MaverickVoice.com

I’m thoroughly disgusted that the House of Representatives passed this Health Care bill. The issues related to this bill have been discussed here on multiple occasions (and will be discussed more in the future, I’m sure). But right now, I’m not really going to talk about the content of the bill. I’m more interested in the politics that went into the passage of the bill.

Change We Can Believe In?

For most of the 2008 campaign cycle, we heard unending promises that then-Senator Obama would unite both parties and pass universal health care reform. We heard that the process would be open and that there would be no backroom deals and all discussions would be aired on national TV. And we heard that no bill would clear Obama’s desk if it had any pork in it at all. Most importantly, we heard that it wouldn’t be “politics as usual”.

So what did we get? We got one of the most divisive political battles in a generation. We didn’t get a President reaching across the aisle trying to bring all concerned parties into the discussion. We actually had a President tell us that his door was always open, while simultaneously closing the door to anybody that didn’t agree with him before they walked through it. We got arm-twisting and backroom dealings and thug politics.

What possible reason would there be to conduct closed-door meetings unless the intent was to play the game of politics, instead of doing what was best for the people? Put another way, if you were a representative that had nothing but your constituents interests at heart, wouldn’t you want your hard-fought effort to get them what they needed to be freely available for them to watch, in real time?

If this bill was such a great idea, why did it take a strong Democrat majority so long to barely squeak by with a victory? If the politicians were truly in it to do the work of the people (and not in it for their own political gain), they should have been able to pass this vote months ago with a resounding majority. After all, they didn’t need Republicans to vote for the bill to get it to pass. (As it happens, they did get one Republican vote from Representative Joseph Cao from New Orleans, but the bill passed with a 220-215 majority.)

The Party of No

Of course, the President and the Democrats have enjoyed referring to the Republicans as “the party of no,” claiming that all the Republicans have wanted to do is maintain the status quo. This brings two things to mind.

First, did the President (and the rest of the Democratic coalition) not know that there would be opposition when they were campaigning? Didn’t they claim that they would unite the parties? Instead of attacking the Republicans, maybe they should have listened and addressed the concerns brought up by the right. That sure would have been an improvement over closed door sessions that didn’t even allow the right to have a seat at the table.

Second, I don’t think anybody out there is actively advocating that we do absolutely nothing. The Republicans, and I honestly think the vast majority of the American public, were saying “let’s scrap this 2000 page, $1.2 TRILLION abomination and start over.”

What’s Next?

Now, the Senate will take up its version of the bill. If they can somehow pass it, then it will be up to a conference committee to merge the two version of the bill into a uniform version. During this phase, chances are that all kinds of pork will be added to secure votes. And then it will be up for another vote in both chambers. If it passes there, it will go to the President’s desk. And I have no doubt that even if this thing has $1 trillion in pure pork, he’ll still sign it. There’s no way that he would prevent this from becoming law.

And that’s politics as usual.

Filed under: Politics by Steve Hansen