OpEd:
Healthcare Has a Glimmer of Hope
November 9, 2009 by Kyle BradyTags: America, Congress, Healthcare, House of Representatives, Politics
As required by the FTC, a Full Disclosure is available - this piece adheres to the Code of Ethics
On Saturday night, the 7th of November 2009, a moment that is being called “historic” by some passed by without much notice to the general American population until Sunday: the healthcare reform bill was voted on, and passed, in the House of Representatives. Not in a committee or in some pre-approval vote-to-vote fashion, but the actual, legitimate bill.
This is mostly good news for the country and the issue of healthcare reform, as half of Congress has now definitively taken a stance on the issues at hand, but the battle is far from over: the Senate must vote on their own version of a healthcare bill, and there will likely be even more time spent afterward wrangling a single bill out of the two for the President to sign into law. However, the fact that the House of Representatives took a vote now is indicative of their intent, since the Senate Majority Leader has only recently stated a vote in the Senate could possibly occur after the start of 2010 – this is the House giving impetus to their slower-moving legislative counterparts.
The vote was broadcast on C-SPAN some time around 11pm PST, repackaged for CNN and other major infotainment stations, and the fifteen-minute process delivered some interesting information to the viewers: the ability to watch how long it took 30-or-so Democratic Representatives to decide where they stand was an astounding display of political dithering. Additionally, Republicans, barely after the start of the vote, had almost unanimously voted against the bill, but a lone Republican, Anh "Joseph" Cao, eventually voted in its favor, even as 39 Democrats displayed where their true loyalties lay.
Displays such as this by the Republican Party show that they truly are, at least at the representation level, the “Party of ‘No’”, their previous procedural attempts to block the vote completely notwithstanding. Despite a serious number of concessions that raise grave concerns about the legitimate impact of the bill, such as a removal of support for abortions via public option, did not seem to have any effect on how the GOP House Representatives voted – what, then, was the purpose of attempting to negotiate with them? This is likely a preview of how the Senate’s vote will proceed, with a majority of its members voting along party lines and a small handful standing as the “deciding factors”.
The bill from the House is far from perfect, but it is a decent foundation and a definitive declaration of intent to the American people – it has very little chance of becoming actual law as it currently stands, but the tone has been set, and that is almost as important as the legislation itself. It is worrisome, however, that the last six months have been essentially wasted in argument, discussion, and propaganda, thanks, in large part, to the childlike and irrational oppositional display shown en masse.
It’s important to note that the Democrats who voted for the bill were not in favor of all its amendments and provisions, but rather in support of a majority of them and the ideological force behind the bill. Republicans would have done better to vote more fluidly in this nature, with public statements on their likes/dislikes, but, at this point, such behavior cannot be expected from the party that is collapsing on itself.
The Senate must now make a push for their version of the bill to be voted on within the very near future, lest this process be extended any further than necessary without any gains, most especially since those in opposition have proven they are not interested in having their vote being swayed – Olympia Snowe does not matter. Leaving this piece of legislation to linger in the Senate past the New Year would be a crushing blow to progress, as the first few months of the year are always dedicated to financing the government and other administrative deeds. The strategy during the Clinton Administration was for the Republicans to delay until an election year, where Congressmen would be more careful of how they vote, and their current not-so-secret scheming are exactly the same.
Healthcare reform, the public option included, now has a glimmer of hope, thanks to most of the House Democrats and Representative Cao. The fate of the bill now rests with the Senate, which the American people can only hope will make the ethically correct decision to deal with the health, state, and general welfare of the country sooner rather than later.
Kyle can be found on Twitter and MySpace, or reached via email.
