Majority Rule on Health Care Reform

[dtotire]

Majority Rule on Health Care Reform

The talk in Washington is that Senate Democrats are preparing to push through health care reforms using parliamentary procedures that will allow a simple majority to prevail in their chamber, as it does in the House, instead of the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster that Senate Republicans are sure to mount.With the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, the Democrats do not have the votes just among their 57 members (and the two independents) to break a filibuster, and not all of these can be counted on to vote in lock step. If the Democrats want to enact health care reform this year, they appear to have little choice but to adopt a high-risk, go-it-alone, majority-rules strategy.

We say this with considerable regret because a bipartisan compromise would be the surest way to achieve comprehensive reforms with broad public support. But the ideological split between the parties is too wide — and the animosities too deep — for that to be possible.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/opinion/30sun1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

[Demeter]

1. Bipartisanship Cannot Face Down WrongHeadedness

and there haven't been such wrong-headed cadres in this country in such force since the Civil War. Maybe this time, we will finish off that war.