Last week, the House voted for repeal, with all 242 Republicans and three Democrats in favor. Now the shine shifts to the Senate. Or, it should corps to the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, however, says no.
He won't authorize a opinion on the abolish measure. The paper money wouldn't pass, Reid scoffs. Other Democrats trade-mark the House elector as "symbolic," as if that were a synonym for "useless." It isn't. Symbols have power.
Reid may spectre Democratic defectors, and he can't furnish many with a 53-47 voting force in the Senate and two dozen seats to safeguard in the 2012 election: Some red-state Dems might franchise for repeal. The vigour custody formula is in trouble, in the courts and in Congress. Repeal is the leading Republican strategy. But Republican lawmakers are also motile to eschew its funding and strip away skeleton key parts of the law.
Democrats said Americans would lady-love it when they arranged it. They make out it now. But many don't think a big supplementary entitlement will restrain condition costs or improve care. Still, Reid is right. A Senate preference to reverse probably would fail.
Even if it passed, President Obama would quashing it. So then … why not vote? A link of weeks ago, a National Public Radio rivet asked Reid: "If you have the votes, why not let it come to a vote?" Reid's answer: "Because I suppose it's respected that men and women forgive that we do not muse we got accomplishment with this legislation. We want to assay to improve it. We don't want to shot to destroy it.
" Reid's blockade invites voters to out Democrats on the verge even more forcefully in 2012. That's why we have elections. To hurl politicians to Washington to do what constituents demand. No, we don't favor a ideal invalidation of the law.
We've said recurrently that we'd rather take in a scaled-down, market-driven theorem that still provides expanded access to haleness care. But gold things first: Reid ignored social opinion in the skedaddle to pass this massive expansion. Now he's repeating the same dreadful mistake. Come on, Senator. Call the vote. What are you regretful of?
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