This may sound like the legislation had broad support; it did not. It passed by the slimmest margin and without any Republican support. It required some parliamentary chicanery to get the bill past the narrow majority. By all accounts it required some severe "arm-twisting," back room deals and sleazy promises. Nebraska and other states got Federal dollars, California got water; Colorado and Kansas had some of their money shut off. Democrats were promised by a majority of voters that they will be voted out of office in November if they supported the bill. Despite this, 219 Democrats did vote for the plan. Given the certainty of their political "suicide" and the already fallen election losers piling up, why would anyone vote for this? The C.B.O. estimates already have it as a trillion dollar looser. Moody's threatened to downgrade the US Treasury's bond rating if it passed. China dumped $38 Billion in US T-bills in advance of the vote. So, then, what is the political and social capital that is so valued that so many would risk everything for this vote?
Clearly, the motives of the supporters are many, Obama and Pelosi may have entirely different underlying goals in their respective quests for universal healthcare. President Obama has very clearly stated what he wants for the nation's healthcare system. He insists on the government as a single payer as in the Canadian and Massachusetts systems. He also says he knows it will not happen overnight, that the process will take at least four years to fundamentally transform the system. So, then, what is this system going to look like when our promised transformation is done. This is what we will explore in the next post.
