Partisan and Then Some

23 November 2009



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Senate Votes to Debate Health Care Bill

The US Senate voted Saturday night to begin debate on Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) health care bill. The tally was 60 in favor of debate (the Democrats 58 plus the two independents who caucus with them) and 39 opposed (every Republican except Mr. Voinovich of Ohio who didn't vote). The Democrats are starting to realize that the GOP really isn't interested in any kind of compromise. New York's Chuck Schumer even made so bold as to say they would pass the bill without the Republicans if need be. The question is whether they have enough party discipline to pass it without anyone on their side jumping ship.

The troublemakers are few in the Senate, but because of the chamber's rules, those few are enough. The Senate doesn't need all the Democrats voting for the bill to pass it, but they need everyone to end debate. So Nebraska's Ben Nelson becomes important. So does Louisiana's Senator Mary Landrieu, who just got $100 million set aside in the bill for her state, an extra incentive that still might not prove adequate. And of course, the Dems biggest fair weather supporter is Joe Lieberman who as an independent represents Connecticut and the insurance industry, not in that order. He has said he won't vote for the bill if it has a public option as a matter of conscience.

However, the bill may run into trouble in the House of Representatives once the Senate has passed the bill and the conference committee has reconciled the differences. To get backing of some conservative Democrats, the House leadership threw in some anti-abortion language that takes American law farther to the right on the issue. Needless to say, that annoyed many on the left. Splitting the difference here is going to be tricky.

The Republicans will try to drag the debate out through the holidays, and the way the US Senate works, they will probably be successful. They would love to have the bill fail to get an up or down vote in the Senate. If they can't prevent that, they hope to make the vote close, stripping off a few Nelsons and Landrieus. Their mid-term election pitch then becomes the bill's opposition was bipartisan.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration knows that it needs the bill passed and signed before much more time goes by. Senators and Congressmen will be focusing on re-election in a couple of months, and any controversial stands could be vote losers. It is better from the White House viewpoint to have the bill pass when most voters are worried about presents and turkey dinners.

This process is a long way from being over, and there is still a reasonable risk that the bill won't pass. If that happens, the Obama administration will be in some trouble. Add in the Afghan War escalation and Wall Street bonuses, and this could still be a lousy time to be an Obamaniac. What is distressing is the Democrats have staked their future on passing a bill, and the Republicans' future rides on stopping it. What few really consider at this stage is whether the bill is any good, and frankly, it is only good in the sense that something has to be done. This bill won't be the big fix the country needs, but doing nothing is the big failure it can't afford.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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