Monday, August 17, 2009

End of life provision out of US Senate reform bill

A Wall Street Journal article reports that the end-of-life counseling provision in one of the US health reform bills has been dropped from consideration at the request of Sen Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa. Grassley is what's called a veto player in political science - the Senate requires 60 votes to stop debate on a bill and vote on it, and the Democrats will probably not be able to get 60 votes without some Republican support.

Additionally, the President has committed to passing a bill with bipartisan support. This is probably wise. Should the Democrats pass a bill along party lines but later lose control of Congress or the Presidency, the Republicans will likely gut whatever the Democrats do, no matter whether it was good policy or not.

The problem with this approach is that too many Republicans are frankly not basing their actions on good policy.

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