Health reform was in limbo today.
Senator Byron Dorgan's (D-ND) drug importation amendment would seem to have plenty of votes to spare beyond the magic 60 required, so why was it held in limbo today? Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) just admitted he has placed a "hold" on the amendment because of his concerns over ensuring the safety of those imported drugs. Some senators are also concerned about violating the President's pledge to the drug industry not to impose any more costs on them if they support reform, which this would violate. President Obama co-sponsored a drug importation bill in 2007. Drug importation was enacted on October 28, 2000 by President Clinton, but neither his HHS Secretary nor President Bush’s a year later would certify the drug import safety as required, effectively killing the effort. So there the matter sits with no vote. The Senate is also waiting for Congressional Budget Office scores on several proposals designed to take the place of a public option, which doesn't have 60 votes, including allowing those age 55-64 to buy into Medicare and establishing a national insurance plan provided by private insurers with rates negotiated by the federal government. Today, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) described plans to file three cloture petitions next week in an attempt to bring the health reform bill, H.R.3590, to a final vote by the end of next week or thereabout. I still expect a health reform bill to be enacted at some point, probably in early February, but it will have to be watered down to get there.
Watered down - no doubt
With the Democrats covering a large portion of the political spectrum in one party, there is simply no way to expect a health care plan that is left leaning and damaging to industrial players. The support would dry up. As a result, whatever health care plan gets approved, with all its compromises, it has to be seen as the start of many revisions over a number of years. In some ways, this plan is most important because it allows and really enables health care to be something that the government should take an interest in.
Watered down - no doubt
I always kid Washington policy friends that we've had major energy bills every year or two for over 30 years, and we still don't have an energy policy. I agree that we will be enacting major health bills every year or two for a long time, hopefully with better results.
Canning public option a huge disappointment
This isn't real reform, but maybe we move in increments ?
From a friend:
"In this New Yorker article the author compares the fragmented, inefficient state of our current medical industry to the agricultural industry of the early 1900s. He very effectively describes how it wasn't until the government got involved thru its various agencies to modernize the agricultural industry that we finally moved from a basically 'poor' country to the world leader we are today. He proves that these agricultural initiatives were not the result of market forces but instead a direct result of government action thru trials and errors.
He draws this parallel because of his close reading of the Senate plan now being advanced. In it, he sees a lot of references to the government's market tests to see what works and what doesn't work as it tries to fashion a new medical industry that better cares for the domestic market in the same way the market testing trials and errors fashioned an agricultural industry that still today is unrivaled any where in the world.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande#ixzz...