What BooMan Said

Another lesson on health care reform and reconciliation from BooMan:

Now the folks over at Powerline are trying to execute the Republican strategy of making the reconciliation process a big part of the debate over passing health care reform. I don't blame them for making the effort, but I still find it amusing. The Republicans are forgetting that the Senate health care bill passed on Christmas Eve. What the Democrats are going to attempt is to get the House to pass the Senate version of the bill under completely ordinary rules. If the House does that, the health care reforms will have passed without any use of reconciliation rules. So, at that point, health care reform will have passed under the ordinary rules in both the House and the Senate. There will be nothing to complain about from a procedural point of view. The bill will have passed at the normal majority vote in the House and the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

That is how our Republic works. We have elections and our Congress votes. 

He's right, of course.  This is why the reconciliation will destroy the universe argument is idiocy.  The Senate bill already passed a sixty-vote supermajority. This is a fact.  The House is completely within its rights to pass the Senate bill with a 50%+1 majority and it will become law if the President chooses to sign the bill rather than veto it.

All this happens before reconciliation ever enters the picture.

Republicans think you're stupid.  That's why they are lying to you about this.