United Liberty

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a $300 billion fix for ObamaCare, putting the cost of the bill over $1 trillion, that she wants to slide through the House and get the Senate to pass with reconciliation:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing a $300 billion “fix” to the Senate health care bill, saying that her chamber could approve the Senate’s package if those changes are made first.

Senior Democratic aides told Fox News that Pelosi has offered up the new package of changes to Senate Democratic leaders, with the hope that they will be able to pass it using a controversial procedural maneuver known as “reconciliation.” The maneuver would allow Democrats to pass the measure with just 51 votes, without having to first overcome the normal 60-vote threshold.

Some Democrats are keen on using that process, since the election last week of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts broke the Democrats’ 60-vote supermajority. However, some Democratic moderates — notably Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh — have balked at using the controversial tactic to ram through health care reform measures.

Pelosi announced last week that she did not have the votes in the House to pass the Senate health care reform bill as is. But Pelosi is now floating the possibility that if the Senate, and House, approve the package of adjustments first, the House can then take up the original Senate bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has balked at using reconciliation in the past, as have a few other Democratic Senators (aside from the two listed in the article above). There still are ways the bill could be killed, such as the Senate Parliamentarian ruling ruling that reconciliation can’t be used on the bill.

Nothing is a sure bet and Reid wants to take his time on the bill. With all the rumors of discontent in Democratic ranks, if this bill isn’t passed by the end of spring…forget about it.