By Tim Redmond
There are some good reasons, I suppose, to support the Obama insurance bill. It’s a start, anyway — and you could argue that once it gets up and running, the flaws will become obvious and we can fix them later (by adding a public option, say).
You could also argue that this is the only chance we’re getting, and once this behemoth is in place, it’ll be hard to open the debate up again for years.
And the list of problems with the bill is growing.
Which is why Howard Dean is leading the charge to defeat it (and pissing off the White House in the process.)
In my Editors Notes column this week, I noted that a new poll shows Democrats less likely to come to the polls and vote for their party’s candidates next fall if there’s no public option in the health care bill. That leaves an interesting question: Once the bill gets out of the Senate, the House will have to reconcile the differences (since the House bill was not at all like the Senate bill is currently). If Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t support the bill — that is, if she takes Dean’s line — the it could well die. So far, she’s not saying much:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to show her hand on the matter Wednesday, telling reporters that she won’t make a call on the Senate bill until she sees it. She suggested she’s open to compromise.
“We do know that, between the two bills, we have the makings of a … big difference for the American people,” she said. “And our members are very enthusiastic about our House bill, and we want to defend our position. At some point, though, the legislative process will say that they have to yield on things and we have to yield on things.”
I’m starting to go with the Howard Dean line — we’ve given up absolutely everything. There’s no public option. There’s no Medicare buy-in. There’s not really a ban on pre-existing conditions.
So what, exactly, are we getting here?