What to Do About Healthcare Reform

With Scott Brown being sworn in today, there is this question on everyone Democrat's mind: What do we do to get healthcare passed?

There is a solution, however it means that Democratic House Representatives will actually have to unite for once.

Seeing as it is going to be nearly impossible to pass a comprehensive healthcare bill in the Senate now, the only thing that really can be done is for the House to pass the Senate’s version of the healthcare bill.

I am as liberal as they come and I know the Senate bill isn’t perfect, it’s far from it; however the Senate bill is an improvement to the status quo, a huge improvement at that.

The Senate bill would, among many other improvements, make it illegal for insurance companies to reject an applicant because of preexisting conditions and it would allow families and individuals to get subsidies in order to pay for healthcare, this would in effect cover around 31 million more Americans.

Many liberal Democrats in the House have announced, stated, or commented that they will not vote for a healthcare bill that does not include a public option, a noble idea, however there is that chance that a healthcare bill with the public option may not be able to be passed for many, many more years, and all those years, those 31 million Americans would still be without healthcare.

So here’s my idea: the House pass the Senate healthcare bill and then the Senate, using their simple majority, can use budget reconciliation to adjust the bill to make it fairer and to create more subsidies.

I’m not the first person to believe this and I won’t be the last. Former advisor to President Clinton, Paul Begala, and former Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle have both voiced their belief that House Democrats should pass the Senate version of the healthcare reform bill despite worries that it is pared down piece of legislation.

Begala wrote in an op-ed in the Huffington Post that he is “begging” House Democrats to pass the Senate bill because even if it is “not as progressive as the House bill,” it is still “better than the status quo.”

Similarly, Daschle told The Hill Monday that it would take “political courage” to pass the Senate healthcare bill in the House and that it is the “right thing” to do.

I’m asking the same of House Democrats: Pass the Senate version now and you can perfect it later.