The victory of Scott Brown has thrown Democratic plans for health care expansion into chaos, with both Senate and House leadership seemingly unable to come up with a cogent strategy to bring a bill forward. The most obvious way forward would have been for the House to adopt the Senate version intact, and then send that bill to the President for signature. Corrective legislation could have followed. The House yesterday rejected that possibility, with Speaker Pelosi admitting that the votes were not there to adopt the Senate version.

The health care reform bills adopted by both branches appear dead. The President himself appeared to call for a scaled back version in an interview on ABC, but the White House later “clarified” his remarks to say that he still favored a broader approach. There will be no approach, either narrow or broad, without Republican votes in the Senate. That is the only way forward on health care today. The bill making process has been utilized by Republicans politically in a very effective manner, and that process has soured independent voters on the whole bill. And truly the process has rightly been subject to criticism. The carve outs are outrageous, and the states (besides Nebraska), have a real concern about any bill that passes costs on to them. We at the local level have concerns about additional burdens to the states as well. It is back to the drawing board, but health care reform is on advanced life support.