Every Hard-fought Step

President Obama’s healthcare reform proposals still face a tough fight. Even Democratic Senators are hesitating – afraid of the voters in next year’s congressional elections.

It was close, as expected. But one barrier on the long road to historic healthcare reform – or what might be left of it at the end – has been overcome. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in support of President Obama’s most important domestic program, a goal that his predecessors have sought for at least half a century.

The sad state of affairs that the world’s richest nation is unable to provide decent health insurance for all its citizens has been at least partially rectified. Millions of Americans will have access to better health care in the future because they will finally have insurance – provided the reform actually takes place.

But there is still a long road ahead. The Senate must first pass its own healthcare bill. That will take weeks. Once it has put together its own bill and gotten majority support for it, it must then be reconciled with the House bill.

And the complications continue: then both houses of Congress have to approve the final bill; only after that will the bill reach the President’s desk for his signature into law. That will take time – probably into 2010.

The bitter battles in the House of Representatives were a preview of just how difficult it will be to get a healthcare reform bill passed into law. It passed the House on a razor-thin margin. The reforms nearly failed because some Democrats caved in to demands by abortion opponents who wanted, at all costs, to prevent publicly-funded access to abortion services. There was finally a compromise, but the bill will now have to accommodate many interests, particularly in the Senate.

There, a handful of predominantly conservative Democratic senators are hesitating. They fear their support for healthcare reform could produce a backlash against them in next year’s election.

The Republicans are condemning the reforms as a government takeover of healthcare programs that will result in even higher costs. Both assertions are false but have gained resonance among mainly conservative Americans inherently suspicious of any government participation. They would obviously support Republican candidates, not Democrats.

But Democratic skeptics in Congress will be making a profound mistake if they allow the reforms to fail. It would be as if they decided to commit suicide because they were afraid of dying. Without healthcare reform, the Democrats will have little to offer; their grandiose plans so proudly announced will just fizzle out. Then there really won’t be any reason for anyone to vote Democratic.