Memo to the media: healthcare reform has already passed. Both houses of Congress. It is done.
However, the two houses passed marginally different versions of the legislation. Thus, the House will likely pass a modified version of the Senate bill. The Senate, then, will reconcile their already passed bill with that “final” output. The order of the action may flip, but that’s really just window dressing. The point is that reconciliation will only be in use for the points of disagreement between House and Senate, which are few.
There is not and will not be any attempt to “pass the healthcare reforms package” via reconciliation. What there may be is an attempt to reconcile House and Senate versions of the bill through the rather aptly named reconciliation process instead of through a joint House/Senate conference committee and normal order.
Once more: if and when healthcare reform reaches Obama’s desk for signature, it will have passed through normal order. Period. Minor differences will have been ironed out through a kind of “sidecar” bill using reconciliation; it will functionally amend previously passed legislation. But the bulk of the reform: already passed through normal order.
Perhaps a six-hour televised summit on this is necessary to pound it through Our Media Overlords’ heads. I know they find it bore-ing, but that’s life in the big city.
Lemkin 