ObamaCare dead, thanks to Sen. DeMint!

This post is a condensed version of Dan Perrin’s post on RedState.com.

Senator Conrad, the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said yesterday that “I don’t know of any way…where you can have a reconciliation bill pass before the bill that it is meant to reconcile passes.” When reminded that House Democrats don’t want to do health care in that order, Conrad said bluntly: “Fine, then it’s dead.”

Now, Speaker Pelosi finds herself in the position of having to pass a bill she says she does not have the votes to pass. But without passing it, she can’t do reconciliation.

Why? Because Sen. DeMint (R-SC) insisted that Sen. McConnell object to the appointment of the House-Senate Conferees, thus preventing a Conference on the bill and forcing Pelosi to have a House floor vote on the Senate bill, which she can’t pass.

And there the process has been stuck. Has not moved an inch since Sen. DeMint’s objection. It can’t, she does not have the votes.

If Pelosi fixed the Senate bill on the House floor by amendment, and then passed it, it would have to go back to the Senate, where it would have to get 60 yes votes or die. Since it will not get 60 votes ever again in the Senate, it will die there. If there had been a House-Senate Conference, then the House could have fixed the bill without a floor vote, without having to send it back to the Senate to face 60 vote margins. But now, they can’t have a conference, and the Speaker and the White House must pass the unpassable Senate bill, in order to even try reconciliation.

When the Democrats finally admit ObamaCare is dead, historians should note, this is the single act that killed it. And it was such an artistic assassination of the bill. Even with a city full of people watching the process, and who all saw the House and Senate Conference be denied, all the chattering heads and analysts did not understand what it meant, until it was too late.