The health care endgame

I have no interest whatsoever in defending the latest round of ridiculous buck-passing going on in the House. The idea, apparently, is that they’re going to pass the raft of fixes to the health care bill and simply ‘deem’ the Senate bill passed.

Somehow this is supposed to reduce process-based attacks from the Republicans. The mind boggles.

Sometimes you wonder how the Democratic Party hasn’t self-immolated yet. We’re talking about an absolute core principle of the party. If you aren’t interested in trying to get millions of more people some basic health care than what exactly are you doing in the party anyway? And if, even worse, you’re Dennis Kucinich, how can you sleep at night knowing how much good this bill would do but still opposing it because it doesn’t achieve the purity of alien-inspired dreams?

But now we’re facing the possibility that living, breathing people who were capable of getting themselves elected to the House of Representatives in the most powerful country the world has ever seen are simultaneously so stupid that they think this legislative rigmarole is going to help them. While I’ve stated repeatedly that all the fuss about the ‘Cornhusker kickback’ and such things is mostly an illusion generated by the process, apparently House Democrats are absolutely terrified of it. So terrified that they’re not even willing to go on record as having voted for the bill that contains it. Despite the fact that they’re going to turn around and IMMEDIATELY vote for another bill that removes it.

A bill, by the way, that will be immensely popular and create a serious bind for the Republicans. Because if they just do this the old-fashioned way, the initial vote to pass the Senate bill makes health care the law of the land. They pass it and Obama signs it and it’s LAW. At that point, the Republicans in Congress are going to be faced with a seriously deadly choice. They can continue to go nuts and vote against everything health care related–but that will put them on record as attempting to SUSTAIN the ‘Cornhusker kickback’ and the ‘Big Apple buyout’ and the ‘Sooner snicker-doodles’ or whatever. Or, they can vote for the patch and seriously undermine their “health care is going to pay for Rahm Emanuel to kill your grandmother in a big field of corn” message. Since they will have voted for a bipartisan fix to it.

But no, the Democrats want to get all fancy now, and adopt a mechanism that is questionably constitutional and stupid on the merits.

The whole Democratic establishment has drawn battle lines now. Obama, the House leadership, the Senate leadership, unions, everyone. They’re all making it clear that this needs to pass and that they’re willing to completely withdraw electoral support for people who don’t join in – even to the point of funding primary opponents. And good for them. Even if it wasn’t politically smart (which it is), there are some moments when you just have to do what is right and let the chips fall where they may. I don’t often like what Will Saletan has to say, but his recent piece on this is spot-on:

Maybe passing the health care bill will bring on a Republican tsunami. Maybe it will create a generation of Democrats who revere Obama the way their great-grandparents revered FDR. Maybe you’ll be back in Congress next year. Maybe you won’t. Either way, this is too big a vote to cast on the basis of politics. Every so often, a bill comes along that’s bigger than anything your predecessor got to touch. You’re the lucky bastard who had your seat in 2010, when that bill reached the floor. And here you are, worrying about your career, when the purpose of your career is staring you in the face.

It’s time to just pass the damn bill already. If Congress wasn’t full of egotistical maniacs who wanted to get everything juuuuust right this would have passed three or four months ago. Or in January. Or February. But better late than never. Just pass the damn thing and demonstrate that you’re not total goobers.