The Healthcare Reform Bill That Never Was
It has been announced that the Democratic Congress is trying to push through their unfinished and unmerged concepts of what they call healthcare reform, even though neither of the bills is complete and proper melding of the two is a long ways off. Why? Because there’s a good chance that a Republican will take over Kennedy’s seat, allowing for a filibuster. Seems like a reasonable strategy for a politician, but what would it do for We The People?
What it would do is worse than doing nothing. Though they’ve had a year to pull it together, this haphazard set of political concessions lacks a unifying vision, a comprehensive functional approach. Even now, the House and Senate bills are incompatible. To jot down something, cut and paste all that rhetoric into one bill and force it through (and down the constituents’ throats) instead of allowing the Republicans the opportunity to have their say in the matter (whether by filibuster or otherwise) is just petty politics and ought to be beneath men and women of integrity.
But why is it worse than nothing? Glad you asked. Most people don’t yet realize it, but the taxes will be imposed upon the people immediately, even though the benefits of the bill won’t kick in for a minimum of three years. Yep. We’d be paying for this half-baked brain-flop and still be on our own with the status quo for three (and most likely several more) years. It’s nothing short of childish to push an unfinished bill through just so the other side of The Aisle can’t participate in what some still jokingly refer to as the Democratic Process.
Nancy Pelosi complains, “I heard the candidate in Massachusetts, the Republican candidate, say ‘Let’s go back to the drawing board. The drawing board for the Republican Party on health care is to tear it up and throw it away and shred it and never revisit it.’ Back to the drawing board,” she adds, “means a great big zero for the American people.”
The people of this nation don’t want either of the bills as they stand. In fact, most of us don’t even know how long the list of political concessions are, but we do know that it isn’t looking like what President Obama had as his campaign platform, and it doesn’t look at all like something that can work (in that it lacks Tort Reform.) To say that the Republicans don’t want health care reform is absurd and denies the facts. Mitt Romney is a Republican. So is John McCain. Both of them have promoted reform bills, to name just two. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are the heartless monsters that they’re painting each other as. What they ARE, though, are politicians, dead-set on “winning” the war against each other, with the health of the nation on the line.
Pelosi complains that the Republican candidate for the empty seat says they should scrap the whole mess and start over again. Makes good sense from here. In fact, that may be the smartest idea in many months.
Give 5 reasonably intelligent people an administrative assistant and a few people to do some fact-finding, and they’ll come up with a functional, comprehensive health care reform in about 3 months. The 600 members of Congress haven’t produced one in a year. Sometimes it’s best to recognize when it’s time to scrap what you’re working on and just start over.
Medical Justice is neither Democrat nor Republican, Conservative nor Liberal. The organization exists to serve its members, while protecting the health of this country’s patients. As such, Medical Justice doesn’t care which side of The Aisle an idea comes from, so long as it’s functional. What the Democratic Congress wants to push through is not functional. We urge you to contact your representatives and let them know that forcing this bill through as it is will result in a lot of new people in Congressional seats next election. Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad idea anyway.
