It took hours of political wrangling and arm-twisting, but at 11:07 p.m. on Saturday night, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi rapped her gavel and the Obama administration's sweeping health care bill — HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act — was passed in the House of Representatives by a slim 220-215 margin: 219 Democrats and 1 Republican for, 176 Republicans and 39 Democrats against. The House Democrats had less than 12 hours to recover before the obligatory rounds of Sunday talk shows, but this pales in comparison to the political storm awaiting Senate Democrats in the coming days and weeks.
The fact that the House passed HR 3962 means nothing more than just that — health care reform was passed, barely, in a very Democratic House of Representatives. House Democrats enjoy a massive political advantage, outnumbering their Republican counterparts 258 to 177. Speaker Pelosi could barely keep her own party in rank; she and the Democrats had 41 seats to lose and lost 39 — an abysmal political performance. In the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will need each and every vote of the Democratic caucus, without losing a single of the 58 Democrats or 2 Independents currently on board, the task will be infinitely more difficult.
Reid simply does not have the political clout to keep Senate Democrats in line or to exercise his political will across the aisle and draw legitimate bipartisan support for HR 3962 as is. Reid has consistently shown that he can't hold together his own coalition: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) won't allow the commencement of debate over the bill on the Senate floor; Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) doesn't believe the Democratic plan would, in fact, reduce health care spending; and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) continues to oppose the termination of health insurers' anti-trust immunity. If just one member of the 60-person coalition defects, Reid would need to further woo the likes of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) or perhaps Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), a task at which he has proven relatively unsuccessful.
If Reid can rally his troops, the Democratic coalition can invoke cloture with 60 votes, placing a time limit on a potential filibuster and other deliberate stalling tactics that Republicans could employ to delay a final vote. To further complicate matters, invoking cloture in no way guarantees a reliable Democratic majority in favor of passing the bill. Still further, even if Reid ensured a Democratic majority, all indicators point to a watered-down HR 3962 emerging in the end. A tax on "Cadillac" health care plans, surtaxes on individuals earning more than $500,000 annually, required employer provision of health care, termination of health insurers' anti-trust immunity and the much-ballyhooed public option all remain highly contentious issues among Senate Democrats and, as Reid has suggested, are fair game to be scaled back in order to secure votes.
A non-robust health care reform package doesn't particularly matter, however, when Senate Democrats are reminded of the stark reality that enough dissention in the ranks exists to keep Reid's caucus from reaching the magic number 60. That dissension will only grow with increased flare-ups over the Stupak Amendment's mandating the outright prohibition of the federal funding of abortions, causing members of the Gang of 60 to further waver in their support. Democrats should view the passage of HR 3962 in the House as merely what was supposed to happen, not as the sort of watershed event which it has been qualified as. Democrats can exchange handshakes or perhaps pats on the back, but the future for health care reform is highly uncertain. The odds of Reid rallying Senate Democrats and avoiding filibuster are very slim. Don't celebrate the passage of health care reform just yet.
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Teddy Minch is a senior majoring in political science. He hosts "The Rundown," a news and sports talk show that airs from 3 to 5 p.m. every Friday on WMFO. He can be reached at Theodore.Minch@tufts.edu.
