The arcana of legislative process is usually enough to make our eyes glaze over, but there’s some possible intrigue that’s worth noting regarding plans to use reconciliation for health care. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that some House Democrats now worry that the White House is gaming them into supporting a bill they don’t want.

Speaker Pelosi says she can’t get the votes in the House to pass the Senate health care bill, but getting the Senate to pass another bill would require clearing the 60-vote hurdle again. To avoid that, the White House has asked the House to hold its nose, pass the Senate bill, and then address any issues with the Senate bill in a separate reconciliation bill. Reconciliation, a process normally reserved for ensuring passage of any policy changes needed to satisfy budget resolutions, does not require 60 votes in the Senate. But, notes the Journal,

… the White House would much prefer the Senate bill, because by its lights the cost-control programs are tougher than what the House prefers. And from a political perspective, a bill that can be signed immediately and that the press will portray as an historic achievement is far better than the drawn-out and gory battle that would be reconciliation. Republican Senators will have many procedural knives at their disposal, and the process will force Democrats to cast further votes and spend more months debating a deeply unpopular bill.

In other words, perhaps Mr. Obama has embraced this reconciliation two-step only to renege as soon as the House gives him what he wants. While some House Democrats would be furious, they’d soon be defending the Senate bill by necessity against the GOP. The moderates who vote for it might be collateral damage, but the White House has already concluded that this is the price of building its cradle-to-grave entitlement citadel. … Spooked Democrats shouldn’t be surprised if they wind up being double-crossed for the ostensibly greater good of Mr. Obama’s legacy.

It’s certainly not a process that speaks well of the product.