Reform's Last Gasp

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 

Health Care: The clock is ticking down on Democrats' effort to get health care reform passed by the time Congress goes home for its August recess. This is a big opportunity to kill the bill once and for all.

Only a month ago congressional Democrats were crowing that they had a veto-proof majority and didn't need any help getting health reform passed. They had the votes and would jam the mostly unread 1,018-page health "reform" down our collective throats.

What a difference a month makes. Today, even the staunchest supporters of a government-run health care admit they may not have the votes to pass it. Word's out that, contrary to their claims, the $1.6 trillion reform plan would not cut costs. Instead, it would add at least $239 billion to the deficit and impose new taxes on all Americans, including the middle class and small businesses.

That's why new polls show most Americans have serious doubts about what looked like a slam dunk. They don't want bureaucrats making their most intimate, life-and-death decisions for them. Our own IBD/TIPP Poll, taken in June, found Americans by more than 2-to-1 believe health care reform will mean lower-quality care.

Most shocking has been the revelation that reform's most ardent backers in Congress have no idea what's in the bill. "What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" asked John Conyers, D-Mich.

Voters are queasy about nationalized health care with rationed access to medicine, higher taxes and lower quality. They're also concerned with a loss of freedom. As columnist Mark Steyn recently put it, "A society in which you're free to choose your cable package, your iTunes downloads and who ululates the best on American Idol but in which the government takes care of peripheral stuff like your body is a society no longer truly free."

As opposition grows, reform proponents have become frantic. In the Senate, according to MSNBC's First Read blog, Democrats are desperately re-branding their government-run plan, changing the so-called "public option" to a "co-op." It won't work.

Meanwhile, White House powerbroker Rahm Emanuel — a former congressman himself — is pushing the House hard to vote this week on a plan. Even that now looks unlikely.

Thanks to a coalition of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats — the moderate wing of the party — it's no longer clear Democrats have enough votes to pass any reform.

"Look, there are not the votes for Democrats to do this just on our side of the aisle," said Sen. Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Blue Dog who heads the budget committee.

This isn't a bad thing. In fact, the failing prospects of health care reform may be a big reason why major stock market indexes have rallied furiously in recent weeks.

The final nail in the health care nationalizers' coffin may be Congressional Budget Office chief Doug Elmendorf's letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday. Contrary to proponents' claims, he said, "the probability is high that no savings would be realized."

Reform advocates had hoped to pass a major bill that would, in effect, nationalize health care by stealth. Working with the White House, they wanted to get it done before the August recess, when they had to return to their districts and states.

Too late. When they go home, they'll find out why polls now show more than 60% of Americans now call themselves conservative and more than half say they don't want anything to do with health care reform as proposed so far.