Democrats to shortcut healthcare bill process

President Obama is expected to make an announcement next week detailing the Democrats' plans of how to move the health care bill forward. It's likely that the House and Senate will try to shortcut the process through reconciliation, in which the Senate only needs a simple majority instead of the usual 60 votes for a cloture (which can end a filibuster). The plan, which was hinted at by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi earlier today, would consist of the House passing the Senate's version of the bill, sending the bill to President Obama, who would revise the bill to implement his package and send the bill back to Congress for approval. Using the reconciliation process, the Senate would only need 51 votes to pass the bill in this final stage. Pelosi called for a simple majority in the Senate, saying "a simple majority, that's what we're asking the Senate to act upon." Reconciliation was established by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 so that only a majority vote in the Senate would be needed to advance bills dealing with the national budget. The idea behind the process is so that it is easier to pass deficit-reducing legislation. This seems like kind of an unfair way to pass the health care bill. I don't see how health care can be applied to reconciliation, as health care does not directly deal with the budget and will certainly not reduce the federal deficit. This is a sneaky way to sidestep a Senate filibuster, but I just don't see this working out for the Democrats. Using reconciliation will probably get a lot of negative media attention and, like always, there is probably some way in which the Republicans can counter to prevent this legislation from being approved. We shall soon find out. Read more at http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/26/health.care/index.html.