Better Shifty than Socialized

As if the differing Obamacare House and Senate bills being passed as a mere reconciliation bill weren’t an odd enough looming threat, NR points out that Obamacare might get passed without there even being a reconciliation bill, treating the Senate version as passed if the House passes smaller bills tweaking it.  In their official PDF on the health plan, Republicans suggest the current legislation, among other problems, doesn’t even contain the tiny tort reform experiments Obama promised.

NR suggests making lots of phonecalls to wavering Democrats facing reelection battles.  There’s no need to assume waverers are principled agents who can’t be turned against the bills, either, since, as Don Boudreaux recently noted, members of Congress have had a reputation for shiftiness for so long that Mark Twain, for instance, said, “To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.”