Health care reform’s endgame
Now that the House and Senate both have health-care bills to vote on, the final round begins
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has delivered a 1,990-page health-care bill.
(EPA/Corbis/Michael Reynolds)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dropped a 1,990-page bill into the health care overhaul mix, where it joins the Senate plan recently outlined by Majority Leader Harry Reid. The House bill includes a public option, expands Medicaid, and covers 96 percent of Americans, at a 10-year net cost of $894 billion—though the Congressional Budget Office says it will reduce the deficit over 20 years. Besides whipping up votes, what’s left to work out?
The final countdown starts: Nancy Pelosi has started the clock on health-care reform, say Patrick O’Connor and Chris Frates in Politico. And while House Democrats are “bullish” about passing the bill by Nov. 11, they have some internal hurdles to clear first—the biggest “involve abortion and immigration.” But trading away her “more liberal vision” for the bill, especially a robust public option, should help ensure House passage and ease differences with the Senate version.
“Nancy Pelosi starts clock on House health care bill”
Both bills are the same—bad: Pelosi’s bill is “more of the same,” say the editors of National Review, the same being a big pile of “liberal hubris.” Even if you took out the public option, both Democratic bills raise taxes and premiums, coerce people into buying insurance, and disrupt our medical system. Sure, House and Senate Democrats disagree on how to fund this unpopular mess, but “what seems most inevitable is that sooner or later they will pay for it.”
“The inevitable debacle”
The big question is the public option: Both chambers are ignoring the “growing public groundswell” for a stronger public option, says the Houston Chronicle in an editorial, but the House version “comes closest” to providing this “urgently needed” alternative to “unresponsive corporate” insurance monoliths. “We can do better,” though—and better means including a “thoughtfully constructed public option” in the final bill.
“Preferred option”
It’s now in the hands of the 'centrists': Even with a watered-down public option, says Paul Krugman in The New York Times, the “broadly similar” House and Senate bills are better than I’d expected. Now a handful of “self-proclaimed centrists” will decide if this “seemingly impossible dream of fundamental health-care reform” is killed or finally realized. For health care, “this is the moment of truth”—which side are you on, centrists?
“The defining moment”
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18 Comments
Posted by Ron, Friday, October 30, 2009, 3:36 pm 1,990 page bill?? Come on, Nance. You didn't read it and no one else did either. Liars. Con artists. Rip off criminals. Time to vote them OUT. They are not good for America, and tax paying citizens.
Posted by swelling ground support, Friday, October 30, 2009, 4:17 pm 'Swelling ground support for the public option?' Where's this suggestion coming from? I've searched the web intensely and still only find growing numbers, a majority, who are absolutely against the public option and the healthcare bills of both house and senate. Is this suggestion just a hope that 'if a lie is presented enough, foolish people will accept it as truth?' If not would someone please give me a legitimate site... not Huffington, Salon, moveon.com, etc. The Week disappoints in presenting more pro than con references on this subject.
Posted by bug eyes, Friday, October 30, 2009, 4:31 pm If pelosi had read all 1990 pages of the bill, her eyes would be at quarter mast instead of her usual plastic surgery bug eyes. Independent and partisan citizens of any party, who are educated and actively cognizant of politics, refuse to buy the partisan talking points. Thinking citizens can see the power grab by the criminals in the congress. Not criminals? Think Charlie Rangel, Barney Frank, etc. Left, right, up and down, they are all serving themselves. Citizens are nothing in their eyes. Throw the bums out!
Posted by dj spellchecka, Friday, October 30, 2009, 4:37 pm to the commentor aboveIn an Oct. 21 Gallup survey 50 percent of respondents thought a healthcare bill should include a public, government run insurance plan. Forty six percent thought it should not.In an Oct. 20 ABC News Washington Post survey, 57 percent of respondents were in favor of government establishing a health plan to compete with private insurers.source: christian science monitor October 27, 2009i'd add the link but theweek's comment word processing would wreck itgoogle the words 'support for public option'..cheers
Posted by dj spellchecka, Friday, October 30, 2009, 4:40 pm just like it wrecked that comment by leaving out various spaces....sheesh
Posted by adam smith, Friday, October 30, 2009, 7:55 pm Possibly banning insurance is the best option when reforming health care is considered. It has clearly reached its tipping point, that being service as opposed to revenues. and revenue for the insurance industry has won and that has NOTHING to do with the medical industry. The medical profession is being screwed at the opposite end of the table by the insurance companies. With a few exceptions, the insurance industry does not provide services, they are JUST middlemen. Since banning isn't possible, put me on record as in favor of govt option.
Posted by APatt, Friday, October 30, 2009, 8:55 pm Thank you for posting swelling ground support. My eyebrows raised when I read that part and I was so perplexed. I have been an avid reader on what's going on w/the health care debate and never have I read anywhere except for the unions, of course that a majority is for the public option. I see the opposite happening.
Posted by swelling ground support, Friday, October 30, 2009, 10:03 pm dj spellchecka, I went to the Gallup site to which you referred, and I couldn't find your statistics, and yes, I read every word. There were several references to public opinion, could you have been confused? The WaPo poll is just Huffington in ink, and as liberal a rag as its sister pub the NYTs. My sources are less partisan. Sources like the Pew Report, RealClearPolitics, etc. Check out page 92 in the Pelosi healthcare bill where citizens will NOT have the option to buy private insurance after this bill is passed.
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