Democrats are struggling to figure out what to do about health care reform and we may know more by the middle of next week. Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to make the Massachusetts election a national referendum on health care reform, that may be a stretch but what’s new in the world of politics? There is a strong sense that Democrats need to move quickly on health care and that they may do, but what will they do?
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Massachusetts, who would have thought? No matter we know best. If we could only keep these deals quiet.
Doing nothing is the most unlikely scenario. The second most unlikely is for the House to pass the Senate bill as is (they don’t have the votes in the House). Then we have the possibility for the House to pass the Senate bill under a deal that would make further changes wanted by House members in other subsequent legislation, perhaps via a budget reconciliation bill that requires only a simple majority to pass. How this would play with the voters who appear to be paying attention to all these deals and machinations is questionable.
Another possibility is to pass a limited bill, in other words take an incremental approach (hopefully, but questionably with Republican support). Such a bill could change the rules for pre-existing conditions, and other plan limits, dependent age limits and many subsidies. Such a move may drag the debate on longer.
Keep one thing in mind, regardless of what the American people think, the President and the Democratic leaders remain committed to getting something done and want to move forward. Moving forward and attempting to address some of the most visible lightening rods in the legislation is likely. The danger of course is that they are once again misreading the American people and their fears about major changes to a system that while costly beyond sustainability, is effectively serving the majority of the population for the time being.
Something happening is still a likely possibility before the State of the Union Address even if it is modest changes with more to come. Keep in mind we are dealing with politicians, and their leaders are out of touch with the mainstream of America.
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