Healthcare Legislation Update

Following the stunning republican victory in the recent Massachusetts special election healthcare reform legislation has been dead in the water for days. Without their critical 60th vote in the Senate, democrats are having a hard time figuring out just how they will pass their bill. They have a few options available to them. First, the House can simply pass the bill that has already come out of the Senate. This method is the most direct, but based on the noise coming out of the democratic caucus in the House there are not enough votes to pass the Senate bill in its current form. The other option would be to break up the bill and pass the items individually using the fast-track reconciliation rules in the Senate which only require 51 votes to pass.

Despite the fact that Democrats have a clear path towards passage, they still have a long road in front of them. Many Democrat representatives and senators from swing districts see the writing on the wall. They know that pursuing the party leadership’s agenda could quite possibly cost them their seat in the 2010 election cycle. The party holds the key to surviving the election cycle for members in safer districts, but for Democrats that find themselves facing ever-more hostile crowds at home, their choice lies between the party and re-election. It is hard to imagine that very many of them will choose party loyalty over their seat. While it may seem a noble cause, if history is any indicator most politicians, regardless of ideology, will choose their seat over principle if forced to pick.

The most likely outcome will be a watered-down version of the current bill. Democrat leadership will be forced to but out some of the more audacious programs to get conservative democrats on board. If they try and pass the current bill through fast-track reconciliation they risk alienating nearly every American voter. Polls show overwhelmingly that American voters do not like it when politicians use loopholes to pass unpopular legislation. The next few weeks will hold the answer, but the longer they take to pass the bill, the less likely it will pass. The closer we get to November the less motivated anyone in congress will be to pass any sort of legislation.

Source

http://www.politico.com/pelosi-floats-two-track-health-reform.htm