Thursday, December 24, 2009

Senate Passes Health Care Bill

The Senate passed the health care bill! To be honest, I'm not sure what's in it. Everything kept changing so much I gave up trying to follow. Next the House and Senate argue about it for awhile. You can read about it here, and Ezra Klein is usually a good resource for health care wonkery:

Health-care reform, by this point, has had a lot of milestones. It has cleared five committees. It has come through the House of Representatives. It has been merged into a single bill in the Senate. It has passed through the Senate. No previous health-care reform bill has come anywhere near this far. But there are more milestones left to achieve: The House and Senate need to agree on a bill. That bill has to pass both chambers again. And then the president has to sign the legislation.

Passing legislation, it turns out, is a long and ugly process. God, is it ugly. The compromises, both with powerful special interests and decisive senators. The trimming of ambitions and the budget gimmicks and the worship of Congressional Budget Office scores. By the end, you're passing a compromise of a deal of a negotiation of a concession.

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