Health care reform is now entering the final phases of becoming a law – negotiation. Right now the big fight is what kind of public option we’ll get – triggered, opt out, robust (Medicare + 5) or level playing field. It’s certainly no reason to relax but let’s look ahead to what’s next on the agenda. I really see three big fights on the horizon.
DADT Repeal
Most of us have been very impatient to get this started. Carl Levin has announced that hearings on DADT will start in the Senate next month. I think that puts the DADT repeal on track for bills early next year. As far as I’m concerned it can’t come soon enough but the Obama administration has been very deliberate in making sure that the senior military is on board with the decision. The publication of a study in support of DADT repeal in the military journal Joint Force Quarterly has made the repeal very likely to happen. The remaining question is how hard Republicans will fight against it. This should lead to all kinds of interesting You Tube moments.
Cape & Trade – Climate Change
This bill was given up for dead at almost the same moment it left the House of Representatives. I doubt there would have been any movement in the bill if not for the high profile defections from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, specifically because of the business group’s opposition to cap & trade legislation. John Kerry was able to convince Lindsey Graham to support the legislation (mostly by adding drill, baby drill) but this nominally bipartisan support will probably help move this bill forward, though probably not in time for the Copenhagen Conference in December.
Financial Reform
In my opinion, financial reform will be the biggest fight of all of them because the parties have very different views of business regulation and because the banking and financial industry will fight against it. The House Financial Services Committee has already started working on a bill and one of the most important reforms, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency has already passed out of the committee.