Secret meetings? Smoke and mirrors around other secret meetings? So far the Senate talks on health care reform have hardly been on C-SPAN. But, as I report today, we’re getting closer to the time when they may be. Another early question of transparency: the prospect of using budget reconciliation to pass this would be controversial with Republicans threatening to go nuclear, as Ezra Klein notes (though I can’t even imagine how it would get around the Byrd Rule if Dems did put it in).
A footnote:
Senator Rockefeller’s office wanted to clarify his remarks yesterday: the senator isn’t necessarily opposed to reconciliation; he’s just for a process that brings everyone in from the start. “Bottom line is, we need a process that brings everyone to the table in order for this to work,” he says via an email from an aide.