Brute Force

Having failed to convince the Republicans of the merits of Obamacare, the Democrats have now decided to use brute force and bully the legislation through with a simple majority. This is a spectacularly bad idea. Forcing the bill through under “budget reconciliation” essentially undermines the entire set of safeguards the Americans have in place to avoid simple majority-rules decisions. Having a 60 vote threshold in the Senate means that legislation in the US must involve either a very strong majority or some non-partisan persuasion – both of which are excellent safeguards. Although the US has had some very strange legislation ratified in the past (consisting of odd compromises to “buy” extra votes), at least they have not had whole pieces of badly-thought-out legislation rammed through parliament entirely on party lines (like the original ETS and the EFA). There is some pragmatism and compromise engineered into the system.

To avoid the country coming to a complete standstill for basic budget decisions, the US has a provision for “budget reconciliation”, to bypass the need for a Senate majority. Typically, the procedure is used to move minor budget matters through the system. To my knowledge, it has never been used to force such a large, wide-ranging piece of legislation such as the healthcare bill into law. The implication should make the Democrats feel singularly uncomfortable. Bear in mind that whatever goes around, comes around. The Republicans will eventually (probably sooner rather than later) have a majority again in both houses. There would then be nothing to stop them using the same procedure to force through partisan legislation of their own.

For New Zealand readers, the equivalent would be John Key deciding to privatise the whole of health, selling all the hospitals and issuing the poor a chit for an insurance subsidy; relying just on National and ACT to get the legislation through.

The fact that that is actually possible illustrates why New Zealand needs to consider a second house as part of a proper constitution – but I digress.

Obama’s health plan is deeply anti-competitive and amounts to state health by stealth. While it may transiently reduce health costs, there is little doubt that it will be at the expense of access to health for the majority of Americans who are currently insured and certainly at the expense of future taxpayers who are already staring at a lifetime of indentured servitude to the government as they pay back Obama’s profligate spending spree.

There is almost certainly a compromise that will make this health bill a reality, under normal procedures. It is clear from Obama’s little health conference that that position is still a long way off.  This bill therefore needs to be shelved and taken back to the negotiating table. I doubt that it truly needs to be started up from scratch as the Republicans insist. There are things to like in the bill. The provision of insurance to the many uninsured is an excellent idea. It just needs to be done in a way that does not include the state monopolising the insurance industry. The MacDoctor once again points US legislators to the obvious solution.

Once you go down the road of State health care there is no easy way to turn back. Americans would be wise to consider if that is what they really want.

Related posts: