Before the health care vote even started candidates and elected officials opposed to this atrocious excuse for health care reform were pledging to repeal it if passed. They have asked citizens to support those who are willing to repeal this bill. When it passed they renewed their pledge. That’s great on paper but the reality is that we are unlikely to ever have the super-majority necessary to override a veto should a bill to repeal ever pass. That means that efforts to repeal would have to wait at least three years until we got a president willing to repeal this monstrosity. Sadly the voters have shown many times that they do not have a three year attention span. As for congress, I find it miraculous that they had a two year attention span on this issue—perhaps they managed because they completely abandoned paying any attention to how much the voters disliked this particular piece of rancid sausage.
Reality Bites
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4 responses to “Reality Bites”
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I don’t know if this Congressman is accurate, but if he is, then my take would be that the American people will reject any candidate that vows to repeal the health reform. This is certainly not the reform I would have liked, and there are many things wrong with the bill, but it appears to be a step in the right direction and the American people will derive some (admittedly meager) benefit from the legislation.
The long sausage-making process may have been designed to get the Democratic Party base to the point where they applauded this private insurance bailout bill, convinced it was the best they could get. Now we will see whether the resultant wurst is tasty enough to convince voters that their government is serving them well, or whether it is so paltry that voters will be convinced government cannot serve them. If the former, Republicans are toast. If the latter, Democrats go back to the minority.
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I read those ten benefits and I’m very confident that Congress would have seriously messed up at least eight of them. Even if they didn’t, the vast majority of voters will not notice whatever benefit they supposedly received from this travesty. The fact is that there will be no tangible effects of this legislation for 95% of voters by November so the only role healthcare will make on their decisions is whether they felt they were being represented. I don’t see how that can be good for Democrats this cycle – their best hope is that it is a distant memory by then.
As for the American people rejecting anyone who vows to repeal it – the American people as a body don’t chose a member of Congress. The people of each district do so and in some districts they would reject anyone promising to try repealing this but in others such a candidate will be welcomed with open arms.
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The small business(less then 50 employees) tax credit starts at 35% of premiums this year and by 2014 will be 50% of premiums. That alone is big enough that its unlikely repeal seekers will be able to gain any serious traction. Add in closing of the donut hole for seniors. And tho it doesn’t go into effect until 2014 women will be charged the same rate as men for insurance and insurance will be required to cover the services they need, I wouldn’t discount the effect of this on the minds of women voters even now.
I also think that many of the lies and exaggerations will begin to implode on their purveyors, which will hurt those wanting to repeal a great deal. Now that we have a final bill anti-reforms can’t invent boggymen of what could be. The truth will have out.
For most voters I believe will be understanding that all of the benefits will take time to setup and get going so the lack of effect in benefits by November I would think will not play a large role.
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You could be right that the Dems have been stupid enough to water down the remaining positive aspects of the bill and certainly if they don’t get anything significant on the ground before November, they might as well have done nothing.
The question of whether a majority of the voters in a district will see this as a positive is directly related to whether they get a positive tangible benefit from the legislation before Election Day. Voters, rightly, are very cynical about government’s ability/willingness to do anything to make their lives better, or even prevent things from getting worse.
To win, Democrats have to overcome that cynicism by actually proving that the government can be a positive force in their lives. I don’t share Ronald’s optimism on that point. We have all heard excuse after excuse from our elected officials and a story about benefits taking time to setup and being right around the corner is not believable – and it’s not true. This is the best bill we can get when both parties are in the pockets of corporate interests, but my guess is that most voters in these economic times are not going to be satisfied with that.
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