It has been a few weeks now since the Senate voted to start debate on healthcare reform. My question now is, how long is it going to take for the Senate to finally pass it? This was supposed to be done by Labor day, then Thanksgiving, and now Christmas. People are now saying that the Senate likely wont even have a vote by Christmas. My question is, when will it be done? Where is the next goalpost? President's Day? Easter? Memorial Day? 4th of July? Labor Day? 2030?
In all seriousness, we need this passed by New Year's Day. There are simply too many other items such as a jobs bill and climate change that need to be addressed and for them to be addressed, healthcare reform needs to be off the table and done with. We cannot be in May 2010 and still be debating the healthcare bill. That is simply unacceptable and a death sentance for any reform.
There are probably an automatic 38 votes against this bill simply because it is a Democratic President who is supporting it. We could give Republicans everything they want and 38 out of them would still vote against it in a bloc. So we have to turn to six Senators who may vote for a final bill but are being a pain in the ass right now: Joe Lieberman(he has no excuse. No excuse), Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson.
If Democrats can get four of these six possible votes, they can pass a bill.
We are now at the point that we should settle for anything that we can call healthcare reform. Something incremental can be improved on, but if we pass nothing, bet on another 20 years and another 15 million uninsured before we even have a debate on healthcare reform again.