Let's be honest here: despite all the happy talk that this is moving forward, the Dems don't have the votes.
The Dems don't have the 51 votes for Senate reconciliation, or the 218 for passing the Senate bill in the House. As it stands now, this bill's dead. There is no health care reform.
Unless.
Unless. Something has to change here in the next couple of weeks. I was hoping it was going to be the summit, to finally convince everyone that there was no chance at the Republicans coming on board. But the Dems knew that back in August.
If the votes were there, we'd have a bill by now. We don't. There's empirical evidence to support this, because there's no law yet.
So what has to change? Obama has to twist some arms here. The Dems have to commit to this now, 100%. If they do not, they are doomed. The Republicans warn that passing this bill and using reconciliation on it would be "catastrophic". If that's so, then the Republicans should be daring them to pass the bill. They're not.
Think about that. To clarify what I mean, we need health care reform. This is bigger than November.
Dems had better get those votes. And soon.
Absolutely correct. If the Dems don't pass this, I will seriously think about becoming an Independent because they will have basically damaged the country and self-destructed the party. Obama, at least, is now attempting to lead. I hope that he ratchets up the pressure and keeps up the public appeals. This is about so much more than the Health bill but it is important for that reason alone.
ReplyDeleteSo you're argument is the repubs who say this would be catastrophic should want the Dems to ram it through?
ReplyDeleteActually right now the Repubs are sitting pretty, either it's passed and they use the "rammed it down your throat" or it doesn't pass and the Dems look like failures anyway.
The Dems let this blow up much bigger than it should because they lacked spines. In the end I guess lacking spines was good for America. Between their bill and no bill we'd be better off without one.