Reconciliation Insanity
March 19th, 2010Earlier this evening, a quesiton popped into my head that perfectly illustrates the insanity of the Democrats’ health care legislation.
For months, Democrats have excluded the Medicare/Doc Fix from their health care legislation to get the CBO to say that their health care legislation reduces the deficit. People living outside the Beltway would think it’s only natural to include that reform in the Democrats’ health care legislation. I’m betting that 90+ percent of the people would say that the Medicare/Doc Fix should be included in the Democrats’ health care legislation.
Similarly, people living outside the Beltway would scratch their heads wondering what the federal government’s takeover of the student loan program has to do with the Democrats’ health care reform. I’m betting that 90+ percent of the people would say that the federal student loan program has nothing to do with lowering health care costs.
I’d further argue that this only makes sense if viewed through the perspective of reconciliation and the Byrd Rule. Then it makes perfect sense. Here’s what Wikipedia says about the Byrd Rule:
The Byrd Rule defines a provision to be “extraneous” (and therefore ineligible for reconciliation) in six cases: Read the rest of this entry »