Here's your solution to Healthcare Reform. The President sends an envoy to McConnell and says I want 20 votes from Republicans. What do you need to see in the bill that can get me 20 votes.
He then sends an envoy to Harry Reid and says, we need 40 votes from Democrats. What do we have to have to get those 40 votes.
The two groups work with each other to hammer out as much as they can of things they can agree on, and submit a small, basic bill with clear reforms and goals.
The House picks it up, and passes it with majority vote, and we have bipartisan healthcare reform that helps address pre-existing conditions, high premiums, unfair rates for small businesses and individuals, and the uninsured.
Why doesn't this happen? Simple. This has never been, and will never be about healthcare reform. It's about government power and politics. Obama never had to deal with real opposition. Chicago politicians are used to ineffectual Republicans and an acquiescent populace. The rest of the country isn't like that. Obama has 59 votes in the Senate, so he can get a better bill for liberals than they've ever had a chance to get, but he wants a radical transformation of the very nature of how we look at healthcare. He's not going to get it, and the fault, lies entirely, with our hyperpartisan and supremely ungifted negotiator-in-chief. At any time, he could have had a bipartisan healthcare bill. He doesn't want one, and now's he in a corner.
Your proposal for passing reform is frighteningly simple. So simple, in fact, that there there MUST be a reason why it is a bad idea. But I cannot think of it.
Posted by: The Missouri Record | 09/10/2009 at 09:13 AM
Jim, Obama guided bills to pass in an Illinois legislature with Republican majorities. I think he knows how to negotiate and get bills through a legislature.
As far as your suggestion about what Obama should do to make the process more bipartisan, this is essentially what Obama did for the stimulus package, and it got zero results. And I'm still confused about when 60 votes became required to pass any and all bills by the majority party.
Posted by: Clark | 09/10/2009 at 11:13 AM
Clark - Obama did no such thing. He was handed a series of bills to pass his last year as a State Senator when the Democrats had taken the majority. Do yourself a favor and google Emil Jones, then take a look where he brags, "I'm gonna make me a Senator." Other Democrats in Illinois weren't too pleased with this, and still complain. The one major success that gets heralded is his unanimous passage of a bill on police interrogation was just bad reporting.
It was unanimous because Republicans didn't vote. Count the number of senators in the Illinois Senate and then count the number of reporters. It was yet another example of how little work was done on his background by "journalists" who printed what they were fed by the Obama campaign. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/104/story/31759.html
As for 60 - you might be familiar with the filibuster, but more important, healthcare is too important to pass on partisan lines, which is why the Democrats haven't done it yet. If they got Republicans on board, they could have passed something. They didn't. And no, bringing Republicans into a room and telling them you won and are going to get your way is not an effective way to pass legislation. Neither is having the bill written by the Apollo Alliance and blessed by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and then passed without anyone reading it.
You got anything else?
Posted by: Jim Durbin | 09/10/2009 at 11:38 AM
Um, no. Obama wrote bills that were passed long before the Republicans lost the majority.
I am familiar with the filibuster. I am unfamiliar with 60 votes being required on every bill that comes before the Senate. And requiring 20 votes from a rump minority of only 40 is terrible politics and a formula for terrible policy.
And what the hell does the Apollo Alliance have to do with anything?
Posted by: Clark | 09/11/2009 at 08:51 AM