Harry Reid Tells GOP He Will Use Reconciliation to Pass Health Care

After weeks of speculation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed today that he will use reconciliation, the procedure that requires 51 votes rather than 60, to send the health care overhaul through the Senate for final passage.

In a letter to Mitch McConnell, the Senate's top Republican, Reid said he had tried to engage GOP senators for a bipartisan health care package, but to no avail.

"Republicans have resorted to extraordinary legislative maneuvers in an effort not to improve the bill, but to delay and kill it," Reid wrote. "After watching these tactics for nearly a year, there is only one conclusion an objective observer could make: These Republican maneuvers are rooted less in substantive policy concerns and more in a partisan desire to discredit Democrats, bolster Republicans, and protect the status quo on behalf of the insurance industry."

As a result, Reid said, he is left with no choice but to use reconciliation to pass a package of changes requested by the House to the Senate-passed health care bill in order to close the deal. Democrats have 59 votes in the Senate, one vote short of being able to pass a traditional conference committee report through their chamber.

Reid dismissed Republican objections to the use of reconciliation as "unjustified" and told McConnell that his members would not be precluded from participating in the remainder of the health care debate.

"You will continue to have an opportunity to offer amendments and change the shape of the legislation," he wrote. "In addition, at the end of the process, the bill can pass only if it wins a democratic, up-or-down majority vote.

"If Republicans want to vote against a bill that reduces health care costs, fills the prescription drug "donut hole" for seniors and reduces the deficit, you will have every right to do so."