. You need to fix the system of governance" turn into or advocate " .... purge of non-progressives and ultimately throw them in the ovens? And then kill off all the whites?"

That's mighty paranoid of you.