In order to pass a final bill, Democrat leaders cannot lose a single vote of the 60 they gained in the Senate, nor more than two of the 220 votes they gained in the House. To get their bill to this point, Democrat leaders have made a series of contradictory commitments and deals, each of which has the possibility of derailing a final bill. On the issue of abortion funding, for example, Senate Democrats have indicated that they cannot agree to the House-passed language, which continues a long-standing prohibition of federal funding of abortions. Meanwhile, many pro-life House Democrats who voted for the final House bill because of the fixed abortion language have indicated that the Senate-passed language is insufficient.Millions of Americans have made clear their opposition to the Democrat take-over of our nation’s health care system. Together with my Whip Team, I have identified 37 Democrats who – we believe – can be persuaded to vote against a final health care agreement. Because each of these 37 Democrats voted for the House bill, we only need to turn 3 votes to prevent a final agreement from passing. Below are the 37 Democrats we believe are in play, and the issues that drive their final vote.If we can convince enough of these 37 Members (along with the 39 Democrats who already voted no) to reconsider and switch their position on the bill, I know that we can defeat this government take-over of our health care before it becomes law.
Very clever. Might even work. And, you have to admire Cantor's spunk. But, still, this has more than a whiff of the last stand at The Alamo. It's just hard to imagine that, having passed bills in the House and Senate, the Dems won't figure out a way to pass something. They've come this far; everything else is haggling.
If Cantor, et al. do manage to defeat these bills at the eleventh hour, they will have pulled off quite a feat. But, I am afraid it will not be enough to nail some scalps to the wall and declare victory. You know why? Because the day after health care reform goes down, we're going to start hearing about all the problems with the US health care system all over again. We'll be back to the 47 million uninsured, the complaints about the price of prescription drugs, the unfair tax treatment for employee-provided health care premiums, and all the rest. And then, we'll be right back where we started, with Democrats trying to pass progressive health care reform the first chance they can. It may take 10 years; it may take 20. But, they'll be back.
The only way to prevent this would be for the GOP to do more than just say "No." Some sort of health care reform needs to come out of this tortured process, if only so bloggers can have something else to write about. More importantly, the last six months have shown that Americans are interested in the idea of reform. They just don't want to pay for a single-payer government system with death panels. But, I think there is an amorphous national consensus that something in the health care system is awry. As long as that free-floating anxiety is out there, we will be doomed to further querelous cries that "Something Must Be Done!" We need to be able to stop those cries from finding a receptive audience.
If Cantor really does manage to turn enough votes to defeat Obamacare, it won't be a victory unless the GOP can push through some serious market oriented reforms, with tort reform, insurance portability, and the end of disparate tax treatment as the starting points. Anything less and we'll be condemned to a decade of Paul Krugman columns about the wonders of the National Health Service, and weepy Today show segments about little kids with cancer who lose their insurance. And then, we'll be right back here, fighting over cloture votes and Cornhusker Kickbacks. We can stop that too, but only if the GOP manages to display some policy making finesse to go along with their intransigence.
This is what will finally shake the image we have of a broken health care system in America:
ReplyDeleteA. Tort reform for malpractice.
B. Improved portability of plans.
C. Ability to buy insurance across state borders.
D. Some more regulation to reduce rejection of coverage due to "pre-existing" (i.e. existing) conditions.
E. Technology:
1. If we can amass enough patient data (including diagnoses and outcomes!), we can apply the great techniques that other fields (business, finance, particle physics) are using to diagnose people with less expensive testing.
2. Testing will become much cheaper as existing techniques are commoditized and newer, cheaper techniques develop.
3. Productivity of the most expensive health care professionals will increase as productivity in other fields has, due to the above changes