Scott Brown, local imbecile, said through a spokesman yesterday that:

If the Democrats try to ram their health-care bill through Congress using reconciliation, they are sending a dangerous signal to the American people that they will stop at nothing to raise our taxes, increase premiums and slash Medicare. Using the nuclear option damages the concept of representative leadership and represents more of the politics-as-usual that voters have repeatedly rejected.

The problem is that using reconciliation is neither “the nuclear option” (that’d be this, a technique both invented and brandished by one Grand Old Party) nor is the use of said reconciliation in any way unprecedented, either in terms of budgetary measures (precisely the reason the damned thing was created in the first place) or healthcare reforms (which often are entirely or nearly entirely budgetary issues). NPR provides us with a partial listing of the many uses of reconciliation in recent years:

1. 1982 — TEFRA: The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act first opened Medicare to HMOs

2. 1986 — COBRA: The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act allowed people who were laid off to keep their health coverage, and stopped hospitals from dumping ER patients unable to pay for their care

3. 1987 — OBRA ‘87: Added nursing home protection rules to Medicare and Medicaid, created no-fault vaccine injury compensation program

4. 1989 — OBRA ’89: Overhauled doctor payment system for Medicare, created new federal agency on research and quality of care

5. 1990 — OBRA ’90: Added cancer screenings to Medicare, required providers to notify patients about advance directives and living wills, expanded Medicaid to all kids living below poverty level, required drug companies to provide discounts to Medicaid

6. 1993 — OBRA ’93: created federal vaccine funding for all children

7. 1996 — Welfare Reform: Separated Medicaid from welfare

8. 1997 — BBA: The Balanced Budget Act created the state-federal childrens’ health program called CHIP

9. 2005 — DRA: The Deficit Reduction Act reduced Medicaid spending, allowed parents of disabled children to buy into Medicaid

Conveniently left off that list are several that are specifically damaging to the GOP’s case for grievance here. Like both of the Bush tax cuts. Reconciliation. Additional oil drilling courtesy of W. Reconciliation. Medicare Part D (aka W Bush’s unfunded cost explosion). Reconciliation. Various W trade authorities. Reconciliation. And, of course, there’s this hypocrisy that’s never mentioned by the MSM:

the very senators who speak reverentially of the filibuster now, voted for reconciliation then. Judd Gregg, in fact, voted for reconciliation every time it was used in the Bush era.