It was reality TV all day in the Health Care debate, except no one was voted off the panel. The day would have been more exciting if Donald Trump would have bluntly stated to Nancy Pelosi, “You’re Fired.” In fact, that would have been beautiful.
My take on the day is that it was a day of polar opposites. The Democrats pushed for “fairness” and “opportunities” while the Republicans pushed for “economic freedom” and “personal responsibility.” The best voice, though I realize I am biased, was Dr. Tom Coburn. He is such a stable and calm voice in the chaos.
Here is my main concern. Both parties seemed to spend a great deal of time talking about ideas that should be implemented by states, not the federal government. For instance, most of the tort reform conversation from Republicans dealt with what Texas and California have done. While they may be great ideas, they are state issues, not national issues. Democrats made me yell at the TV multiple times as they talked about “simple majority vote is democracy and is fair to most Americans” as they talked about the Senate. My favorite quote of the day had to be Chris Dodd, who stated that if we give the right to all Americans to have a lawyer, we should give that right to all Americans to have a doctor. That pesky Constitution.
I do think that health care access and cost is an issue. But, the proposal currently being discussed in Congress seems to avoid the root issues and reject our national heritage and values.
In fact, I believe that all of the national discussion is slowing down real state solutions. Our state will not deal with serious health care issues because no one knows what the US Congress is going to do. State based exchanges, small business group pools, tax credits for individual ownership and portability of insurance, ability to purchase drugs internationally… It is a tough journey to solve some of the health reimbursement issues, but we have to start in a way that shares our values and is consistent with our Constitution.
When do we start?
why didnt the republicans make some headway with health care when they were in control??? I’m neither republican or democrat—just a tax paying citizen that cant get affordable health care insurance.
DO SOMETHING or GET OUT!!!
I note that a fundamental element of your campaign focuses on supporting and abiding by the Constitution. Of course, to do that, you need to know what it says. In this blog post, you write “since the Constitution is the one that gives the 60 vote requirement to close debate in the Senate. ”
This is not true. The Constitution does not provide for the 60% vote requirement. This is a Senate procedural rule, one that members of both parties have proposed changing when they have been in power.
You then note that, in considering using reconciliation (ie, a simple majority vote) for the Senate to approve the health care reform bill that “I know that pesky Constitution gets in the way of so many good arguments for Democrats. ”
If that’s the case, it likely got in the way of Republicans as well on the approximately 21 instances where they have used reconciliation to force a “simple up or down vote” in the past 30 years.