The health care vote could result in a fatal diagnosis in Nov.
This week on the Sunday talk shows, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said: ”We’re happy to have the 2010 elections be about health care reform.” Well, Mr. Gibbs, I predict your wish will come true, again, and again and again.
With the House of Representatives gearing up for the major vote on health care this week and the Senate preparing to follow suit, all eyes are on the more than a handful of House Democrats who need to flip over to the “yea” column to get this bill passed and sent over to the Senate. Meanwhile in the Senate, members are drafting amendments they intend to offer when the health care debate becomes center stage on their side of the Capitol. Drafting amendments for floor debate isn’t all that is happening behind the scenes. Several Senators are considering which health care provisions, contained in the bill, will be revisited if the Obama health care bill actually becomes law. It is the intention of the Senate GOP to offer amendments repealing much of the numerous over reaching, destructive and prohibitive provisions of the health care bill, again and again and again.
House members and Senators that believe the health care vote they will be casting before Easter will finally put an end to the health care issue for this year should think again. If they think they will successfully pivot to financial reform, jobs or global warming, they have another thing coming. The White House is more than eager to pass the health care bill and move onto the financial reform bill, where the new demons of the Washington government will be the financial sector of America. They are hoping to have debate shift to executive pay, greed and under-regulated Bank and Wall Street elites.
The reality will be that the financial regulation debate, as well as all of the other issues coming before Congress for the rest of this year, will be peppered with votes initiated by the GOP on repealing provisions of the health care bill. These votes on repealing much of the health care law might get old and monotonous to many Members of Congress, but they will prove to serve as the gift Mr. Gibbs wished for on Sunday. The 2010 elections will be all about health care reform. This writer predicts that members of Congress running for re-election in November will have dozens of health care votes to defend or deflect. Their record on health care will either become their badge of honor and courage or their rap sheet. The good folks voting in November will make that diagnosis.
Elizabeth Letchworth is the Owner-Founder of GradeGov.com, four times elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority/Minority, U. S. Senate-retired, presently senior legislative advisor at Covington & Burling, LLC.