Dems need more for 2010 win
For months and months and months, health care reform has been debated and discussed but it still seems that there are some Democrats who still cannot come to a decent compromise.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., rounded up enough votes to pass a bill in the House of Representatives and deserves credit for her efforts. But in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is going to have a much more difficult time.
He’s already acknowledged that reform may be pushed into next year, not to mention you have people like Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who caucuses with the Democrats, saying that he will filibuster any public option that is debated on the Senate floor.
If this health care reform fails, most Democrats up for re-election next year might as well be giving their seats away to the Republicans. It’s illogical to think that voters will re-elect them after using so much time, money and energy on a failed health care push.
We already know the result of that by just looking back at the 1990s. Responsible Democrats know this, which is why they are trying everything they can to get something through before next year. Most pro-choice Democrats gave in to an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., prohibiting the public insurance plan from covering abortion services, there was the new opt-out measure added into the public option, and even former President Bill Clinton came down to Capitol Hill to try to rally Senate Democrats. And I think he would know a little something about trying to push through health care reform.
But even though all of this is going on, there are still senators who will not budge and that could be their undoing.
Liberal and conservative Democratic senators already have said that they plan to fight for abortion language in the bill that will be in their respective interests.
Most experts already agree that the Dems will probably lose some seats in Congress next year. But if nothing gets passed at all, they could possibly even lose one or both majorities. And if that happens, any future push for reform is going to be out the window and the can will be kicked down the road just as it has been for the last 40 years.
This past Saturday was a historic day without a doubt. The House passed the largest overhaul of the health care system since Medicare was signed into law over four decades ago. But we’re only one fourth of the way there. A health care bill has to pass the Senate, go into conference to merge both bills from the House and Senate, and then go back through the House and Senate for final approval. Most of the GOP has stuck its feet in the ground and isn’t going to budge. So Democrats need to get something done soon because 2010 is coming quick, as well as the campaign season. Whether they can pull it off, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Nov 13 2009. Filed under Opinion.
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