Reform Still Around After The Election

Some Capitol Hill sources now say the only possible scenario for doing anything at all on health care in 2009 is a post-election vote to back the Senate bill after a big election loss by Democrats. The scenario is that Democrats lose so many seats in the House and Senate they are stunned, perhaps even losing the Senate.

With six weeks left in the current Congress, the House in mid-November suddenly rebels against the election and passes the Senate bill in spite, almost a year after the Senate vote. The Republican leaders are outraged but the Democrats have nothing to lose, and have two years to worry about the next election.

This would require the House voting to keep the Senate bill without any changes, thus sending it to the White House for a signing. But that is more feasible after the election than during the election. Obama would likely sign it even after the election.

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have both approved bills, so nothing has to happen right away or even until the end of the year when this session of Congress ends. At that point a final vote must be taken or the bills already approved die with the session. The next Congress will start with no bills in 2011.

Do I really think this will happen? Probably not. But accepting the Senate version is the only option that will work. A much more likely outcome is nothing at all passing for another three years.

Desktop Icons And The Meaning Of Reform

An amazing change has happened to my PC desktop at work. After creating a new folder called ?Old Reform? and dragging all of the file icons for health reform into it, my desktop actually looks clean for the first time in at least a year. And this leads me to an important conclusion. Is this not the silver lining in the failure of health reform? For at least a few months the real world is back in focus instead of theories about the impact of a hypothetical change on the real world. That's a positive effect already.

-- William R. Boyles, Editor & Publisher

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