I'm feeling very confused and frustrated about the health care reform bill. Where exactly are we? I'm a big believer in making ones voice heard, but to whom should I be writing, to voice my opinion? I fear writing my two senators is a waste of time. I very much like both Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe -- have voted for both, even though I rarely vote Republican, because they are women who really care about the people they are trying to serve; they are not just into playing the political game. This was demonstrated by Snowe's good faith attempt -- the only one from her side of the aisle! -- to try to work out a bipartisan compromise on the health care reform bill. But ultimately she could not bring herself to vote for the bill that was passed by the Senate, and I certainly doubt she will vote for any consolidation of it and the House bill that was passed.
Since my senators have to be viewed as a lost cause on this (I did, by the way, write to both of them back in the fall, when the Senate bill was still being worked out, and I thought voicing my opinion might possibly do some good), I was all set to send letters to all the Democrats in the Senate, urging them to vote for health reform NOW, saying you're not going to get the perfect bill; nobody's going to be completely happy; but we really must at least start the process of change now, and it's up to you because the Republicans are just going to keep saying no to everything but caps on malpractice suits (as if that would take care of the problem). But then it occurred to me that, besides the fact that a letter from a non-constituent is not going to carry much weight (I knew that from the get-go, but thought at least somebody would be hearing my voice), there was the fact that I wasn't sure where in the process we were. Would it make more sense to write to all the Democratic Representatives? But my god, there are far too many of them; I couldn't afford the postage.
The bill-consolidation process is where I'm assuming we are at present, though I'm not sure. President Obama came out with his version recently, and I thought, isn't this a little late? Has his proposal just muddied the waters, or provided options that most Democrats will find satisfactory? Are the Democrats going to try to combine his proposal with the two already-passed bills, or just use his? This is what I mean when I say I'm confused. I know there's talk of using the legislative "trick" called (misleadingly) "reconciliation" -- which the Republicans are objecting to mightily, even though most legislation passed using this "trick" has been Republican-backed legislation -- but I'm not clear as to what piece of legislation would be submitted to that process!
After hearing that several of the largest insurance companies had an extremely lucrative year in 2009, while covering ever-fewer people, and that they are now proposing premium increases of as much as 39 per cent, I wondered how on earth people could be so resistant to reform. Those guys need to be held in check so bad. I have long held that the insurance industry in this country is a racket anyway. Health care should not be a matter of profit and loss, any more than education should be. This is why I was supportive of a public option, which was included in the House bill that passed, but dropped from the Senate bill (and, presumably, will not appear in any consolidated bill). But I wouldn't refuse to pass reform legislation, just because that particular feature was not included. Come on, guys, let's do something now!
Whom do I call?
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Here's my understanding of where things stand: The Senate and the House each passed their own versions of a health care bill. But since then, the picture in the Senate has changed. With the election of a Republican from Massachusetts, the Dems can no longer count on a 60-vote majority, which is what is needed to stop a Rep filibuster (which the Reps would use to prevent anything they don't like from being voted on). So the usual procedures of negotiation between House and Senate to come up with a bill that's acceptable to both won't work. So Obama's current plan is: get the House to pass the Senate bill as is (because the House doesn't have the filibuster thing), then use the "reconciliation" process, which requires only a simple majority, to tweak little things in the bill that the House finds unacceptable. So I think right now it's all on the House, and Representatives are the people you should write to. I don't know whether the House Dems have enough votes to pass the Senate bill, because of defections from the left (I heard Kucinich say he won't vote for it) and the right (Stupack and the other people who are worried that federal money might be used to fund abortions). It's all needlessly complicated, but I hope we somehow get some form of health care reform!
Thank you, Fae. This was actually quite helpful. But oh, my goodness, do I really have to write to *all* those representatives?!
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