Published: October 17, 2009 10:36 pm      

Democrats can’t escape reform issue

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus predicted last week that every Democrat in the Senate would wind up voting for the health care reform that emerges from the current process.

That might be optimistic.

In the end, though, Democrats might want to take the prediction to heart because when it comes right down to it, this will be a Democratic bill.

There’s been a lot of talk from the White House and elsewhere about a bipartisan approach to health care reform. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine has gotten a good bit of attention for crossing party lines to vote in favor of the reform measure approved last week by the Senate Finance Committee.

But when it comes time to vote in next year’s election, the people paying the price if the reform bill falls short won’t be the Republicans.

Republicans generally have made it pretty clear that they won’t be voting for a health care reform measure. In fact, many Republicans have already cranked up the rhetoric in advance of next year’s campaign.

So it won’t be the Republicans taking it on the chin if the voters don’t like the outcome of the health care debate. It’ll be the Democrats, the party in control of the White House and with a commanding margin in both houses of Congress.

And really, why shouldn’t it be?

This is a Democratic intitiative. A Democratic president chose to tackle this issue, and if Democrats can’t push through a reform measure under these circumstances, perhaps they should pay a price at the polls.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to push through such a measure. These are Democrats, after all.

The humorist Will Rogers once joked that he wasn’t a member of an organized political party. He was a Democrat, he said.

Trying to push a bunch of Democrats in the same direction is like trying to herd cats. It’s a difficult task.

Nevertheless, the Democrats at some point might want to get their arms around the fact that they really do own this issue. If it’s a success, they’ll get the credit. If it’s a bomb, they’ll take the hit.

Republicans have no stake in finding a way to fix the nation’s health care system. The bickering among Democrats can do nothing but help Republican chances in the next election.

Democrats, on the other hand, have no way to escape. Even if Democrats like Evan Bayh and Joe Donnelly vote against a measure they don’t like, they could still end up paying the price at the ballot box.

So their best bet might be to start looking for a proposal they can support.

The Senate Finance Committee last week approved a 10-year, $829 billion bill that makes numerous changes to the health care system, and Baucus and other lawmakers are now hammering out differences between that measure and a more liberal version passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The president has said he wants to sign a bill before the end of the year. What form that bill will take should begin to come together in the next few weeks.

The measure likely will require most people to buy insurance. It might also provide subsidies to help lower-income people do so and put new requirements on insurance companies to prevent them from charging significantly more to older people and from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

The key stumbling block in the negotiations is something called the public option.

Basically, such an option would allow the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry. Some have suggested such a provision would give everyone access to the same coverage available to members of Congress.

Liberals favor the public option, but moderates such as Bayh and Donnelly have been skeptical.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted that the bill coming out of the House will include a public option, but if the Senate winds up passing a bill without such an option, negotiators for the two houses will have to get together to work out a compromise.

Baucus told reporters on Friday that lawmakers had a moral obligation to repair the health care system.

“And that is why we are going to pass health care reform legislation this year, and it is why every Democrat will vote for it, and it is why there will be at least one Republican and maybe a couple more who also will vote for it,” Baucus said.

It was a bold prediction. We’ll find out in the coming weeks whether the prediction will come true.

• Kelly Hawes is managing editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5155 or kelly.hawes@pharostribune.com