Reconciling a lack of political courage

I had intended, today, to write about the lame jobs bill that was passed earlier in the week. But with the health care summit off to such a thrilling and freaking confusing start, today's time is best used on that subject.

For the past 13 months we've been told that the magic number is 60. The democrats needs 60 votes in the senate to prevent the republicans from filibustering any new health care plan to death. And that the dream of a health care overhaul went up in smoke when Scott Brown charmed his way into Teddy Kennedy's seat.

What many don't know is that there is a way to avoid the filibuster, and it's called Reconciliation. It only requires 51 votes, itt was introduced in 1974, and its whole purpose is to prevent the minority party from paralyzing the budgeting process. In the 36 years since Reconciliation was introduced, it's been used 22 times - 16 by republicans. Including three tax cuts under President Bush that first destroyed the surplus, then increased the deficit.

So why haven't the democrats used reconciliation to pass real, meaningful health care reform? Jon Stewart answers that question on The Daily Show:

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I have MSNBC on as I'm typing this, and Howard Dean is the guest. It should be noted that any sort of democratic momentum from 2006 through 2008 looks like, in retrospect, it was Dean's doing. His take on the Reconciliation process is simple:

"Reconciliation is nothing new - Bush did it five times with controversial items. What people want is action, and they want strength. And if you don't agree with them, that's not so important. What's really important is that you get something done."

There's more from Dr. Dean:

"I think there were two major mistakes made early on. The first was not to go through reconciliation - you had to do that. The idea that we were going to get all 60 votes when one of them was Joe Liberman, who really just can't stand the democratic party, was never gonna happen. They should have figured that out earlier.

"And the second was to let congress write the bill. That was the wrong lesson to learn. The mistake that Bill Clinton made was to write the entire bill with no congressional input and then give it to them. The antidote is not to let congress write the whole bill - legislative bodies aren't good at that... that's not what their job is. They needed a bill to work from. They needed the president to say 'These are the four things that have to be in this bill,' and they would have been in the bill."

Dean ends with the point that even though he's not in love with the senate bill, it's at least some progress because it does cover uninsured people. And more importantly, it's a win against the interests of the health care lobby (and, btw, lobbying the federal government is, like porn and booze, a recession-proof industry that grew by 5% in 2009).

It's not a big enough win, but at least it's something. After 13 months of nothing, I'll take it.

Some reading on why health care reform is needed:

Administrative Costs of Medicare vs. Private Insurers

Administrative Costs of Medicare vs. Private Insurers II: The Quickening

And here's a really good, easily understandable flash presentation:

What is Single Payer?

EDIT: Here's one of the first stories of the day from the mainstream media on the health care conference, and it's not good for the republicans. You know they're going big with the lies when even the AP and freaking Bretbart are calling them on it.