Will Obama Compromises Neuter Final Healthcare Reform Bill?

Healthcare reform is now President Obama's to boldly shape and form... or to bobble, pander, and dither over, as he is wont to do on major policy issues. Undoubtedly, the President will sign a healthcare reform bill. The question is: will the reform be effective, or will it be reform in name only?

Despite several years of Obama's soaring, inspirational speeches on the subject, the jury is out as to how effective the Obama White House will be in cobbling together genuine reform of healthcare that will cover most of the millions of uninsured Americans, and will institute real reform of private insurers' greedily egregious practices.

With passage this week of a wet-kiss-for-private-insurers legislative package by the Senate Finance Committee, all five necessary Congressional committees have finally passed bills tagged as "healthcare reform."

(Two Senate committees passed two widely different bills, three House committees passed H.R. 3200, "America's Affordable Health Choices Act.")

Next steps forward in the painstaking process are:

• First, the two Senate bills must be blended into one, which will be difficult, since one features a Medicare-like public plan option, and one completely omits any government-paid option.

  The two Senate bills also have much in common. MedScape Today writes that the Senate bills "are similar in terms of individual and employer mandates, subsidies, state-based health insurance exchanges, expanded Medicaid coverage, and tighter regulation of health plans."

• Second, the House and Senate bills must then be melded into one legislative package by the Conference Committee, which includes seats at the negotiating table for the White House, Senate, and House.

  Heading the four-person White House team (Obama, Emanuel, Orszag, DeParle) will be combustible Rahm Emanuel, the President's take-no-prisoners Chief of Staff and Mr. Obama's extroverted alter-ego, who notoriously takes no flak from dissenters.

  Observes Washington Post columnist David Broder, "With most Republicans regrettably isolated, by their own choosing, from the negotiations, the White House quartet can focus on their fellow Democrats as they try to line up the 218 votes they need in the House and the 60 that probably will be required in the Senate."

• Third, the House and Senate must revote on the shaken-and-stirred, finalized healthcare reform legislation.

• The fourth and final step, of course, is President Obama ceremoniously, and quite publicly, signing healthcare legislation.

As I stated above, I have no doubt, now, that President Obama will definitely sign something he labels "healthcare reform." And if the President has his political druthers, he will sign that bill before Christmas.

Piercing questions loom large, though, about the quality of "reform" that the final bill will accomplish, and especially about the compromises the White House is willing to force to enable the President to live up to his campaign promise of signing healthcare legislation by the end of his first year in office.

As House Speaker Pelosi expressed today, progressives must forcefully hold President Obama accountable to insist on real healthcare reform, and not just settle for any damn piffle that he can claim as "victory" while scoring the maximum political points for his 2012 reelection bid.

Obama's healthcare reform must heartily meet his own self-proclaimed three tests:

• More security and stability to those who have health insurance;
• Provide insurance to those who don't have healthcare insurance; and
• Slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.
  (For details, see Obama's Health Care Reform Speech to Congress .)

Anything less than meaningful, durable reform on all three of these points will cause Obama's much-flaunted healthcare reform agenda to be neutered window-dressing, good only to meet his political purposes, but neither designed not expected to help Americans in their everyday lives.

Will Obama compromises neuter final healthcare reform bill? Not if progressives push the White House hard enough!

Essential Reading

• Pros & Cons of Government Healthcare
• Obama's Eight Health Insurance Consumer Protections
• Key Provisions of the House Healthcare Bill

Photo taken on Oct 14, 2009 of White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel (2nd R) attending a Democratic Caucus meeting with (L-R) Phil Schiliro Director- legislative affairs, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Nancy DeParle, Director of the White House Office for Health Reform.