“3. Reconciliation has never been used for health-care legislation.

In February, Hatch wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to renounce the possibility of trying to pass a bill using reconciliation. As Hatch put it, “the use of expedited reconciliation process [sic] to push through more dramatic changes to a health-care bill of such size, scope and magnitude is unprecedented.” But as it turns out, every major health-care innovation of the last three decades has been done through reconciliation, including COBRA, the popular law that allows people to keep their health insurance after losing their jobs, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which, together with Medicaid, provides access to health care for one third of American children. And remember: these bills were passed in their entirety through reconciliation. Obamacare, on the other hand, passed the Senate with a 60-vote supermajority; it’s only the sidecar that Democrats plan to pass with less.