Posted by
Bill Crawford on Friday, August 28, 2009 2:58:25 PM
The Democrats are doing their level best to keep pumping oxygen into the health care proposals, still in committee in both chambers.
They've decided to use the name of the late Senior Senator from Massachusetts to, well, 'win one for the Gipper', I guess. Given his efforts in pushing single payer over the last thirty years, this seems entirely appropriate.
I don't think it will change the equation much. There still is a dead Senator who his State can't legally replace until they change the law again to suit them, at least until January. I understand this President hails from Chicago, where dead people vote Democrat all the time, but even there, the dead people don't get to vote on the Senate floor. Too many people are looking.
Even if it all dies before it hits the floor, which it will in the Senate because they don't have the votes, they may try to resurrect it under another name. The trouble for them is, if they try to be cute with it and parlay out the "public option" as a simple set of mandates for the health insurers that amount to the same thing ten years down the road, they already have set the precedent of having been cute, and people will make a point of digging into the details.
And, unlike the "Stimulus Bill", you can't "air drop" the amendments in overnight, so you can't create a health care Bill and vote on it 24 hours later. People actually get time to read it.
So, while I won't say this all is dead for the moment, it's close. It would be nice if they started over, and actually looked at Republican proposals on all this. But they won't. It's good money that many Democrats will try and make a living on the campaign trail next year talking about what great plans they had and how they were spoiled by the "party of No".