Maybe we all should have been on vacation last week. Maybe we too would come home, calm, in time for the Democrats to stop having their nationally-televised post-Massachusetts nervous breakdown and take a deep breath and realize that the best thing, the only thing, to do is pass the Senate bill, improve the Senate bill (in whatever legislative order they can work out) and then explain to the American people (before November) that HEALTH REFORM IS GOOD FOR THEM. At least that’s how it looks to The New Repubilic's Jonathan Chait, who so sensibly went on vacation last week, and returned to concude that "mainly what I missed is a bout of hysteria and elected Democrats coming around to the obvious."
Here is what I think will happen. The shock and panic will play itself out over a few days. Then the Democrats will assess the situation and realize that letting health care die represents their worst possible option. And then they will make a deal to pass the Senate bill through the House. I am not positive this will happen, but it's my bet, because elected officials at the national level, dim though they can be, are usually shrewd enough to recognize their political self-interest…. Again, I don't see this as a sure thing, but the outlook remains a lot better than you'd guess from reading the national news headlines.
After looking at all their other options--drafting a smaller health care bill, or passing the most popular parts piecemeal--Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have come down to the realization that they've got one play left on health care: Get the House to pass the Senate bill, with the assurance of a set of revisions to be included in a companion measure passed under
the budget reconciliation process, to circumvent the Senate's 60-vote majority requirement.
Of course, it would help if both the House and the Senate recalled their eighth grade civics -- the House can't do this by itself. Neither can the Senate. Maybe Reid and Pelosi need to take their respective flocks on a field trip across to the other side of the Capitol...
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