So how’s health-care reform going? When last we left Nancy Pelosi, she was pole-vaulting over the fence of public opinion, proclaiming her devotion to ObamaCare — or at least putting up a good face. But out in the country, not that far out really, not even Democrats can stomach the central pillar of ObamaCare — the requirement that Americans be forced to buy insurance they don’t want and/or can’t afford from Big Insurance. In Virginia, where the governor has declared that he’s not taking the KSM trial, Democrats joined Republicans in the state Senate in announcing that they aren’t taking ObamaCare either. The Washington Post reports:
Virginia’s Democratically controlled state Senate passed measures Monday that would make it illegal to require individuals to purchase health insurance, a direct challenge to the party’s efforts in Washington to reform health care.
The bills, a top priority of Virginia’s “tea party” movement, were approved 23 to 17 as five Democrats who represent swing areas of the state joined all 18 Republicans in the chamber in backing the legislation.
The votes came less than a week after President Obama implored Democrats in Washington not to abandon their health-care efforts, urging them in his State of the Union address not to “run for the hills” on the issue.
Well, if not running for the hills, they’re certainly taking a stand. You can imagine how nervous House and Senate Democrats inside the Beltway must feel as they fret that Nancy Pelosi might be serious about venturing into another career-ending round of health-care negotiations. In fact, you don’t have to imagine it. One of the four at-risk Virginia House Democrats is already feeling the heat:
“It doesn’t make it easier,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, who voted for health-care legislation and is one of several Virginia Democrats who faces a strong challenge this year. Each of three similar bills that passed the state Senate on Monday would run counter to legislation passed by both chambers of Congress, which would require all individuals to purchase health care.
It doesn’t make it easier to pass ObamaCare — or for Connolly to keep his seat. It seems that Democrats in state office have now adopted the arguments of House and Senate Republicans, not to mention some conservative legal scholars. (“‘I don’t believe someone should be forced to buy something they don’t want to,’ said Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, a Democrat who represents rural Russell County and backed the measures. ‘It’s un-American. And it might be unconstitutional.'”) At the very least, it’s one more indication that ObamaCare has become a nonstarter for Democrats in any locale less “safe” than Massachusetts.
And in case the Democratic leadership needed any more bad news, the Post tells us that there are similar measures pending in 29 state legislatures.
There are two ways to read the ongoing rumblings from Democratic congressional leadership and the White House that health-care reform isn’t dead yet. One, they really are out to lunch and will eventually face an embarrassing replay of 1994, when then Senate Majority leader George Mitchell had to pull HillaryCare from the floor because the votes just were not there. The alternative is that Pelosi is just biding her time, afraid to confess to the netroot Left that, in fact, the work does not go on, the cause (of universal health care) does not endure, the hope doesn’t live, and the dream for now is dead. And since that would not be well received in San Francisco or among liberal donors, she will continue her Olympian efforts to revive health-care reform. And all those Democratic lawmakers from places like Virginia will just have to fend for themselves.
