I took a break from health care blogging while the Senate Finance Committee went about the ponderous business of crafting its own version of a bill, but expect me to start wonking out in the coming days and weeks as the debate moves from the committees to the floors of both chambers as well the closed-door conference rooms where the real negotiations will take place. I’d love to see every bargaining session broadcast on C-SPAN, but our form of representative democracy has never trusted the electorate enough to be comfortable with full transparency. Still, I’m expecting the floor debates to provide the kind of theater that will have Daily Show writers clapping their hands with unrestrained glee. I also expect that the media will declare negotiations deadlocked at least once before a bill gets signed. I remain confident that a bill will get signed and it might even be a pretty good bill.
I’m not sure how the politics of this will play out, though. Most bill provisions don’t take effect for a few years and it seems really awkward to tell voters that they need to hold on for a while longer before they can get health care. I’m sure Obama’s advisers are paying attention to the problem, but I hope they come up with something that will provide tangible benefit to people in the short-term.
