Health Reform Gets Boost In Massachusetts

Martha Coakley, the Democrat, lost the special election in Massachusetts for Ted Kennedy's senate seat. Capitol Hill Democrats are doing much weeping and gnashing of teeth, and to hear them whining you'd think they had lost their best friend. Personally, I think this may actually turn out to be a good thing.

Brown, the Republican, will not hold the seat too long. Once the people of Massachusetts realize what an ignorant teabagger he really is, there is no way they'll re-elect him in that liberal state. He'd better make the most of this abbreviated term, because it's the only one he'll get.

The best part of the Democratic loss in Massachusetts is that the pitiful Senate health care bill will now probably die the ugly death it deserves. The only chance it has to survive is for the House progressives to knuckle under and accept the Senate bill as it is, and I don't think they'll do that. At least, I hope they don't.

If they do give up and accept the terribly flawed Senate bill, then the Democrats will suffer in the November elections, and they'll richly deserve it. The American people put the Democrats in power to affect real change in this country, and so far the Democrats have failed to deliver on that promise.

A majority of the public is still in favor of real health care reform with an option for public health insurance. But a majority is opposed to band-aid approach of the Senate bill, which would leave the private insurance companies in charge of patient treatment (instead of doctors). They are also opposed to the massive payday that bill would provide for the private insurance companies.

The House needs to go ahead and kill off the pitiful and deeply unpopular Senate approach to health care reform (if one can use the word reform to describe that bill at all). Then they need to start over and use the budget reconciliation process to pass a real health care reform bill with a public option (like making Medicare available to everyone). This would only require 51 Senate votes, and if Senate Democrats can't do that then they deserve to lose in November.

I know the Republicans would scream and tear their hair out if the budget reconciliation process was used, but screw them. Their whining is more than a little disingenuous. They didn't seem to mind when George Bush used that same process to pass bill after bill, so it is sheer hypocrisy for them to oppose the process now. What's good for the goose is also good for the gander.

And while we're talking about the real change the American people elected the Democrats to do, we need to include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economy. A majority of Americans want out of the two wars, and so far all Obama and the Democrats have done is to extend our involvement in them. That must change.

The third, and perhaps the most important issue right now is the recession. The federal government must get serious about putting people back to work. A lot of that can be done by stopping the delays and rebuilding our infrastructure. And new laws must be passed to keep the financial giants from the greedy actions that helped throw this country into a recession in the first place.

The Democrats may have lost the Massachusetts election, but they need to stop complaining and passing blame and get busy doing what the American people elected them to do.