Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,
assured Sen. Orrin Hatch last night that Democrats would not use
reconciliation to pass health care legislation, Hatch told
reporters this morning at a breakfast sponsored by the Kaiser
Family Foundation.
"I was with the chairman of the Finance Committee last night,"
Hatch recounted. "He said, 'don't worry about it, we're not going
to do it.'"
Reconciliation is a process allowing the Senate to pass
legislation with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes
required to stop a filibuster. Originally intended to pass
emergency budget bills, its use has expanded over the years, and
Democrats passed a budget last month giving them the option of
using the procedure to pass health care reform. Hatch said using
the tactic, being bushed by liberal Senators, would have
disastrous consequences.
"Most of them don't understand the complexities of trying to use
reconciliation on a major substantive piece of legislation that
affects one-sixth of the American economy," he said. "If they
want to really get into that, they're gonna look like fools."
He continued, "I guarantee you if they use reconciliation you
won't have a plan you like. A reconciliation bill would make
health care look like swiss cheese it would have so many holes in
it."
Hatch explained that using the process would mean just 20 hours
of debate, and it would pose certain limitations on the way the
bill is written.
"The partisan part of me says, 'Oh, I hope they do that,' because
they'll have to live with every stinking problem that comes up
over the next hundred years," he said. "And they're going to be a
myriad of problems they never contemplated."
But Hatch said that he was working closely with Democrats and
believed a bipartisan compromise was possible, and that lawmakers
can achieve "meaningful reform" this year.
He said that legislation should focus on seven principles: costs,
access, value, prevention, modernization, effectiveness research,
and entitlement reform. Any reform should also give states the
flexibility to experiment and tailor their systems to the unique
needs of their own populations, he said.
