CSM: Why has Congress set a Christmas deadline for healthcare reform?

[TomCADem]

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/1219/Why-has-Congress-set-a-Christmas-deadline-for-healthcare-reform

If the debacle of August's healthcare reform town halls told Democrats anything, it was this: Don't send your legislators back to their districts without a bill to defend.

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But what is the rush to pass a bill that will impact one-sixth of the American economy?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Wednesday that not completing House and Senate bills before a break would be “very bad for the American people and very, very bad for us."

The prospect of losing momentum is what's driving Democrats to complete the bill even in the face of blizzards, late nights, and ruined holiday plans, says Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

“At this point, momentum has a virtue, almost like a law of physics that has kicked in and is propelling this to a climax, and they don’t want to do anything to arrest that momentum, including a break,” he says.

August's town halls: lessons learned

For weeks, Democrats have been pounded by new polls reporting that public support for healthcare reform is below a majority and falling. Democratic leaders did not want their members to go home to face angry town hall meetings, as many did in August, without legislation in hand that will allow them to counter angry allegations with hard facts.

“It’s very hard to merchandise healthcare until we have a bill,” Speaker Pelosi added Wednesday.

Now, it seems, they might be able to.

Nelson's support makes passage of the bill through the Senate virtually assured. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a score of the revised bill Saturday. With Reid’s changes, CBO analysts project that the bill would cut the federal deficit by $139 billion over 10 years.

[msongs]

1. sell out anything to get it done by xmas. is congress gonna have a baby on xmas or something? nt

[NJmaverick]

2. While there are certainly pros and cons about the bill

there is no doubt passage would gain the Dems a lot of political capital, as well as free them up for other issues.

[napi21]

3. I don't think that's what the polls were saying at all! I don't know exactly what

the question was, but even on DU, if you asked do you want the HC bill to pass, in the last weeks the majority would have been NO! I think the poll shows people who wre unhappy with losing the PO, then the expansion of Medicare were added to those Pubs who don't want any change at all and it looked like everyone was turning against HC reform.

I agree with the po;itical scientists that we need to keep the momentum going! That's exactly what happened in August. They let it die for a month, and it was hell reviving it again!

[Cleita]

4. Maybe they think that this box of manure, wrapped and tied with a nice red bow

will make an adequate token Christmas present for us unwashed masses. Us peasants wouldn't appreciate anything really nice anyway.

[Individualist]

5. It's their Christmas gift to the insurance companies.

[doc03]

6. To screw us one last time before year end n/t

[kenny blankenship]

7. It could be their heads weren't screwed on quite right, it could be perhaps their shoes were 2 tight

But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that their hearts were two sizes too small.
Or the insurance companies' checks were just that much bigger than ours.