Some people wonder why I am not a fan of Dennis Kucinich and don’t take comfort when I look along the trench and find him fighting by my side or, especially, carrying my banner. Well, he voted against health care reform tonight. He can provide any reasons he wants, but I’d note that the only Democratic women in the entire House to vote against the bill (Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin of South Dakota, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, and Betsy Markey of Colorado), are from very conservative districts. The women of the Democratic caucus swallowed hard when the Stupak-Pitts amendment passed, and they voted to go ahead with reform. So, please don’t try to tell me that the pro-life-’til-the-day-he-decided-to-run-for-president Kucinich voted no because he was standing up for women’s rights. I presume he voted no because this bill isn’t a single-payer bill. But he and Rep. Massa of New York are the only two proponents of single-payer to vote against reform. And Massa is just looking for cover because his district is very conservative. What really happened is that Kucinich wants attention and wants to be holier and purer than everyone else. I’d have to hold my nose to vote this bill, too, but look around, Dennis. You’re all alone. Again.
The bill passed the House with 220 votes (218 votes were required). That leaves us no room to improve the bill in Conference. We got a single Republican vote, from Joseph Cao of New Orleans. Cao was satisfied by the Stupak Amendment, but his vote will disappear if that language is stripped out in Conference. So, we have two votes to spare. Want a stronger public option? Forget it. Any small change to this deal will probably kill the effort to pass this under regular order. I give Pelosi credit for winning, once again, but she just barely made it. She did what she had to do, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. The combination of her dropping a robust public option pre-Conference and allowing an anti-choice amendment to pass created an extremely bitter brew. The narrowness of the vote undermines the gains we might expect from the jolt of momentum we gain from passing this crappy legislation.
I am really disturbed that allowing the abortion amendment didn’t result in an avalanche of support from so-called moderates. It appears that nearly every southern and border Democrat voted against reform. And this despite the fact that this legislation will disproportionately benefit southerners.
I am happy that the House passed this bill. The alternative was unthinkable, and the insurance reform elements of the bill are rock-solid. I’d only ask for private health insurance to be abolished entirely, but that was obviously never in the cards.
This now moves to the Senate which, ironically, is not as hung up on abortion issues. The big issues in the Senate will be over the financing and whether 60 senators will sign off on cloture for a bill with a public option. The difficulty of passing this bill in the House has surprised me more than anything I’ve seen in Washington since the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I am usually the one counseling progressives about how unrealistic their expectations are considering how conservative the Senate is. Now I learn that the House is just as conservative. There is no way anyone could pass a single-payer system through this Congress, even if we won oodles of new seats. It just won’t happen. It’s not a matter of leadership. Why does the entire South oppose even this lukewarm reform? Look at how far we had to go to get to the point that we could pass something with no support from Republicans and almost no support from Southern Democrats? We just did it, and it’s a minor miracle. A shitty bill passed, and it’s a miracle.
Given the odds, I should be ecstatic. But, I’m not. This just reminds me how pathetically conservative my country is, even with 60 Democratic senators and 258 members of the House.
And then there is Kucinich. He can bite me.