The New Mexico Independent’s Marjorie Childress attended a town hall meeting yesterday in Albuquerque featuring Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) -- a member of the
“„He also said that while he still hopes to craft a bipartisan bill in the Senate, if that effort fails he would support pushing a health care reform bill through this year using the budget reconciliation bill.
“„Reconciliation is a special process through which the Senate deals with budget issues. Only 51 votes are needed to pass a budget reconciliation bill on the floor of the Senate, whereas all other bills are susceptible to a filibuster which requires 60 votes to overcome.
“„“We made a provision in the budget resolution [earlier this year] that it [the reconciliation bill] could be used to try to enact health care provisions related to health care reform,” he said. “There are restrictions to what you can include in that … but I would support it if that’s the only way.”