BETRAYAL

After months of haggling in the House and Senate, the president will probably get a health care bill on his desk before the end of the year. Unfortunately, that bill will not spell reform for millions of America’s uninsured, it will spell betrayal.

The bill that is likely to come out of the Senate will contain neither a public option nor a Medicare buy-in for people 55 to 64, both of which were dropped in a desperate attempt to reach a compromise. It will, however, require virtually everyone to buy insurance. In other words, far from being a humanitarian provider of universal health care, this bill will use the power of the state to make insurance companies even richer. Worse than that, the Democrats will probably hold this bill up as their big accomplishment of the year.

I can’t understand why the Democrats, who have majorities in both houses, have been unable to pass meaningful health care reform. The required 60 votes in the Senate to cut off debate isn’t actually required at all; it is an invented rule, and recently invented at that. The majority party could easily change the rule to 55, or 50. They just don’t seem to have the backbone to do it.

I don’t believe in good and evil. That is an overly simplistic view of the world. I have not doubt that those who are voting against reform are doing so because they feel it is somehow best for the country. In the worst-case scenario, they are doing it to curry favor with the deep-pocketed insurance industry in order to get re-elected … and they feel that is for the best for the country.

Whatever the reason, they have stood as one against health care reform. Republicans often espouse their belief that government isn’t the solution, it is the problem. Apparently, Democrats believe that government is the solution, but making it work is problematic.