The Senate Finance Committee on Friday completed its mark-up of a “health care reform” bill. The process went extremely quickly over the course of two weeks and the committee considered more than 500 amendments during that time frame. That’s indicative of how out of control the process has become. It leads us to some overwhelming questions: Do any legislators actually know what’s in the bill and what the effects will be?
The bottom line for President Obama has always been expanded coverage, yet he continues to insist on a “budget-neutral” bill, one that won’t increase taxes. Our next question is, “Can anyone really believe that is possible?”
And furthermore, how can we expand coverage, keep the funding neutral and still retain quality care for the people who already have access? It seems the variable in the equation is the quality of care. How will it not suffer?
Despite assertions to the contrary, we believe it’s still very much an uphill battle for this bill to eventually pass both houses of Congress. The margin will boil down to whether moderate and conservative Democrats will come on board. Many have been elected to office on the promise of lower taxes and less government. From the looks of this bill, those principles have been sacrificed. Obtaining 60 Democratic votes in the Senate seems like a long-shot.
We’ve had the preliminary debate. Now it’s time to start over on health care reform.