I first posted on this back in Nov/Dec. But if I go back and stick this as a mere comment on that thread, it'll be basically buried. So a new post is in order.
Almost three months later, the Democratic Party in Congress is now lumbering toward possibly passing some form of health care reform legislation. And as of today it still remains to be seen if they can keep their eye on the ball long enough to actually get a hit here. After the initial bills passed their respective chambers the ideologues and caucuses on both ends of the spectrum declared that compromise was probably not possible since their pet issue couldn't be sacrificed on the altar of passing any bill.
Now, however, they are talking as if they realize a partial or "bad" bill would indeed be preferable to no bill. And they are seemingly realizing that if the Republicans are going to hide behind the Senate's filibuster cloture rules (which means 60 vote minimum to pass anything) then perhaps the Democrats can use a parliamentary procedure to thwart this, namely "reconciliation". Reconciliation would allow the Senate to vote on the bill on an up or down, simple majority basis instead of the super majority.
But all this has yet to transpire in the coming couple of weeks. So we'll see. If compromise is indeed struck and some bill is passed it will indeed represent one of the first important such events in Congress in several decades.
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2 comments:
i have actually dropped out of following the news until something is actually passed - at this point most coverage seems ... premature and speculative (as if it is ever anything else until actual news has happened/is figured out).
on a separate note, in re your past post on the census, well, we did ours. I found it very interesting the "Notification" letter (which came a week in advance of the Census mailing) was written in 5 different languages (Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, English) yet the actual Census questions/form was only in English. Guess the answers were less important than letting them know the document was coming? or was the notifying document merely a placating with the appearance of political correctness?
Excellent questions. I didn't pay that much attention to the initial letter. Noticed a lot of whining in press about the expense of it. But the Census people apparently are relying on past evidence that such a pre-letter increases response by some 12%. If so,why not? As to languages, I imagine that after the first letter one could have requested a form in appropriate language. I just didn't pay any attention.
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