Robert D. Francis is the director for domestic policy for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This post originally appeared last week on Theolog and is republished with permission.
The federal government finally reopened today after four days closed due to record snowfall in the DC area. As for health-care reform, it’s seemed frozen since Scott Brown was elected to the Senate last month.
A senator shy of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster, Democrats face an uncertain path forward. The House could simply pass the bill the Senate already passed, except that too many House Democrats–both Progressive Caucus members and conservative Blue Dogs–find elements of the bill too objectionable to pass it as is. A variation on this would add a separate package of “fixes” to the Senate bill as part of the budget reconciliation process, which is not subject to filibuster.
Another suggestion is a scaled-back reform package that can get bipartisan support. This may be tempting, but it would forfeit a historic opportunity to achieve the comprehensive reform the system badly needs–not to mention the fact that several of reform’s major pieces won’t even work separate from one another. While the road to reform has been perilous and often partisan, we shouldn’t lose sight of how far we’ve come. In the early 1990s, Bill Clinton’s health-care reform proposal didn’t make it out of a single congressional committee. The current effort has seen bills pass out of five committees and both full chambers, the farthest health-care reform has ever gotten. Down by five with seconds left and an inch to go is no time to kick a field goal.
Or to punt. A recent poll found that while 55 percent of Republicans support abandoning reform entirely, 56 percent of independents and an overwhelming 88 percent of Democrats urge lawmakers to keep going. Abandoning reform might please some voters, but those who gave Democrats the presidency and large majorities in Congress did not elect them to walk away from one of the party’s long-time policy goals.
Another poll shows that while Americans are divided on the reform proposals themselves, many become more supportive when told about their major provisions. In other words, many who are skeptical of reform aren’t actually clear about what it will do, giving hope that public opinion will rise once reform is passed and people understand it better.
Many pro-reform faith groups are staying out of the business of prescribing a particular legislative path forward, but they remain unified in the call for the completion of comprehensive reform. (See my Century article from last year.) In a recent letter, 56 religious organizations–including the ELCA, where I work on domestic policy–called on Congress to “complete the task at hand on behalf of the millions who are left out and left behind in our current health care system.” (The letter is now open to individual signers as well.)
A lot of these faith groups have been working for comprehensive health care reform for decades; they’re acutely aware of how historic the current opportunity is. “Turning back now,” says the letter, “could mean justice delayed for another generation and an unprecedented opportunity lost.”