ShareThisSo now health-care reform rests on the shoulders of the Senate and in the hands of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.
The House did its part, passing a plan that would extend health insurance to 36 million Americans, requiring those who can afford it to buy coverage and subsidizing those who can't. The cost over the first 10 years is estimated at $1.2 trillion.
The measure passed by a narrow, 220 to 215, although how many spare votes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had tucked in her purse is anyone's guess. Passage in the Senate, if it comes to that, will likely be even narrower, perhaps one vote, and independent swing voter Sen. Joe Lieberman has already said that he won't be that one vote, not if, as in the House version, there's a government-run insurance option.
Reid must now produce a Senate health-care bill that will entice Lieberman and perhaps one or two maverick Republicans to support it. And the Senate leader must work with what he has, two slightly disparate Senate committee bills and the House-passed measure.
This is it for health care. Either a bill passes this year or early next, or there's no bill. Certain disappointment faces those who believe that, if some version of these measures fails, a better Plan B will somehow emerges. Even if the Republicans win back Congress, they will have to show a seriousness about health care that has been missing so far, and in any case, the Democrats won't allow the GOP a victory that Republican lawmakers denied them. Failure here means the status quo for at least several more election cycles.
While reconciling the House and Senate versions of the bill will be difficult, there is nothing insurmountable. The biggest stumbling block is the government-run option but two possible compromises -- a trigger if private insurance proves inadequate or an opt-out for states that find the public option so terribly objectionable -- seem to offer a way out.
In the House, the objections were much the same as those raised against Medicare 44 years ago -- it was socialized medicine, it put unaccountable bureaucrats between patients and their doctors, etc. None of that came to pass, and Medicare has become so sacrosanct that the lawmakers may not be able to carve $404 billion out of it as one of the Senate bills intends.
President Barack Obama says he is "absolutely confident" the Senate will pass a bill. We'll see. It's up to you, Harry Reid.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
