Rahm Emanuel's fingerprints will be on health-care reform's broken neck
If Health Care Dies, Who Will The Murderer Be? | The New Republic
1994 was bad, but passing a bill through both chambers then sitting by and letting it die is the kind of behavior that makes even the most pragmatic Democratic voter want to punish his own party....
Where McArdle is right is her description of how health care will die if Democrats do choose to go that route:
They don't want to say they want to kill it, of course. So instead, they're doing pretty much what I expected: putting it on the back burner. We want to pass health care, but we just have a few things to do first . . .
That sounds a lot like Rahm Emanuel's plan of action, floated in today's New York Times:
Mr. Emanuel, the chief of staff, said he hoped Congressional Democrats would take up the jobs bill next week. Then, in his view, Congress would move to the president’s plan to impose a fee on banks to help offset losses to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the fund used to bail out banks and automakers.
Lawmakers would next deal with a financial regulatory overhaul, and then pick up where they left off on health care.
Let's call this the "My boyfriend is going to do a world tour with his rock band, then have a totally platonic weekend in Vegas with his ex-girlfriend, then join the Army, and then we'll get married" plan. Anybody see any potential problems here?
