The Bill That Wouldn’t Die

Democrats stuck together Saturday night and delivered the 60 votes needed to move a 2,074-page health care reform bill to the Senate floor for debate.

The 60-39 vote was taken shortly before 8 p.m., but the outcome was decided before 2:30 p.m., when Senator Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, announced she would vote for the procedural motion because she felt the legislation needed to be debated. That gave Democrats the 60 votes they needed to overcome Republican efforts to block the bill.

The alternative—“just simply drop the issue and walk away” —was not acceptable, the senator said.

Lincoln, however, made it clear that her vote was merely procedurual and that she still has problems with the bill itself—particularly the government-run insurance option that would be offered in the insurance exchanges created by the bill. She said she would vote against the final bill if it included a public option.

Still, the fact the Democrats cleared this procedural hurdle was a major accomplishment. A no vote likely would have killed health care reform, even though Republicans maintained they didn’t want to stop debating health care reform; they only wanted to start over and craft a bill more to the public’s liking.

Instead, the bill lives, to be debated after Thanksgiving. Changing it will take a lot of political maneuvering, because 60 votes also will be required to pass any major amendments. That’s the same margin that will be required to proceed to a final vote. If Lincoln and a couple of other Democrats stick to their pledges to vote against the bill if it includes a public plan, then that provision will have to be amended out of the bill. That would create a huge conflict with the House and antagonize many of the Democrats’ most avid grass-roots activists, who contend a bill without a public option isn’t worth passing.

Plenty of other disputes between the House and Senate, including how abortion is covered by health insurance, will have to be resolved before President Obama signs this massive overhaul of America’s health care system.

But give Obama and congressional Democrats credit. On Saturday night, avoiding defeat was a major victory.

“Tonight it became clear that those who simply want to obstruct any progress and defend the broken status quo will not win,” said Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who presided over the vote and then noted how pleased his late friend, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, would have been pleased by the outcome.

Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, agreed the vote was historic—“historic in its arrogance—arrogance that we in Congress are wise enough to take this complex health system that is 16 percent of our economy and serves 300 million Americans and think we can write a 2,000-page bill and change it all—all at once.”