Health Care BS

This week’s winner is Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown for this post, in which she insinuates that Republicans deliberately misconstrued what they heard from the Senate parliamentarian on Thursday:

Senate Republicans caused a major stir Thursday when they told reporters that the parliamentarian had informed them that the Senate bill needed to be signed into law before lawmakers took up a sidecar bill to fix it.

Brown solemly informs her readers, however, that the GOP was trying to pull a fast one:

But according to reporting by POLITICO’s David Rogers, the accounts aren’t accurate and misconstrue what the Senate parliamentarians have said.

What, according to Brown (and Rogers), did the parliamentarian actually say (my emphasis)?

That reconciliation must amend law but this could be done without the Senate bill being enacted first.

This is a textbook example of a self-refuting statement. If reconciliation “must amend law,” it cannot (by definition) be used on a bill that  hasn’t been “enacted.” This means the Republican statement was perfectly accurate.

In order to use reconciliation, the Senate bill must be passed by the House and signed into law by the President. Brown is either in denial about this obvious reality or she’s just plain dumb.