The modified reconciliation fix has passed the House for the second time, 220-207. This means that the agreed-upon fixes agreed to by both the House and the Senate are now done.
I hope that Democrats have learned a lesson from this – if they stay together as a caucus and anticipate Republican tactics, they can prevail. Despite all the threats made by the Republicans, in the end the passage was anti-climactic.
This doesn’t mean that the fight is over. I think it’s just beginning. The bill does not spell out the enforcement mechanism, which will be written by the HHS. We’ll have to keep our eyes out to make sure that the regulations are written to favor consumers over insurers. There’s still the public option and Medicare buy-in.
What have we learned from this? In my case I’ve learned that real change is difficult, incredibly difficult and exhausting. You can’t give up and you can’t count on people to do the right thing without prodding. The most frustrating thing for me is practically having to beg our elected officials to do the right thing. Hopefully our elected officials have learned that nothing feels better than winning and will continue the streak.
There’s a huge downside, which is the behavior of the Republicans, especially the leadership. They settled on a strategy of failure for America and they’re sticking to it. They are happy to stir the fear and hatred of unhinged followers, as long as it benefits them. I’m hoping that this strategy bites them in the rear but it won’t as long as the media plays the false equivalence game.