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"The Controversial Differences"

There is a lot to disagree with in this Ezra Klein piece, but I want to focus on the new drumbeat that the "controversial differences" between the House and the Senate bill are few:

That would require House Democrats to do something they don't wish to do and pass the Senate bill unchanged. But passing the Senate bill unchanged would not mean that health-care reform cannot be changed. The bulk of the controversial differences between the two bills have to do with money -- how you raise it and how much of it you spend. Those differences can be resolved through the 51-vote reconciliation process. There's even an open reconciliation vehicle waiting to be used.

(Emphasis supplied.) Ezra is talking about the excise tax. But this is not the "bulk of the differences." It is really astounding that Ezra, who's own list of "fixes" to the Senate bill was quite long, argues this. Imagine what the House, who basically disagreed with Ezra's reform ideas, thinks. The House, especially House progressives, need to bargain to their maximum leverage now. As Ezra says, the Senate bill is sitting there - passage of that bill by the House can wait until the reconciliation agreement is hammered out. If that takes a couple of weeks or more, so be it. The elections are not until November.

Speaking for me only

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  • Display: Sort:
    Trouble with a Capital T (5.00 / 2) (#3)
    by bmc on Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 12:06:55 PM EST
    I'm sorry but Democrats just don't get it, and Klein doesn't get it either. What do they think Virginia, New Jersey and now Massachusetts are all about? Mocking "tea-baggers" is not a winning strategy.

    They're trying to force something on the voters that they don't want, and the more the voters resist, the more adamant the administration and Dem leaders and their sycophants in the MSNBC gutter get. Well, fine. When they lose the House and Senate, they can blame only themselves for their arrogant attitudes. David Brooks calls it the "let them eat cake" attitude; it is apparently the new authoritarian Democratic Party.

    The new Dem meme is that once the bill is passed, they'll embark on a sales tour to sell it to the voters, a fact I find a bit astonishing.

    Only  1/3rd of voters support Obama's Health Care Reform Proposals:

    http://dailycaller.com/2010/01/18/carville-poll-only-13-of-voters-support-barack-obamas-national-hea lth-care-plan/

    Pelosi: We Don't Care What the Voters Want!

    http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2010/01/18/pelosi/index.html?source=rss&aim=/politics/war _room

    Coakley: Well, 61% of voters are WRONG about Health Care!

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/01/18/ma-sen_coakley_says_61_are_wrong_about_health_care .html

    The Massachusetts race is about health care reform. The people don't like it; they don't like Obama's proposals, and the trend is not friendly to Democrats. This is an unpopular proposal; so the Democrats plan to focus on it--after they've passed the bill without the support of most voters--all summer into the fall to try to sell it?  That's like poking their finger in voters' eyes, it seems to me.

    Personally, I think we should have just stuck to the single-payer government run health care system.  The popular opinion at the end of Bush's administration was supportive in that direction, remember the polls? At the very least, if we couldn't get single-payer national health insurance, we could have settled for a few major changes to regulate insurance, like a law preventing pre-existing conditions exclusions, a law eliminating the anti-trust exemption for insurance companies, and a law allowing importation of drugs from Canada.

    But this nightmare? Even if Coakley pulls off a miracle in Massachusetts, forcing this bill down voters' throats is a mistake of epic proportions.  


    I read (none / 0) (#1)
    by Ga6thDem on Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 08:12:28 AM EST
    where the WH is putting pressure on the members of the house to cave and pass the thing.

    Yep (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by MO Blue on Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 08:26:27 AM EST
    What we will in all probability get is the Senate version of the health insurance give away and Sen. Brown from MA.

    Of course, the Dems will promise to fix unpopular items in the bill. Those will occur about the same time as they fix NCLB, DOMA and FISA.

    Parent