It’s the Senate’s turn now

Written by Nathan Hansen Tuesday, 10 November 2009 08:00

Saturday night was a good night for those interested in real healthcare reform. The House of Representatives passed the Affordable Healthcare for America Act, which brings needed regulation and reform to the healthcare sector.

Nancy Pelosi called it a bipartisan vote, but it really was not that. Most democrats voted for the bill, while only a single dissenting Republican cast a yes vote on the bill.

The act stops insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions and eliminates practices that discriminate based on gender or medical history.

Most Americans agree that these are needed reforms, so it surprising that so many Republicans voted not on their constituents’ wishes, but on party loyalty.

I mean I guess I am naive since American invented party loyalty it seems, where Republicans hate Democrats and you couldn’t get them to agree on what color yellow is, but shouldn’t the party line come second to serving the American people?

Do most Republican senators and representatives really have a problem with health care legislation, or did they see Democrat on the list of authors and then put on their hate blinders when it came to reading and forming an opinion on the legislation?

Now the bill has to go to the Senate and it faces even tougher partisan politics. Senator Liebermann is promising a filibuster of the bill, unless the senate gets the sixty votes needed to break the practice.

Now I realize that filibusters have been used in the past and there is another part of our storied and great history of our legislative branch of our government, but here comes my naiveté again.

A filibuster isn’t very democratic in the traditional sense. It is just a cheap tactic to keep the bill from being voted upon, which would be democratic. Much more democratic than reading War and Peace until the bill dies on the floor.

Hopefully the bill will actually make it to a vote on the senate floor, and more importantly, the bill will be passed.  But if it does get filibustered, or we get another lovely party vote, rest assured this wouldn’t be the first time the party came before the country.

Maybe we should just have two states. The red state and the blue state. Then at least the constituents would be represented accurately.

Nathan is a senior studying mathematics.