The Periscope Post

The biggest issue facing American politics right now is the health care debate, especially following last week’s “bipartisan” summit meeting and President Barack Obama’s call yesterday for Congress to take a speedy up-or-down vote.

Yesterday, The New York Times used its leading editorial to say that, owing to Republican’s “lock-step opposition” to health care reform, “That means it’s up to Congressional Democrats to move legislation forward — or throw away a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix this country’s broken health care system.”

And as to the Republican opposition to the Democrats’ using “reconciliation” to push, or, as the GOP says, “ram”, the health care legislation through, and avoid a Republican filibuster: “Don’t be misled.” The GOP had no problem using reconciliation to approve the Bush Administration tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

Ultimately, this bill isn’t exactly perfect: “Neither the liberals nor the fiscal hawks will be able to get everything they want.” But, the paper added, “Mr. Obama and Congressional leaders will have to persuade both camps that failure is the worst option of all.”

The Washington Post’s veteran op-ed columnist, EJ Dionne, commended the President on his initiative in pushing the debate through: “Obama’s critics have regularly accused him of not being as tough or wily or forceful as LBJ was in pushing through civil rights and the social programs of his Great Society. Obama seemed willing to let Congress go its own way and was so anxious to look bipartisan that he wouldn’t even take his own side in arguments with Republicans,” Dionne wrote. “Those days are over.”

Obama, flanked by white-coated doctor types, told Congress on Wednesday, “Many Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies. And if they truly believe that less regulation would lead to higher quality, more affordable health insurance, then they should vote against the proposal I’ve put forward.”

Like The New York Times, Dionne also saw the Republican’s opposition to reconciliation as disingenuous at the very least. Eschewing actual, substantive conversation about health care reform, the Republicans have been focusing on the process. And, said Dionne, “It is all, I am sorry to say, one big lie – or, if you’re sensitive, an astonishing exercise in hypocrisy.”

Dionne concluded, “[I]t’s not just legitimate to use reconciliation to complete the work on health reform. It would be immoral to do otherwise and thereby let a phony argument about process get in the way of health coverage for 30 million Americans.”

At the same time, there is the danger that House Democrats against abortion would kill the bill if it seemed that federal funding would go towards abortions. Reuters reported that Representative Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, told ABC’s Good Morning America that he and 11 other pro-life Democrats were prepared to take “responsibility” for killing the bill if it didn’t meet their demands on the issue.

And if you’ve been following the actual health care debate closely, it can almost seem like another language; The Associated Press today published a really handy breakdown of the terms being used, things like “the nuclear option” and “the shortcut”.