With the big vote coming up this weekend in the House, I wanted to share this plain-language look at what the bill actually contains. Amidst all the shouting, this is a calm layout of the bill:
Also, if this bill — which relies on market exchanges and doesn’t have a government-run plan — is what passes as “socialist”, the word has truly lost all meaning.
Tomorrow is the Massachusetts special Senate election for Ted Kennedy’s seat, the coverage of which has been drawing my attention for the past week and a half. While I think it’ll be a disappointment if Coakley loses, as it would indicate reinforcement of the unsuccessful status quo of the past decade, that and a G.O.P. gain in November will surprise me about as much as our Chicago toaster oven will when it burns the toast again. (And by that I mean I will be not at all surprised.)
The stats on midterm elections are frequently trotted out, and they’re almost always bad for the incumbent President’s party. Also frequently trotted out these days is the fact that the “Tea Party” is more popular than either major party, and while that movement doesn’t seem to me to have a platform beyond “visceral howls of opposition”, that’s a lot of voter anger floating around that’s inevitably focused on the team in power.
That said, what potential G.O.P. candidate out there can win in 2012? It looks now like none of them can: Romney is too manufactured to get the nomination; Huckabee commuted the sentence of a prisoner who later murdered four police officers; Palin won’t convince enough general-election voters that she’s competent; and Pawlenty is possible but Midwestern governors are usually too nondescript (remember when people said Tom Vilsack could get the Democratic nomination?). The best remaining candidate is probably Rudy Giuliani, but his personal life is a mess, he’s too socially liberal for the base, he dropped out in 2008 when he couldn’t even win the Florida primary and he’s made enough ridiculous claims recently to turn off most voters. In early 2006 the Democrats had the Hillary machine and Obama was an untarnished star, but there’s nobody in the G.O.P. like that as of January 2010.
Anything’s possible in almost three years — caveat up in here — but the conservative part of the G.O.P. is super fired-up and determined to knock off all moderates, meaning they’re either going to nominate someone like Palin who is very unlikely to win the general election or they’ll get angry at having to swallow yet another compromise mainstream candidate like McCain. Either way, not a great situation for challenging a sitting president who’s had time to recalibrate from midterm results.
So the House version of the health-care reform bill just passed by five votes, 220 to 215. There was exactly one Republican vote in favor, from Rep. Joseph Cao of New Orleans, who I imagine is the most hated man in the party right now. (In a racially intolerant throwback, the “g–k” word is floating around online – lofty rhetoric from those on the way-right wing still living in the Korean War era.)
Me, I think it’s a mostly positive development and certainly an issue that has long remained shamefully unaddressed, even if useful explainers like this one still leave me wondering how much the system will ultimately change. And I guess that’s it: the Senate hasn’t voted yet, a compromise bill might still be necessary, and then there’s the unpredictable way that market forces will respond once any new law is in place. So I’m holding off judgment on any reform effort for now, and probably for a while. I feel like b-school has taught me that even if there oughta be a law about something, it’s only when you see how everyone works with and around that law that you can really judge if it was worthwhile.
So for now: we’ll see.