A Dark and Gloomy Night

Republicans have proposed their own health care package. I doubt that the Democrats can muster forty votes to stop it.

Democrats are putting together their own health care package, but Republicans (and some usual-suspect Democrats) will easily defeat anything they do. Baucus has made it clear he wants sixty votes for his package, another way of saying in advance that he is willing to give away the store.

So the outlook at this time is bleak – Republicans hold all the cards, Democrats have no leaders. Republcans will insist on certain provisions for passage of a bill, such as no public option, or a horribly weak one, and perhaps no negotiating allowed on policy prices when government subsidizes insurance companies. The Democrats will give them what they want, supposedly just to get a bill passed, but in reality because this is what they want too.

I think it is important to focus on two aspects of the Baucus plan – one, his plan to tax benefits, and two, his intent to use the IRS to force people to buy private policies. In that, many of us can find common cause in opposing him. There aren’t enough progressives in the Democratic Party to stop him, but maybe we could do the odd bedfellow thing.

“Die another day” appears to be our only hope.