Democrats Break Ground
- 0 Comments
“This is not the end of health care reform,” Sen. Tom Harkin
declared on the Senate floor after midnight this morning. “This
is the beginning of health care reform.”
Harkin was attempting to convince restive liberals that even a
scaled back health care bill that did not include their beloved
public option was still worth passing. But his comments, along
with those made by other Senate Democrats in the week leading up
to this morning’s 1 a.m. vote to advance the Senate health care
bill, confirmed what critics have been saying throughout the
health care debate.
The point isn’t that this one piece of legislation, on its own,
will impose a Canadian-style, government-run health care system
on the United States immediately. The point is that Democrats are
putting infrastructure in place that will allow them to implement
a government-run system over time.
By voting in the middle of the night to block a Republican
filibuster attempt, Democrats took a big step toward passing
health legislation, which is now expected to pass the Senate on
Christmas Eve. To be sure, they’ll still encounter a number of
obstacles before President Obama can sign it into law.
The version of the bill that passed the House of Representatives
has both a public option and stronger abortion language. Liberals
and pro-life Democrats in the House are promising a fight during
the conference that will merge the two bills, and any concessions
to them could upset the delicate balance in the Senate that
allowed Majority Leader Harry Reid to cobble together 60 votes.
With that said, so far Democrats have proven willing to cut
whatever deals they need to in order to get a health care bill
across the finish line, and that same dynamic is likely to play
out during the remaining negotiations.
As written, the Senate health care bill will force every American
to purchase a government-approved insurance policy or pay a tax.
It will expand Medicaid by 15 million people. It will create a
new government-run long-term care insurance entitlement, called
the Class Act, that even Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad called “a
Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie
Madoff would have been proud of.” And it will create new
government-run insurance exchanges on which individuals would use
government subsidies to buy government-designed insurance
policies.
Taken together, this legislation enables to federal government to
get its hands on every aspect of the health care system — and
it’s only a matter of time before it tighten its grip. Just
listen to what Democrats are saying now.
“What we need to do is lay a strong foundation,” Sen. Ron Wyden
said in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last week. “A
foundation that we can build on in the years ahead. We are not
going to get everything we want in round one, but we are going to
get a foundation that we are going to build on in the years
ahead.”
Sen. Jay Rockefeller told the New Republic “that liberal
advocates could try again another year to push for the reforms
that didn’t make it into the current bill.” He said, “You know
we’re going to be back next year, and the year after that, and
the year after that.”
And in comments on the Senate floor on Friday, Sen. John Kerry
argued that Democrats shouldn’t even wait that long. Kerry
recalled how Sen. Ted Kennedy regretted he never accepted a deal
President Richard Nixon offered that would have forced employers
to insure everybody, with some help from government.
“The lesson Teddy learned is this,” Kerry explained. “When it
comes to historic breakthroughs in America, especially in social
policies, you make the best deal that you can, and immediately,
you start pushing for ways to improve the deal.”
Kerry said Kennedy applied that lesson after successfully
fighting for a minimum wage increase in 1996, only to turn around
and immediately call for another increase while at a victory
rally.
“He was in the victory moment, and he turned to Congresman George
Miller, and he said, ‘I’m introducing a bill to raise the minimum
wage,’” Kerry recounted. “And George Miller said, ‘What do you
mean? You haven’t even let the dust settle?’ And (Kennedy) said,
‘We’ve gotta move on this.’”
The same logic, Kerry said, should apply to passing health care
legislation. And as evidence, he noted that Medicare and Medicaid
have greatly expanded over time.
If this health care legislation becomes law, Democrats will
attempt to use the new infrastructure they built to add stricter
regulations, more subsidies, and additional mandates. They will
continue to incrementally expand existing government-run programs
such as Medicaid. And as health care spending spirals out of
control, instead of faulting government intervention, liberals
will blame the absence of a public option.
All along, opponents of the pending legislation have argued that
it was just one step on the long march to a government takeover
of health care. And now, with victory in sight, Democrats are
proving their critics’point.
“I know a lot of my progressive friends have been upset that
certain things weren’t in it,” Harkin said of the Senate bill on
Saturday. “But I put it this way. What we’re building here is not
a mansion, it’s a starter home.… It has room for expansions and
additions in the future.”
They may not have their dream house just yet. But this morning,
while America slept, the Democrats broke ground.
