Posted by
Defend America on Thursday, March 04, 2010 7:16:28 PM
The same theory has been posed all day by different bloggers. What would happen is that the House will pass the current Senate bill because they are promised that the bill would be fixed through reconciliation, but instead of going through reconciliation, once the House passes the Senate bill, Obama signs that bill into law.
Here it is explained in more detail by those who are posing this theory:
Jeffrey Anderson at the Health Care blog on National Review Online explains the theory:
Don’t Leave the House Unattended [Jeffrey H. Anderson]
All
of the talk about "reconciliation" seems to have distracted people —
like a red herring — from a simple but crucial fact: If the House goes
first, as now appears to be the plan, and passes the Senate health-care
overhaul, the president would then have a bill in hand that had passed
both houses of Congress, and — whether reconciliation subsequently
succeeded or failed in the Senate — we would have Obamacare.
Reconciliation would then be like the
exhibition ice skating in the Olympics after the medals have been
awarded: interesting to some, but wholly irrelevant to anything that
really matters.
The attention is on the Senate, but the battle is in the House.
It's time for Americans from coast to coast to communicate their clear
desires to their congressmen. If Americans don't want Obamacare — and
every indication is that they emphatically don’t — now is the time for swing-district Democrats to hear that full chorus of opposition: loudly, clearly, and forcibly.
http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzNkYWRlMjUyOTY5MDNkYTk1MTY2ZjUyOWJlODc4YTg=
Rich Lowry on The Corner points out that Only the House Matters:
Only the House Vote Matters [Rich Lowry]
This
is an important point. I don't think people understand that
reconciliation isn't really that important except as a promise to
members of the House. Even Charles Krauthammer, if I understood him
correctly, said last night that he thinks the bill will pass the House
but fail during the reconciliation process. But if the bill passes the
House, the same bill has passed the Senate and the House and Obama
can just sign the thing. It won't matter if the reconciliation process
bogs down, except to those Democrats who thought the bill would be
"fixed." But once they've voted, they've voted. Obama can say, "See you
in the Rose Garden and we'll try to fix it next year." Jeffrey Anderson
makes this point here.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDc4ZWU1MDE5YWVlYjA2OWU4OWEyMmU4Njk4NzY0ZDY=
William Jacobsen at Legal Insurrection says the same thing:
Probably the single biggest obstacle to Obamacare is House Democrats
who do not like the Senate health care bill, but whose votes are needed
to move the budget reconciliation process along.
The
strategy appears to be for the House to pass the Senate bill as is,
based on the promise of the budget reconciliation process being
successful in the Senate to implement changes.
But what if the Senate does not or
cannot pass the changes through the reconciliation process?
Obama then has to power to sign the bill as passed by the House and Senate, meaning the Senate bill.
Has Obama promised not to do so?
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/03/yes-he-can-sign-that-bill.html
Even Senator Gregg points out that Obama might just sign the bill after it passes the House:
Gregg suggests Obama may renege on fixing Senate health bill
By Michael O'Brien
-
03/04/10 10:29 AM ET
The
White House may renege on passing fixes to the Senate's healthcare bill
once the House has passed it, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) claimed Thursday.
Gregg,
the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, suggested that
President Barack Obama may back off making changes to the Senate bill
through the reconciliation process, which the White House and the
Senate have said they would use to make changes to the Senate bill in
order to placate House members.
"They're using reconciliation to
pass the great big bill," Gregg said during an appearance on CNBC.
"Once they pass the great big bill, I wouldn't be surprised if the
White House didn't care if reconciliation passed. I mean, why would
they?"
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/84955-gregg-suggests-obama-may-renege-on-fixing-senate-health-bill