Peter Dreier: Pass the Health Care Bill – Then Improve It

There are many lessons to learn from the health care war that has raged over the past year. We’ll get to some of them below. But here’s the bottom line: Pass the bill, then improve it.

The health care bill that will emerge from the House-Senate conference committee won’t be what most progressives had hoped for, but it is a major, historic turning point in American social reform legislation, comparable to the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, the Fair Labor Standards (minimum wage/40 hour week) Act, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the Clean Air Act, and other progressive breakthroughs. None of those laws were what their advocates wanted. They all involved compromises that, at the time, were heart-breaking to activists. Each one was subsequently improved by amendments, although not without reformers doing battle with reactionary opponents.

It is incredibly irresponsible for some radicals and progressives to call for killing the health care bill. It is important to push for changes that would improve the Senate version of the bill. For example, the House funding plan (a tax on families with incomes over $1 million) is much better than the Senate version (a tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans). That’s what the labor movement, liberal and progressive Democrats in Congress, pro-choice advocates, and others will be doing in hopes of putting a better bill on President Obama’s desk, as Harold Meyerson discusses in his latest Washington Post column.

Full Story Peter Dreier: Pass the Health Care Bill – Then Improve It.