 (Image: Boston.com) |
New Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown has largely stayed under the radar since his election in January, although the impact of his win has reached far and wide. With 41 seats in the Senate, Republicans can now use the filibuster. The Obama administration has now resorted to pushing for budget reconciliation to avoid that and pass affordable health insurance reforms.
Brown thinks that wouldn’t be a smart move. He sees his victory as a message America is sending to Washington: kill the current bill. Whether or not the newly proposed changes (which include a handful of Republican proposals) are any more appealing to him than the bill he previously ran against is unknown, but the process by which they would become law appears somewhat unseemly. According to Brown, his state will be especially hurt, largely because there has already been Massachusetts health insurance reform–they’ll be subsidizing other states that didn’t take those steps, when it should be each state’s individual decision. Like many GOP politicians, he believes that Democrats will face massive losses in the fall elections if they go it alone and ignore their wishes.
President Obama has said that healthcare reform can’t wait, and that he is willing to be a one-term president in order to achieve the goals that he feels have been neglected by previous administrations. Do congressional Democrats have the same lack of self-preservation?
Tags: budget reconciliation, congress, health insurance, healthcare reform, massachusetts health insurance, obama, scott brown, senate
