House Health Care Bill Races to Markup

The House "tri-committee" health care bill, introduced earlier today, is already set for markup in the committees beginning on Thursday.

Take note here: The "tradition," at least on most committees, is to give two days' notice between introduction of a bill and a markup on it. But committee rules, typically, require only one day. It's interesting to note, then, that they've chosen to go with the rules rather than tradition. That'll engender some Republican resentment, to be sure.

But here's the thing: I think it's realistically the case that there's nowhere for Republican votes to move as a result of this resentment. In other words, the Republicans have pretty much redlined their opposition meters, so in some respects, it's no longer worth giving deference to their feelings in this, since the deference is never returned in kind.

It's hard to disagree with that thinking. Might even be useful in the Senate, though it certainly runs counter to the way things have normally worked there.

Then again, so did the record-breaking pace of cloture voting in the last Congress. Doesn't feel a great deal like that's changing in this Congress, either.