Thursday, February 25, 2010

Liability Reform and Reconciliation

The President just pointed out that a Republican Congress and Republican President were not able to enact reasonable medical liability reform.  The reason for that is simple: Republicans did not jam through liability reform under a partisan, 51-vote reconciliation process.  Contrast that approach with Speaker Pelosi’s chief health care advisor, who publicly bragged about being able to devise a “trick” to pass this unpopular bill through the reconciliation process.

Of course, when he was a Senator, Barack Obama said he opposed jamming provisions through the Senate on a 51-vote margin: “What I worry about would be you essentially still have two chambers – the House and the Senate – but you have simply majoritarian, absolute power on either side.  And that’s just not what the Founders intended.”  Now, not so much…