| A bill that would have swept away states' ability to mandate certain kinds of health coverage in insurance products -- the so-called Enzi bill -- has been defeated in Congress. It was being filibustered, and cloture failed by 55-43.
Now, that bill had been sold as a means by which small businesses could pool their resources to buy insurance. Of course, that's a good goal, and the Dems had an alternative bill that would have done just that, but just that. So much for that. Enzi says he'll try to do a compromise bill; hopefully that'll involve just the pooling.
... Also, Fall River native EJ Dionne took note of what happened up here with health care, and how the bill was finally passed. Never mind the Pollyanna-ish optimism about the new law -- we've got a lot of work still to do -- but his brief political narrative is worth noting:
... What's often left out of the story, said David Ellwood, dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is that nothing would have happened if advocates of universal health care had not battled "year after year" to put the issue at the center of the politicians' agenda.
When Romney and state Senate President Robert Travaglini balked at the employer assessment, a coalition that included the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation) and the advocacy group Health Care for All gathered more than 113,000 signatures to put a health-care initiative on the Massachusetts ballot. It included a substantial employer assessment.
"We filed that initiative to go further than the legislature wanted to go and to provide an option if the legislature didn't go forward," said John McDonough, executive director of Health Care for All. It's called pressure.
It's also called persistence. And we're gonna need it -- still. |
