One of the Democratic leadership’s talking points for the reconciliation bill is that it increases affordability tax credits for people on the exchange. What they aren’t saying is that the increase in subsidies in the Senate bill is only temporary.

For some reason, a program that enjoys the support of overwhelming majorities of Democrats, independents, or Americans as a whole—slice it any way you like—has become synonymous with “hot potato.” No one wants to be the one who has to take the blame for killing it—but, bizarrely, absurdly, maddeningly, no one wants to be the one that gets the credit for passing it, either.

Just a brief word on the church of the savvy smugly saying that whip counts efforts like this are misguided because of all the “wiggle room.” I’m building that into my analysis. I think I’m representing an accurate snapshot in time of where the House is at on this bill. People are going to guess about this anyway, so a whip count that takes into account other information has plenty of value, more than a simple info dump.

In other words, NBC, I’m way ahead of you.

While it might be a “fact” that the House could pass the Senate bill unchanged, it is also a “fact” that the Senate could quickly pass the House bill unchanged. Maybe the reason the Senate is so dysfunctional is that major news organizations like the New York Times seem to ignore the simple facts about what the Senate can actually do, and, instead, lets senators get away with pretending there are no ways around their own made-up rules. The 60-vote threshold is not part of the Constitution, nor is it carved in stone. It can be changed. It should be changed.

The so called “Cadillac” tax is, in reality, a teacher tax. It taxes plans based on their cost, but not their generosity. As anyone who has bought health insurance will tell you, the biggest factor in determining the cost of insurance is not how generous the coverage is, but the sex, age, and health status of the buyer. As a result professions that tend to employer older, less healthy females–like teaching–will bare the brunt of this excise tax, regardless of how generous or bare bones the policies.

It’s clear that the so-called “Cornhusker Kickback,” Ben Nelson’s deal to have the federal government pick up the cost for the expansion of Medicaid in Nebraska, will not survive to the final bill. What form the kickback will eventually take is not clear, and according to Live Pulse, Nelson is in negotiations to move it in one of two directions, which are truly diametrically opposed from one another.

The Senate bill has a gaping loophole in it that could negate a central promise of health reform – that insurers can no longer charge more because you are sick.

The loophole comes in the form of an expansion to so-called “workplace wellness programs” that are supposed to reward employees for healthy habits. In practice, however, it could allow insurers to charge thousands of dollars more because, for example, a person is sick or overweight or has high cholesterol.

The only “uses” for regional subsidiary exchanges within a single state that I can think of would not be for the benefit of the general public. Subdividing already small state-based exchanges would allow insurance companies to keep premiums higher by reducing the bargaining power of individuals. It could allow several insurers to be active in a single state while avoiding direct competition with each other by only offering plans in different subsidiary exchanges. Most insidious, the regional subsidiary exchanges, in theory, could be used to redline minorities and low income communities.

The decision has been formally made to not formally hold a conference committee, potentially speeding passage of a health care bill. I say “potentially” because passage is going to hinge on a bicameral agreement, and that’s not going to take a day or two. As expected, the Senate bill will generally be the template. . .

Democrats are foregoing a conference committee for two reasons – to quicken the process on the front end (Republicans would have been able to delay the management of a formal conference committee for a few weeks) and to allow for flexibility between the proposals between the House and Senate, with the possibility of adding new compromise items. Many progressives are concerned that a back-room negotiation will cut them out of any dealmaking. The proper answer to that is for them to make it publicly known that they won’t vote for a bill without certain items. With such a narrow margin for error, this would have the effect of opening up the negotiations and forcing them to be carried out in public. So, it’s not like progressives in Congress don’t have options.