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OPINIONS
Mark Caserta: Get ready for 'nuclear option' -- it's coming
Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his Democratic colleagues sent health care reform to the Senate floor for debate by a 60-39 vote along party lines
Beginning Monday morning, debate it will receive and lots of it.
If the legislation eventually passes, both the Senate and House bills would then go to committee where selected members of each chamber would "meld" the two bills into a final version which would then need the approval of each house prior to sending to President Obama for his signature.
However, revisions and personalities will muddy this water for some time.
Reid's 2,074 page version of the bill includes two provisions the Pelosi bill did not; the public option and federal funding for abortion.
Although moderate members of Congress voted with their hard left liberal colleagues in sending the bill to the House floor, they did so in dubious hopes of mending the bill in a way they find acceptable for passage.
The fly in the buttermilk is that Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, along with Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, remain uncommitted on the final vote, and are highly unlikely to compromise on the issues.
"I don't want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis," said Sen. Lieberman to USA Today.
The holdout by the moderate entities of the Senate is very frustrating to liberal comrades like Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio:
"I don't want four Democratic senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the rest of the country -- when the public option has this much support -- that (a public option is) not going to be in it," said Brown, according to the Associated Press.
Yet it's OK for 56 libs to dictate their positions to the rest of the country?
The bottom line is: Harry and his liberal cohorts are keenly aware they will not be able to pass this health care legislation without full Democratic and Independent support -- in a conventional manner anyway.
The "Nuclear Option" is Dirty Harry's down card.
The nuclear option is a controversial parliamentary procedure which ignores the very principle our Republic is based on.
It ignores Senate precedent and reduces the number of Senate votes required to break a filibuster from the needed 60 votes to a simple majority "mob rule" vote, which means Reid will only need 51 votes to pass Obamacare.
Liberal Democrats will use any tactic necessary to hand health care reform to the exalted one.
In an interview with CNN, Jim Manley, a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, said, "White House and the Senate Democratic leadership still prefer a bipartisan bill. However, patience is not unlimited and we are determined to get something done this year by any legislative means necessary."
For the Democratic majority, it's not about passing legislation that's good for you and your family.
It's about winning at any cost.
Get ready for the nuclear option. It's coming.
Mark Caserta is a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald- Dispatch editorial page.
