While the Senate celebrated in the wee hours this morning for getting past another procedural hurdle, hopefully they are checking their triumphalism, and will keep in mind this week and during their holiday recess, as they approach the House conference, the message Tom Harkin sent on Saturday.
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) vowed that Democrats will continue to work on health care reform and promised more legislative fixes in the future.
"What we’re building here is not a mansion. It’s a starter home. But it’s got a great foundation. ... This is not the end of health care reform, it’s the beginning of health care reform," Harkin said.
This is certainly the beginning, and since this bill solidifies the already broken private insurance structure, and at a hefty price, it would best be called health insurance expansion. So Democrats need to be very careful about over-selling his effort, and know that we're going to be holding them to the promise of actually enacting real health care reform.
They also need to spend a little bit of time thinking about how in the hell to keep Bart Stupak from blowing the whole thing out of the water.