The Muhlenberg Weekly

Issue date: 11/12/09 Section: Op/Ed

Adam Yu, Weekly Op-Ed columnist.

For months now, Congress has devoted an extraordinary amount of attention to the health care reform bill making its way through Congress. The debate over health care appears to have the stamina of the Energizer Bunny. Before health care took center stage on Capitol Hill, climate change legislation, more commonly referred to as cap-and-trade, ate up the most of Congress's time. There is an underlying motive behind the two landmark bills.

With all of these hot-button issues on the Democrats' to-do list, is it possible to enact effective legislation? The answer is most certainly not. The easiest way to explain this is to look at the gargantuan health care and climate change bills and at the process of passage they went through. The price tag for this so-called health care reform bill comes in at $1.2 trillion.

First of all, the final bill that was printed and ready for passage was not even released three days prior to Saturday's vote. I seriously doubt that a majority of House members were truly familiar with the inner workings of this complicated legislation. It was even reported that dozens of Democratic members had already released statements pledging their "aye" vote on a bill that had not even been finalized.

Secondly, this health care reform effort displayed a complete rejection of bipartisanship and compromise. Republicans and many Democrats were shut out of the process. The Democratic leadership refused to permit any Republican amendments to the bill and neglected some concerns that their own members had. Just take a look at the effort that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team had put into deal-making and arm-twisting. It was obvious that this health care bill was not attracting many willing votes of support from either party. Despite the legitimate objections raised by hundreds of representatives, the vote proceeded.

Instead of having the patience necessary to write good public policy, Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and the rest of the Democrats had somewhat of a "shotgun wedding" while they forced this undesirable vote. Keep in mind that the House Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats were not opposing health care reform because they favored the status quo or out of obstructionist motives. Simply put, they just disagree with the way in which the Pelosi plan tries to fix the American health care system. It is absolutely reasonable for our representatives to ask for more time and more accountability when a huge chunk of the American people will be affected by this bill. But I presume Speaker Pelosi could care less about what the other side has to say, because the vote ended up following a mostly party line vote except for 39 Democrats voting with Republicans, and one Republican voting with the Democrats.

Continued...

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