Health Care Reform: House Democrats are sacrificing their seats for a plan they don't believe in

The House of Representatives will vote Sunday for a bill nobody wants. Partly as a result, 2010 will be a Democratic massacree. It doesn't have to be that way.

The House Democrats don’t need to vote for a bill with the “Cornhusker kickback,” the “Louisiana Purchase,” the publicly toxic excise tax, the hated individual mandate to buy private insurance, or the special Medicare Advantage deal for Florida, and they would still be able to pass comprehensive health care reform. All it would take is for Joe Biden plus 50 Senate Democrats, willing, as a result of unprecedented Republican obstructionism, to exploit the existing rules to the maximum extent possible. Heck, House Democrats should proceed with the strategy anyway and drop the burden for passing health care reform squarely on the Senate Democrats instead.

The rest of the story: Why Do House Democrats Care More about Protecting Weird Senate Rules than Protecting Their Seats? by Jon Walker (FireDogLake 2010-03-16)