Who is to blame for the failure of health care reform to pass? Ultimately it was the inability of House Democrats and Senate Democrats to strike an agreement that led to the bill’s failure: the Democrats are in the party in power, hence they bear the responsibility of legislation, both passed or not passed. One key conflict? Health care reform funding: House Democrats would rather see the Medicare tax raised on upper-income Americans; Senate Democrats favor taxing ‘Cadillac’ (premium) health care plans. To be sure, the Republican Party is not without blame: they are the party of ‘no.’ They offered no credible, practical solutions to insure the 35 million uninsured, nor to reduce Medicare/Medicaid costs, and their overall tenor is one of obstruction. Like conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, the Republican Party wants President Obama and the Democrats to fail, and if it means taking actions that harm the nation, do a disservice to the public interest, and results in federal health care costs ballooning out of control, then the Republican stance is ‘obstruct away.’ But obstruction is nothing new for the Republican Party: among other lamentable and regressive political stances, they opposed Social Security in 1935, and they opposed Medicare in 1965.
