Thread by @AJentleson

Even if you assume Dems win the Senate with a slim majority, getting 8+ GOP votes to pass a public option without nuking the filibuster is more unlikely than nuking the filibuster to pass M4A. It slips through the filter because it doesn’t involve big change, but it’s a fantasy.

I defer to folks with more sophisticated parliamentary and policy expertise. But assume you can for the sake of argument - here’s why using reconciliation is unworkable. First, you’d be telling other major issues to take a hike - climate change, gun control, democracy reform etc.

If a Dem wins in 2020, it’s unlikely they’ll have a mandate to pursue health care to the exclusion of all other issues. Reconciliation is only available at end of year. Punting on all other issues to pursue public option will mean a year of hemorrhaging capital - echoes of 2009.

Second, using reconciliation would be the ultimate compromise with ourselves, a half measure that gains us nothing but limits our ability to get stuff done. Pursuing a public option via reconciliation will give Rs all the rationale they need to go nuclear when they retake power.

In a Quixotic quest, we’d congratulate ourselves on nobly limiting our ability to deliver when we’re in power while giving Rs plenty of runway to go nuclear themselves. When they retake power they’ll nuke the filibuster and we’ll be left whining to the Sunday shows about norms.

Third, the idea that using reconciliation preserves the traditions of the Senate in any meaningful way is a thumb-sucker. The precedent of passing big-ticket legislation via majority vote would be set in stone. There is no way around this.

In short, a Democratic POTUS is going to pass big legislation by majority vote. The only question is whether they hem and haw and try to backdoor it via reconciliation- bleeding capital and leaving huge issues on the table- or face it frontally and pass big bills from day one.