As you may know, for the health care bill to become law first a bill must pass the US Senate and the US House of Representatives. It doesn't have to be the same bill, they can be completely different. Once the Senate and House pass their own health care reform bills, somehow you have to reconcile the differences in the two bills. In order to do that, the Senate and the House each appoint their own negotiators to meet together in what is called a Conference Committee. They get together and go through both of their bills, line by line, difference by difference, and haggle over each provision. Finally, when the "conferees" have gone through all the differing provisions, and have agreed on a unified bill, that merged bill is sent back to the Senate and House for one final vote. If each body passes the bill, then it goes to the president for his signature.
As you also may know, there's been a lot of concern of late that the President hasn't weighed in with individual members of Congress in order to get their support for the strongest health care bill possible, and that this is a good part of the reason why the robust public option appears to have failed in both the Senate and the House. Joe posted some video below of Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner lamenting the fact that the President has refused to get involved, and explaining how it has hurt our chances to get a strong bill. The President's critics, the accusations that the President has refused to help us get a strong bill, are no longer anonymous.
A commenter who frequently defends the President's actions on health care reform, write this yesterday:
[The President will] get more involved when the bill makes its way to conference committee. It is silly to spend political capital right now when the Senate bill is not even going to be the final bill.In fact, that's absurd. As it currently stands, the President's inaction has not only killed any chance of getting a single payer system, it has killed the robust public option in the Senate and the House. The robust public option is not going to be in the House or Senate health care reform bill. Once that legislation goes to conference, there is no way to improve it beyond what is in the two bills before it. The best we can get is the best that's included in the two bills, period. Now that the President's inaction has let the robust public option die on the vine, it's gone. And all the king's horses and all the king's men can't bring it back in conference.
The President's unwillingness to fight for his own campaign promises has already severely wounded health care reform. This is why we've been writing so much of late about the White House's refusal to get involved, refusal to lobby individual members to support a robust public option, to support Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi in their efforts to get as good a bill as possible. There is no "give him time," there is no "it's only his first year, give him a break." This administration is only getting one shot at health care reform. It's not coming back for another vote in a year or two when the White House finally gets its sea legs. The President's inaction has real consequences now.
The White House needs to stop fighting for mediocrity, and start fighting for its beliefs.
