Editorial
October 31, 2009
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a 2,000-page health-care bill Thursday — complete with a “public option” — cobbled together from competing versions passed by separate committees.
At this point, she and her Senate counterparts are crafting their bills in ways to secure votes for passage rather than to produce good policy. But their attempts may backfire on both fronts.
Fiscally conservative Dems in the Blue Dog coalition, for example, quickly demanded more proof that the bill — which spends $1.055 trillion over 10 years — will lower health-care costs in the long run.
And that comes after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s ObamaCare bill met major resistance from Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman, who said he’d back a GOP filibuster.
Government-run health insurance — even with an opt-out provision, as Reid proposes — “creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line,” said the Connecticut senator.
And that, he added, “is just asking for trouble — for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt.”
How right he is.
Combined with growing skepticism from other Senate Democrats, that could leave Reid short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.
The editorial continues here.
