So health care reform actually made it. I feel like I should write something about how great this is, some ebullient prose in honor of the biggest legislative accomplishment of my lifetime. But I feel like it’s all been said already.
It’s not a perfect bill by any stretch. But it is a very good one. And it lays the groundwork for putting together a reasonably universal approach to health care, helping to drag this country into the modern world on that subject.
There is one thing to the post-reform coverage that’s been rubbing me the wrong way. One example here, from Monica Potts at The American Prospect:
We Knew This Would Happen. It’s just shocking that it’s happening so soon. Sen. Chuck Grassley is sending e-mails trumpeting a component of the health care reform bill he ultimately voted against.
People seem to think that this is some huge hypocrisy but I don’t really see it.
The argument made some sense with the stimulus, where the GOP was simultaneously declaring that the bill created zero jobs and also taking credit for the jobs it was bringing to their home district.
But with health care reform, Grassley is touting some measures he got the Dems to insert into the bill on charitable hospitals. He’s not claiming that the whole bill is good; he’s saying that it’s better than it would be without him. That he was able to get the Democrats to insert stuff that he wanted without actually having to vote for it seems to be a good demonstration of his political acumen. Which is precisely the point, right?
On the other side, this is one episode which demonstrates that the health care changes were in fact ‘bipartisan,’ as long as you focus on the content of the bill rather than the casting of votes. Which is to say, lefty folks should be applauding Grassley for identifying ways that the Democrats incorporated Republican ideas, not mocking him for being a hypocrite.
As for the longer term, I predict that the health system still has many, many flaws – ones which have little or nothing to do with the newly enacted health care law – which some people will attempt to cast as failures for Obama. But on the whole, things will get better, and within a few years this reform will become standard, accepted, and set in stone. For the midterms, I’ll stick with what I’ve been saying for months: Democrats will lose seats in both houses, will hold onto the Senate with a few seats to spare, and are about 60/40 to hold the House.
But really, passing health care just means that they now retain the chance to hold serve. It’s ultimately going to depend on the economy more than anything.