Obamacare Kabuki
And so today, the great minds of the Senate and House from both parties will come together with His Holiness to present their sides in the great health care reform debate. Call it the Blair House Project. I’ve got to say that after the election of Senator Scott Brown and President Obama’s statements that “He gets it, it’s about jobs”, the specter of health care reform rising from the legislative grave is indeed amazing. While reading over coffee this morning that Danny Williams, a premier in Canada (whose health care system is held as a shining example of what our system should be) traveled to the US to have heart work done because he can get better care here, I fervently hoped that today’s theater of the absurd will drive a stake through the heart of this vampire.
Now, make no mistake. Despite his protestations, Obama’s summit today is meant to help strive toward one goal: passing a health care reform bill, quickly. Not the best bill possible. Not the bill containing the best ideas on both the Democratic and Republican side. Not the best bill for the American people. No…the object here is to pass something, anything and soon. No matter what is said at Blair House today, there are basically three options the President and Democrats have vis a vis health care:
1) On Monday, the White House released a regurgitated version of Obamacare. It’s not a bill, just an outline of what the plan should look like. It can’t be voted on. It has features of, but is not exactly the same, as the Senate bill passed in December. If President Obama and the Democrats ignore Republicans at Blair House today and use the president’s proposal as a basis for legislation, then the whole thing gets tossed back into the Congressional sausage grinder and is discussed ad nauseum until the midterm elections, in which case the bill still isn’t passed and the Democrats are annihilated at the polls in November.
2) The Democrats, Republicans and President Obama sit down in good faith and hammer out a compromise. Ultra-liberals in Obama’s base and in Congress will howl at such a bill, so the whole thing will get tossed back into the Congressional sausage grinder and is discussed ad nauseum until the midterm elections, in which case the bill still isn’t passed and the Democrats are annihilated at the polls in November.
3) After today’s dog and pony show, the House passes the Senate bill intact, which it must do for reconciliation to occur in the Senate. And yes, that’s the same health care bill with the Cornhusker Kickback; with the union exemption of gold plate health care plans; with the Louisiana Purchase. Then the House sends it back to the Senate for reconciliation. If the Senate passes the bill and then the President signs it, the Democrats are annihilated at the polls in November. But they have their bill.
Of course, the fact that we don’t have a health care reform bill has been blamed on the obstructionist Republicans. No matter that, with the Democrats controlling both the executive and legislative branch of the government, some sort of health care reform monstrosity could have been passed ten months ago. The Democrats have held up the reconciliation process as some sort of holy grail which has the power to “get health care done”. I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure that Nancy Pelosi has enough votes in the House to pass the Senate bill as is. Once it’s back in the Senate, do Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and their ilk have the stomach to herd the bill through what most Americans feel is an odious reconciliation process? Taking a stand on principle against reconciliation, if not the bill itself, might be the only option Lincoln has to save her seat in November.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…it is fascinating to watch the president and Democratic members of the House and Senate step up to the vat of cyanide laced kool aid that is this health care reform bill, concocted by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and drink from it. One in five Americans are out of work, consumer confidence is crashing, we’re about to get hit with mammoth inflation and Iran is building a nuclear weapon. But health care reform is still priority number one at the White House. We’re told that this bill is good for America, and yet the Democrats can’t even get their entire caucus onboard. If the bill is so good, why does the party in control of Congress and the White House have to resort to parliamentary smoke and mirrors to get it passed? It truly is the theater of the absurd.
