As published for The Wall Street Journal on March 11th, 2010:

Republicans are prepared to turn the next several elections into referenda on ObamaCare.

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants cajole, entreat and threaten House Democrats to approve the Senate health-care bill, they argue that any problem with it can be fixed before it becomes law.

Pro-life House Democrats are deeply disturbed by the Senate abortion-funding language. Blue Dogs are upset by the fact that the Senate bill adds hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit. Liberals are angry that it doesn’t include a “public option.” Democrats from Republican-leaning districts are concerned about backroom deals that greased it through the Senate. And some Democrats are unhappy with the Senate bill’s tax on the “Cadillac” insurance plans of their allies in Big Labor.

Fear not, sayeth Speaker Pelosi, all will be fixed with the magic dust known as “reconciliation”—a process that allows budget and spending bills to move through the Senate with 51 votes instead of 60. There’s only one problem: Senate Republicans plan to use every parliamentary tool at their disposal to stymie any fix that gives House Democrats cover for voting for health-care reform. If the House approves the Senate bill with some warts intact, then House Democrats will own it.

There is no guarantee that Senate rules will allow the GOP to block every reform House Democrats want. Vice President Joe Biden, who is also the president of the Senate, has enormous leverage to overrule the Senate’s parliamentarian to tilt the process in his party’s direction. But House Democrats can’t be sure when they vote for the Senate bill that its problems will be fixed before the president signs health reform into law.

Read the full article here