Open Left:: Democrats Preparing Health Care "Plan B"

Open Left:: Democrats Preparing Health Care "Plan B"

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... There were several problems with the Baucus "bi-partisan" plan:

1. Over-representative of Republicans. The mini-committee of six included an even number of Democrats and Republicans (three on each side), even though Democrats control 60% of the seats in both the House and the Senate.

2. Negotiating with the wrong Senators. Two of the three Republicans being negotiated with (Enzi and Grassley) weren't even the key swing votes to reach 60 Senators.

3. Nothing in it for Republicans. Republicans have no political interest in passing health care legislation. they will be better off if it fails, electorally speaking.

4. Republicans weren't negotiating in good faith This is demonstrated by Enzi's demand that, other than the gang of six, all other negotiations in Congress and with the Obama administration must be dropped until they three Republicans in the gang agree to anything. Demanding total power over all negotiations is not actual negotiation. It is just a power grab.

5. Unrepresentative of the country. Those six Senators represented states that collectively formed only 3% of the national population.(Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Maine, New Mexico and Iowa)..

For the reasons outlined above, the Baucus bi-partisan plan was flawed in both concept and in execution. Further, whatever function it might have served as a public display to attempt bi-partisanship has already been accomplished.

At this point, if Democrats don't circumvent Baucus and Republicans, we are doing ourselves, and the country, far more harm than good. Abstract process concepts like bipartisanship won't reduce the percentage of GDP spent on health care, and certainly won't cover any more uninsured Americans.