The fact that Republican Scott Brown has taken the senate seat away from Democrats in Massachusetts may potentially cripple efforts to push through a healthcare reform bill.
Nancy Pelosi states “our eye is on the ball of passing legislation. In order to do that we will have to dissolve differences, establish some priorities , make some decisions and that’s what we’re doing. Whatever happens in Massachusettes, we have to do that”.
Not everyone is that fatalistic. Possible measures are under discussion to avoid the necessary 60 votes in the senate.
The President is pushing to bypass the senate by having the house simply voting on the exact bill that passed the senate before instead of the compromise being worked on by Congressional negotiators to meld both House and Senate bills.
There is an option suggested whereby Mr. Brown’s swearing in is delayed with Mr Kirk (democrat) still holding Kennedy’s seat until the health care compromise clears the Senate floor. Most people find this repugnant if not totally unfair.
Perhaps we should be opening our eyes as to why Scott Brown won in the first place. The majority of people in the state of Massachusetts are saying (with their vote) that they are unhappy with the proposed healthcare reform. It’s not that we don’t want people to have affordable healthcare coverage. It may be that the cost of change is too dear.
