GOP Can Kill Health Care Reform Law In Court...Commerce Clause

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

How To Kill Obama's Health Care Law In Federal Court


With the Health Care bill passed, Conservatives are now plotting a legal challenge. Constitutional law professor Adam Winkler on what the Republicans are going to argue and why they might win.


After months of contentious debate, the House narrowly passed landmark health-care legislation on Sunday. But the war over health care is hardly over. Republican attorneys general of several states have announced they will challenge Obamacare in court. The law, they say, is unconstitutional.

The argument against the health-care bill focuses on the so-called individual mandate. This is the part of the bill that tries to push everyone into the health- insurance market, including young, healthy people who otherwise might go uninsured. The idea is to reduce the total cost of health care by including everyone in the insurance pool.

Opponents claim that Congress has no authority to require people to buy insurance. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett argues that the law is “unprecedented” because it forces individuals to “engage in an economic transaction with a private company.” The crux of the argument is that the individual mandate exceeds Congress’s constitutional authority “to regulate commerce... among the several states.”



The power to regulate interstate commerce is one of the most important powers of Congress and is the basis for most federal laws, including Medicare, Social Security, drug laws, civil-rights laws, and others. Since the 1930s, the Supreme Court has said that Congress’s commerce power is very broad and can be used to justify regulation of nearly any activity that substantially impacts interstate commerce.

Mandating individuals to purchase health insurance, opponents claim, isn’t a regulation of economic activity. According to Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, “We contend that if a person decides not to buy health insurance, that person—by definition—is not engaging in commerce and, therefore, is not subject to a federal mandate.”



Yet people who fail to buy health insurance are engaging in economic activity. They are making an economic decision to self-insure. If they fall ill, they usually find that they can’t afford medical care and visit an emergency room. Or they go without care, allow their condition to worsen, and then get taken to an emergency room. In either case, the American people foot the bill. The national economic consequences of individuals deciding to go without insurance are enormous.

Even if self-insuring could be construed as non-economic activity, the individual mandate is still within Congress’s commerce power. The High Court has held on numerous occasions that Congress can regulate non-economic activity as part of a larger, comprehensive effort to regulate some aspect of our national economy. Just a few years ago, the Supreme Court held that Congress, as part of its effort to stamp out interstate commerce in illegal drugs, could prohibit a person from growing marijuana in his own home for his own use. The court has also said that Congress, as part of regulation of wheat prices, can limit the amount of wheat a farmer grows on his own land for his personal use.

With health care, controlling precedent seems to clearly allow Congress, as part of its comprehensive effort to regulate the interstate health-care market, to require individuals to have insurance coverage. Even if the decision to go without insurance is not economic activity, Congress can reach it because health care profoundly affects interstate commerce.

Yet there is a more serious flaw in the commerce power argument of health care’s opponents. Congress can justify the mandate on a different power entirely: the taxing power. The individual mandate, after all, is a tax provision. It doesn’t really require individuals to purchase insurance; no one is thrown in jail simply for going uninsured. If people fail to buy insurance, they are hit with a tax. Someone dead-set against buying insurance can choose to remain without coverage and pay the tax. Such a choice is not exactly “free.” A person’s decision to smoke isn’t free either. Thanks to taxes, the choice is pretty expensive.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Because the individual mandate is a tax provision that promotes the general welfare, it is within Congress’ taxing power. This is one of broadest grants of authority the Constitution gives Congress. For decades, the Supreme Court has said that Congress can impose any tax reasonably designed to promote the public good. So long as a reasonable lawmaker could believe the general welfare is served by expanding the pool of covered individuals, reducing dependence on emergency rooms, and lowering the total costs of health care, then the individual mandate tax is constitutional.

Still, opponents say, Congress can’t penalize someone for doing nothing. Sure it can. And it does every year. If you don’t believe me, just “do nothing” this April 15 when your tax bill is due. With a handful of exceptions, all individuals are required to file a tax return with the Internal Revenue Service and if you choose instead to do nothing you will be penalized for it. If Congress can penalize you for failing to file a tax return, it can penalize you for failing to have health insurance.

Are opponents correct that Congress has never before required large numbers of people to purchase something? No. In fact, the Founding Fathers themselves included an “individual mandate” in a law way back in 1792. The Militia Acts were a series of bills that first organized state militias in America’s early years that required “free able-bodied” men to serve with their own gun. It didn’t matter to the Founding Fathers if someone preferred to spend his money elsewhere. He was required to have a gun, even if that gun had to be purchased from a private seller.

People often assume the Founders thought Congress’s powers were very narrow. But even they thought it was acceptable to impose an individual mandate to buy something on a large number of citizens when necessary for the public welfare. If Congress’s power over state militias could justify an individual mandate to buy something, so would Congress’s power over interstate commerce or over taxes.

Even some legal conservatives admit that the arguments against the bill are very weak. Given these strong precedents, why would anyone believe the Supreme Court would still invalidate the individual mandate? Because in politically divisive cases, the courts are rarely shy about breaking from precedent. This is especially so when the justices don’t agree politically with the results that case law would seem to require.

In the 1800s, a conservative Supreme Court struck down the Missouri Compromise, a federal law that restricted the spread of slavery into western territories. Although the Constitution clearly gives Congress power to regulate federal territories, the Dred Scott Court essentially ignored this grant of authority. The justices thought that new territories had the right to choose for themselves whether to be slave or free—and sought to issue a ruling that would end the divisiveness occasioned by slavery. It didn’t quite work out the way they were hoping.



Liberals do it too. In the 1950s, a liberal Supreme Court broke from 70 years of precedent to strike down “separate but equal” in public education. It hardly mattered that those who added the equality guarantee to the Constitution favored racial segregation in schools—or that the court had repeatedly upheld Jim Crow segregation laws.

But we don’t have to go so far back in time to find examples. Earlier this year, the Roberts Court invalidated a campaign-finance law that banned corporations from spending shareholders’ money to influence federal elections. Such laws have been a prominent feature of campaign-finance law for over a century. The court itself had upheld corporate political spending restrictions in candidate elections, the very provision upheld less than a decade ago by the Rehnquist Court.

In cases from abortion rights to affirmative action, the Roberts Court has already shown itself to be one of the most activist courts in recent memory. The court’s conservatives aren’t any more likely to support President Obama’s health-care agenda than the conservatives in Congress. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the court, is known to be a libertarian who probably won’t find much to like in the individual mandate.

Health-care opponents’ arguments against the law are without merit. But that doesn’t mean those arguments won’t be successful in the Supreme Court.


View Larger Map


Sources: The Daily Beast, MSNBC, Fox News, Youtube, Google Maps

Senate Health Care Bill DOA! House Listening To Voters

Dems Health Care Talks Collapsing



Health care reform teetered on the brink of collapse Thursday as House and Senate leaders struggled to coalesce around a strategy to rescue the plan, in the face of growing pessimism among lawmakers that the president’s top priority can survive.

The legislative landscape was filled with obstacles: House Democrats won’t pass the Senate bill. Senate Democrats don’t want to start from scratch just to appease the House. And the White House still isn’t telling Congress how to fix the problem.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) both tried to put a good face on the obvious chaos on Thursday, promising to press on.

“We have to get a bill passed,” Pelosi told reporters. “We know that.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said, “No way is it dead, because it’s so important for the country. And we will find a way to pass [it].”

But for the first time in the yearlong push, Democratic aides — and even some members — finally acknowledged privately that the fear of failure was real. And Congress recessed for the weekend without an obvious path forward as rank-and-file Democrats started splintering in different directions.

Democrats struggled all year to maintain a coalition in support of health care reform without any GOP votes. Republican Scott Brown’s improbable win in Massachusetts on Tuesday now looks like it has the potential to end that almost-impossible balancing act.

This post-Massachusetts confusion raises the stakes for President Barack Obama’s first official State of the Union address next week, which some now believe must be a last-ditch effort to get health care finished.

On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a fierce proponent of health reform, said it wasn’t clear how the Senate should press ahead.

“Obviously, you cannot just proceed as if nothing happened, because something very significant happened,” Schumer said, referring to Brown’s victory. “There is a strong view in both caucuses that we want to do some good things in health care, and the question is how? How much and how quickly?”

Pelosi took one option off the table Thursday when she told reporters that she doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate bill unless it undergoes major changes. The White House had hoped to avoid a protracted health care fight by getting the House to adopt the Senate bill, despite deep misgivings among House Democrats.

That leaves two main options for moving forward:

The first would be to pass a scaled-back health care bill, but it remains to be seen what that would look like. Liberal groups have already assailed the idea for falling short of the president’s initial goal of near-universal coverage. And the second idea is for the House to pass a so-called corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate legislation but would require the Senate to pass the second bill as well.

Schumer would not say which option he preferred.

“There are obviously different options, and you have to look at each,” Schumer said. “How long will each one take? I don’t think we want to do health care the next three months. So there are tradeoffs here, and that’s what everybody is exploring.”

And other options seem to keep popping up all the time. During a closed-door session at the Capitol Visitor Center, a number of House Democrats told their leaders to pursue a third path that would involve breaking the bills into separate parts and moving them one at a time — a tactic that presents obvious practical and political concerns.

In the absence of clear directives from congressional leaders or the White House, Democrats started pointing fingers and freelancing their own ideas.

An undercurrent to the unresolved negotiations is the mounting friction between the House and the Senate. The two chambers don’t see eye to eye on most days, but since the stunning Democratic loss in Massachusetts, the tensions have been exacerbated at a time when their trust and cooperation is essential to finishing health care.

Part of the negotiations center on whether Reid can provide an ironclad guarantee that the Senate will not leave the House in the lurch, aides said. If the House agrees to pass the Senate bill with a companion measure — or a “cleanup” bill — to make fixes, they want to know that the Senate will indeed pass it, too.

There was some talk among Senate leadership on Thursday of putting together a letter signed by 51 Democratic senators pledging to pass a cleanup bill if the House would pass the Senate bill. But that effort fizzled when support for it didn’t materialize, insiders said.

“The Senate moderates’ viewpoint is, ‘We passed our bill. We’re not going to spend three weeks on some other bill,’” said a Democratic lobbyist who represents clients pushing for reform.

“There’s a real possibility it doesn’t get through,” said another Democratic lobbyist.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said one possibility involved having the Senate pass the cleanup bill first. But there’s a question as to whether the Senate can amend a bill that is not yet law, officials said. Reid would also want some assurances ahead of time from the parliamentarian that key elements of the cleanup bill would not be struck from the bill, officials said.

House Democrats are angry with the Senate for passing a bill that divided their base, angering labor unions with a tax on expensive health plans and progressives by abandoning the public option. House members are frustrated that the Senate assumes they will roll over whenever the upper chamber demands it and that they took until late December to pass a bill.

Rank-and-file Democrats would like more guidance from the White House, but some complained when rumors broke that chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was prodding lawmakers to move quickly to repackage a scaled-back bill. A White House source said Emanuel was just surveying members to see what they could accept.

Some Democrats also worried that voters would judge them out-of-touch for devoting so much energy to health care now.

“People think we’re not doing enough on the economy, we’re not doing enough on jobs, we’re not doing enough on employment, and perhaps we’re doing too much on healthcare,” said New York Rep. Eliot Engel, an outspoken backer of reform.

“Right now, their priority is jobs and the economy,” he continued. “Health care is not the priority. If we look like…we’re hell-bent on making health care the no. 1 priority regardless of how much pain is out there, then I think we do it at our own peril.”

Frustration among House Democrats was clear in a Thursday morning caucus meeting, members present said afterward.

Massachusetts Rep. Mike Capuano kicked things off by telling colleagues that health care reform wasn’t the only reason Democrat Martha Coakley, who beat him in the primary, lost the general election. Capuano said his party failed to explain to voters what the legislation means for average Americans, saying they should never have passed a 2,000-page bill.

“The health care bill is too complicated, and it looks like too many backroom deals,” Capuano said in an interview with POLITICO. “We need to do a much better job explaining what we are trying to do.”

Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor got up after Capuano and said Congress should do a bill a week and have a pep rally, according to people present at the meeting.

Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Doyle told fellow Democrats that people in his district support insurance reform but hate the gamesmanship in this debate, citing Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson’s deal to shield his state from future changes to Medicaid and taxing benefits.

“They hate the devious stuff,” Doyle said. “They hate when we do something slick.”

The Senate, meanwhile, can’t understand why the House doesn’t acknowledge that the bill it passed is the best it can do.

“I have to respectfully say to the House, they’ve done some good work, but I just think that the bill that we end up with is going have to be more along the lines of what the Senate did,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

Democrats also were also critical of an idea to scale down the bill to include popular provisions saying that all reform’s parts are interdependent. For instance, banning insurance companies from denying people coverage because of pre-existing conditions requires that all people be required to carry insurance, which necessitates subsidies to help people afford insurance. And subsidies require tax increases or other revenue raisers to pay for them. Doing any of those things in isolation will drive up health care costs, they argue.

“Health care isn’t an incremental problem and there is no incremental solution that will work,” said Jacki Schechner, a spokeswoman for the progressive coalition Health Care for America Now.

She said there’s “a frustration with the lack of appreciation for just how much we’ve got. We’ve got the majority. We’ve got the bill. We’ve got the urgent need. We need to keep moving forward.”

To make matters worse, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, once a possible Republican vote, signaled Thursday that she was unlikely to rejoin negotiations with the White House and Democratic leaders unless they scaled back their ambitions.

Despite the dimming prospects, Senate Democrats on both ends of the political spectrum said they wanted to see the bill passed.

“We have to have it. We have to get the bill,” said Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). Not doing it “would be a disaster. It would be a disaster for my state. It would be an economic disaster. Talk about jobs; that’s the only growing sector in the economy. It just would be awful.”


Sources: Politico, MSNBC, TPMTV, Youtube, Vodpod

Left Wing Progressives Are Listening To Dr. Howard Dean

Dr. Howard Dean says Obama's Health Care Reform bill can still be saved but not with the bad stuff that's currently in it to bless Health Care Execs.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Left rebels against health reform


In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama, top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests.

Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them.

Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform.”

“[A]s it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America,” Dean wrote, then took to the airwaves to amplify his case.

Ed Schultz, an influential liberal radio host, declared on his “Ed Show” on MSNBC: “The base is restless. They are wandering in the wilderness, Mr. President. … They want to know, where are you? … Right now, Mr. President, your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout — a corporate sellout, out that. … The only people who like this current bill right now, Mr. President, is the insurance industry — they get a bunch of new customers.”

Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, wrote on his Twitter feed: "Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate." And "Kos" blogged: "You pass a s——-y program now that further bankrupts our nation, and we won't be talking about 'fixing' it in a few years, but whether it should even exist."

With polls showing erosion in both Obama’s popularity and in support for health reform, the White House mobilized to try to tamp down the rebellion from such essential allies.

Senior adviser David Axelrod called in to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to argue that Dean’s criticisms are "predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions."

“To defeat a bill that will bend the curve on this inexorable rise in health-care costs is insane,” Axelrod said. "I think that would be a tragic, tragic outcome. I don’t think that you want this moment to pass. It will not come back."

Liberals contend that the bill has been watered down so much that Congress should kill it and start over. The White House warns that health reform could be doomed for the rest of this presidency, and probably beyond, if it falters now.

The attack from the left comes at a delicate juncture when a delay of more than a couple of days could sink any remaining chance that the Senate can pass it by Christmas. Senate Democrats are circulating a possible schedule that would have them taking the final vote on Christmas Day.

Right now, Democrats are at least two votes shy of the 60 they need to pass the bill, with liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) saying he has not committed to vote for the bill in its current form.

The other, moderate Sen. Ben. Nelson (D-Neb.), has a completely different set of concerns, saying he’s still looking at compromise language designed to bar federal funds from paying for abortion – though the National Right to Life Committee has said the proposal by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) is not acceptable.

But Obama’s problem now is on the left. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann told viewers Wednesday night that the Senate version has become “unsupportable … a hollow shell of a bill”: “This is not health, this is not care, this is certainly not reform.”

Pulling back the curtain on White House efforts to rein in Dean, Axelrod said the former governor “got on the phone with Nancy-Ann DeParle, our point person on the health care issue, [who] went through point by point.

“She explained why he was wrong,” Axelrod continued. “And he simply didn’t want to hear that critique. I saw his piece in The Post this morning, and it is predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions.”

Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, said on “Morning Joe” that business lobbyists “are winning” on a host of Washington issues, including health reform.

“There is no cost containment here,” she said. “Reconciliation [a Democrats-only strategy requiring only 51 votes] is a very pragmatic alternative.”

Asked if she would enthusiastically support Obama for reelection, Huffington replied: “This is not really the question. … Depends on the alternative. … The American middle class was let down. … Can you really say this White House is on the side of the American people?”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) accused the Democrats Thursday of abandoning the goal of true reform to the political imperative of simply passing any bill they can label health reform.

“It's now an effort by a political party to protect itself. They're in a political panic, quite frankly,” Graham told reporters. “Nobody really cares what it is anymore as long as they can get it passed, signed, and claim a political victory. That is going to do a lot of damage to long-term health care reform efforts. And I would urge them not to do this. They're walking off a cliff.”

Peggy Noonan, the columnist and former Reagan speechwriter, told Axelrod on “Morning Joe”: “On the issue of health care, you are losing the left, you are losing the right, you are losing the center. That looks to me like a political disaster.”


(Ed Shultz says to let Pres. Obama's bill go to Conference and put the Public Plan back.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dr. Howard Dean: Health-care bill wouldn't bring Real Reform


If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.

From the very beginning of this debate, progressives have argued that a public option or a Medicare buy-in would restore competition and hold the private health insurance industry accountable. Progressives understood that a public plan would give Americans real choices about what kind of system they wanted to be in and how they wanted to spend their money. Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to.

To be clear, I'm not giving up on health-care reform. The legislation does have some good points, such as expanding Medicaid and permanently increasing the federal government's contribution to it. It invests critical dollars in public health, wellness and prevention programs; extends the life of the Medicare trust fund; and allows young Americans to stay on their parents' health-care plans until they turn 27. Small businesses struggling with rising health-care costs will receive a tax credit, and primary-care physicians will see increases in their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates.

Improvements can still be made in the Senate, and I hope that Senate Democrats will work on this bill as it moves to conference. If lawmakers are interested in ensuring that government affordability credits are spent on health-care benefits rather than insurers' salaries, they need to require state-based exchanges, which act as prudent purchasers and select only the most efficient insurers. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) offered this amendment during the Finance Committee markup, and Democrats should include it in the final legislation. A stripped-down version of the current bill that included these provisions would be worth passing.

In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care.

I have worked for health-care reform all my political life. In my home state of Vermont, we have accomplished universal health care for children younger than 18 and real insurance reform -- which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn't much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.


Sources: Politico, Washington Post, MSNBC, Morning Joe, Google Maps

Obama Health Care Bill DOA! Listen To Dean Not Rahm!

What will happen to Health Care Reform?

I suggest the Obama Administration STOP listening to Rahm Emanuel and instead listen attentively to Dr. Howard Dean.

If we as a nation are going to reform our Health Care System why not do it right?

If we are NOT going to do it correct, GOP fairy tales of "Death Panels" will in fact become a reality.

Whether we like it or not, wish to admit it not Uninsured people who can't afford Health Care Insurance die!

This current version of Health Care Reform is not REAL Reform.

Since its been stripped down to nothing effective, the only population it will benefit are Health Care Executives.

Pres. Obama & Congress please lay aside your egos and listen to Dr. Dean's voice of reason.

History won't give us another shot at this effort so why not get it right once and for all?

Democrats what's more important? Your Political Careers or the lives of Human Beings?

Isn't it better to do it correct now than hurt millions of American Voters later with a crappy, non-effective bill?

If this crappy bill is pushed through just to score Political points or create a "Presidential Legacy", in 2010 & 2012 Democrats will pay a huge price at the Polls.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

View Larger Map


Sources: MSNBC, Countdown With Keith Olbermann, Democracy for America, Google Maps

Howard Dean: "Kill The Bill & Start Over!"

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Kill The Bill? Some Progressives Say Nothing Is Better Than Senate Health Care Bill


The Senate health care bill is so compromised, some progressives argue, that it would be better to try to kill it than fight for its passage.

In light of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to give in to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and agree to scrap a Medicare compromise, and with the public option already off the table, many ardent supporters of health care reform are giving up on the legislation.

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean said in a radio interview Tuesday that he agreed.

"This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate," Dean said. "Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill."

"Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate," wrote DailyKos founder Markos Moulitas on his Twitter feed Monday night.

Darcy Burner, a beloved (but unsuccessful) progressive candidate for Congress in the past two elections and executive director of ProgressiveCongress.org, wrote in a blog post:

The first rule of medicine is, "Do no harm." The post-Joe Lieberman version of the Senate health care bill fails that basic criterion. Unless Democratic leadership steps up to fix this misguided proposal, our only recourse will be to kill it.

The fundamental failing of the newest Senate proposal is that it requires individuals to purchase health insurance, but does nothing to rein in what insurance companies charge. There is nothing to stop spiraling health costs from eating up an ever-increasing percentage of our national productivity.

The House bill has two major cost-control mechanisms: the public option and the 85% medical-loss ratio requirement. The Senate bill is on track to have neither, and nothing new to replace them. The Senate bill is a recipe for national disaster. If it's that bill or nothing, I prefer nothing.

At the progressive website Firedoglake, some still hope that the Senate will abandon Lieberman and pass reform with reconciliation. Blogger Gregg Levine wrote that it's time to just fight the legislation:


"I say: Kill the bill".


I say this with a heavy heart. Failure to pass health care legislation, even terrible legislation, will be a great loss for the Obama administration and for Democrats in Congress. But passing a bill as bad as the Senate's eventual endpoint could be a bigger defeat for the Democratic majority we really want--one that takes progressive action on behalf of the voters.

Because, as I see it, a bill without the competitive force of a public option, or the opportunity for millions to buy into Medicare, without cheaper pharmaceuticals or meaningful controls on premiums, without bans on benefit caps or loophole-free safeguards against rescission, but with an individual mandate, will do nothing for the 30 million uninsured that advocates of the bill like to talk about helping--but it will do plenty for the private insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

"Reid got sucker punched. And real reform is down for the count," John Nichols wrote at The Nation.


Sources: MSNBC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Huffington Post