Hickey: Move Forward On Health Care

Institute for America's Future co-director Roger Hickey explains today why he has joined forces with activists who are trying to persuade House democrats to pass the Senate's health care bill, "but only after they have been assured that it will be fixed through reconciliation" — a budget process that allows changes to be made by a simple majority of the Senate and is not subject to filibuster.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that she does not have the votes in the House to pass the Senate health-care bill; the Progressive Caucus members in particular have taken strong exception to the fact that the bill does not have a public option, does not provide enough in subsidies to make private insurance affordable for working-class families and contains a tax on high-value insurance plans, such as those negotiated by union members.

But Hickey said that he and other members of the Health Care for America NOW! coalition are not giving up on getting the Senate bill passed. "The question is how much of a fix, how good of a fix can we get the Senate to agree to," Hickey said. "It seems that we ought to be able to get as good as what the House and Senate negotiators have already gotten just prior to the Massachusetts election," which cost the Democrats their filibuster-proof majority.

Hickey is also joining a group of progressive leaders who will protest in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Washington at 12 p.m. Tuesday against the organization's multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign against health care reform.