From DEMOCRATS.SENATE.GOV:
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explaining the path forward on health insurance reform. In the letter, Senator Reid details the steps that Senate Democrats have taken to secure bipartisan support for health reform despite the lack of cooperation from Senate Republicans. Reid said he will seek an democratic, up-or-down simple majority vote to revise the health reform bill already passed by a supermajority of 60 Senators last December. Reid also reiterated the commitment of Senate Democrats to deliver meaningful health reform that will ensure access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans.
Excerpts of Reid’s letter to Senator McConnell:
Eleven months ago, I wrote you to share my expectations for the coming health reform debate. At the time, I expressed Democrats’ intention to work in good faith with Republicans, and my desire that – while we would disagree at times – we could engage in an honest discussion grounded in facts rather than fear, and focused on producing results, not playing partisan politics.
Obviously, the opposite has happened, as many Republicans have spent the past year mischaracterizing the health reform bill and misleading the public. Though we have tried to engage in a serious discussion, our efforts have been met by repeatedly debunked myths and outright lies. At the same time, Republicans have resorted to extraordinary legislative maneuvers in an effort not to improve the bill, but to delay and kill it. After watching these tactics for nearly a year, there is only one conclusion an objective observer could make: these Republican maneuvers are rooted less in substantive policy concerns and more in a partisan desire to discredit Democrats, bolster Republicans, and protect the status quo on behalf of the insurance industry.
In fact, the attacks on the health care bill are part of a broader pattern. As has been well documented, your caucus conspicuously shattered the record for obstruction last Congress by demanding gratuitous procedural votes on even the most non-controversial matters, and by stalling the work of the Senate despite the urgency of the serious problems facing our country. Senate Republicans are on pace to again break their own record this Congress, illustrated by Sen. Bunning’s effort to prevent the Senate from acting to extend families’ unemployment and health benefits even after those benefits had expired.
Thousands of Americans lose their health care every day, and tens of thousands of the uninsured have lost their lives since this debate began. Meanwhile, rising health costs have contributed to a rising federal budget deficit.
To address these problems, 60 Senators voted to pass historic reform that will make health insurance more affordable, make health insurance companies more accountable and reduce our deficit by roughly a trillion dollars. The House passed a similar bill. However, many Republicans now are demanding that we simply ignore the progress we’ve made, the extensive debate and negotiations we’ve held, the amendments we’ve added (including more than 100 from Republicans) and the votes of a supermajority in favor of a bill whose contents the American people unambiguously support. We will not. We will finish the job. We will do so by revising individual elements of the bills both Houses of Congress passed last year, and we plan to use the regular budget reconciliation process that the Republican caucus has used many times.
I know that many Republicans have expressed concerns with our use of the existing Senate rules, but their argument is unjustified. There is nothing unusual or extraordinary about the use of reconciliation. As one of the most senior Senators in your caucus, Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, said in explaining the use of this very same option, “Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don’t think so.” Similarly, as non-partisan congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein said in this Sunday’s New York Times, our proposal is “compatible with the law, Senate rules and the framers’ intent.”
Reconciliation is designed to deal with budget-related matters, and some have expressed doubt that it could be used for comprehensive health care reform that includes many policies with no budget implications. But the reconciliation bill now under consideration would not be the vehicle for comprehensive reform – that bill already passed outside of reconciliation with 60 votes. Instead, reconciliation would be used to make a modest number of changes to the original legislation, all of which would be budget-related. There is nothing inappropriate about this.
Bring it home, Harry!
As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents – including President Bush’s massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way, we disagree.
…snip…
If Republicans want to vote against a bill that reduces health care costs, fills the prescription drug “donut hole” for seniors and reduces the deficit, you will have every right to do so.
Take that, Yertle McConnell!
Bitchin’ letter. Go Harry!
I’m off to the Sunshine State where no doubt it will rain because I came 😀
i give harry more credit than a lot of people do. i think he’s a lot tougher behind closed doors than he is on camera. everyone bitches about him, but you don’t see too many other people who want his job.
p.s. travel safely, melissa! here in the southern sunshine state, it’s raining and miserable. it was dark and nasty all day. hope it’s better at andy’s motel, the best place to stay on beautiful panama city beach. 😀
it is raining in the western sunshine state, too. I have four colds and a black eye.
d’oh! i thought you were in floriduhhhh, and i was going to yell at you for not telling me you would be here. i hope you feel better soon. how did you get a black eye?
I have a very small studio apartment. The phone rang, while I was asleep and I walked into the door frame to the “kitchen”, Never did find out who called. I hate it when they don’t leave a message.
i hate when that happens. 😉
If I lived in Florida, I would be over for dinner at least once a week. 🙂
that would be perfect, because i only make one decent dinner a week!
Harry’s alright by me. I know he really hoped to get the public option. He took interest in getting my friend’s brother, Eric, help not so long ago.
P.S. Btw, you’re so awesome. 😆
I’m traveling with my parents, sibs, kids, and two dogs which means a 5 hour trip will take a minimum of 6 1/2 hours. We were only supposed to leave an hour ago. Oughta be fun!
i didn’t know that harry helped with eric’s cause. that’s awesome!
p.s. i held back from saying that people will get a discount if they mention the raisin at andy’s motel. 😉
p.p.s. being in a car with family for 6 hours? 😯
turtles are too smart to be republicans. However, some of them look like they would tell you to get off their grass. I like turtles.
rethug turtles are a whole other species, fotc. they aren’t like the good turtles. rethug turtles snap and bite and are poisonous.
They sound worse than the snapping turtles I know. They may snap and bite, but at least they’re not poisonous.
rethug turtles are right out of horror movies. like bizarro teenage mutant ninja turtles.
“Bizarro Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles” eh? I’ve run into something like that. Watch one get defeated.
the happy dance at the end was the best part. 🙂
What’s rather bizarre is accusing the Democrats of committing some kind of parliamentary trick because they won’t let the Republicans overuse the filibuster.
Technically speaking … ummm … isn’t the filibuster a parliamentary trick?
If we pretend that Senators in general have principles, then wouldn’t this just be a goose/gander sort of thing?
the filibuster is only a parliamentary stunt when dems do it, at least according to rethugs. the dems aren’t doing anything the rethugs haven’t done way many more times than dems have, but since they got found out, they choose to look forward, not backward.
Inspiring poster. Now if he can just come across as a inspired Gary Cooper instead of a demure Wally Cox.
we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors. don corleone never seemed to raise his voice in public.
Oh damn! I’m trying to remember the classic western gunfight whistling song……
that’s all that photo needs.
I’d be more impressed w Reid & Pelosi if they got something done.
They have a Dem majority in the House & Senate….
not much to show for it.
Let’s see if they can pull this one out of the fire.
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling.
Do Not Foresake Me Oh My Darling, or maybe you are thinking of, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. )-
“Do Not Foresake Me, Oh My Darling”? Oh, I bet you mean, ” The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”.
Help me nonnie, I didn’t mean to post this so many times.
YES! fotc!!! Thank you it IS the Good the Bad & the Ugly— 10 points for you!!! Now I can stop wracking my brain trying to figure out that tune!
that’s so funny, because that’s the exact song that i had playing in my head while i was putting the post together. good thing fotc is around, because i would never have remembered what the music was from.
😆
So befitting…. now if only I had movie animation skills….
Anyway– thanks to fotc’s musical knowledge & your art skills we have dreamed up the whole scenario.
i wish i knew how to make animations. this would be so cool. harry strutting to the forefront, while yertle mcconnell barely moves on the step. music playing, building to a crescendo until harry shoots yertle and the smoke slowly wafting from the gun until harry blows it away. now we just have to get nancy pelosi to dress up as miss kitty.
Let’s hope Miss Kitty is in the mood to put something ON the table (health care wise), that is worthwhile & not just profits for the Wealthcare faction.
i look at this as the foot in the door. it’s not good enough, but it will be made better as time goes on. it has to be shown that it’s not a big scary bill like the rethugs keep insisting it is.
i love all of multi-chin mitch’s threats — for me the pessimist i will be an optimist. if this goes through – expect the GOP to be even more unhappy come November
multi-chin? he’s chinless, like lindseypoo and nill mccollum and ed gillespie. i hope they all go to the part of hell where they have to change all the pillowcases. 😉