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Is There a Way Forward on Health Care?

by Charlie Spiering

At the end of 2009, comprehensive health care reform seemed unstoppable.

Senate Democrats forced a bill through a Christmas Eve vote using their 60 vote super-majority, finishing a year long struggle to move their signature issue forward. After a year’s worth of debate and compromise, the bill was ugly, but questions were shrugged aside as Democrat leaders pushed for the finish line.

2010 changed everything, as Sen. Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts into the seat of the late health care champion Sen. Ted Kennedy and forced Democrats to give up their filibuster-proof majority.

Lawmakers knew that frustrated Americans were unhappy with what Congress produced and realized that they no longer had the momentum to finish.

Looking back, the Senate version of the bill was one that few senators could be proud of. It was filled with deals to win the votes for reluctant Senators, mandated that all Americans purchase insurance and failed to eliminate coverage for abortions. The public health care option that was sought after by so many Democrats seemed shredded into a complicated mess of subsidies and payouts for the health insurance industry.

At this point, the Senate bill has lost all of its political capital. Politically vulnerable Senate Democrats that cheered its passage on Christmas Eve are now disavowing the bill as a legislative failure.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has restated its opposition towards the Senate bill, noting that it failed to include Hyde Amendment restrictions on abortion funding, but urged Congressional leaders to find a new way forward.

“Now is not the time to abandon this task, but rather to set aside partisan divisions and special interest pressures to find ways to enact genuine reform,” the bishops’ conference stated.

Their words echo President Obama’s State of the Union address: “Don’t walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people. Let's get it done.”

But the way forward is still unclear. President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continue to support passage of the issue, but Americans will see little Congressional progress.

Democrats used their 60 vote majority to pass the Senate bill, but that bill will not pass the House, according to Pelosi. One suggested way forward at this point is to convince the House to pass the Senate bill and include a reconciliatory measure into the budget to fix some of the problems.

That process seems increasingly difficult, especially since a recent CNN poll showed that 69 percent of Americans said that Congress should dump current health care legislation and either write an entirely new health bill or stop working on reform altogether.

Congress loves to procrastinate when faced with difficult issues, which is why we will hear speeches, goals, and promises regarding health care reform, but little action. While Democrats search for a way forward, politically popular bills (such as a jobs bill) will pass with a great fanfare, but the more controversial legislation will be saved for the end of the year.

President Obama has boldly suggested in recent days that Senate Democrats should do what is right for America and pass the health care bill in spite of voter disapproval, but his call for political martyrdom in an election year has fallen flat.

The health care debate is exhausted for now, and the hard charge to pass comprehensive health care reform has failed.

Congress has a long road ahead.

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)