From the Other Side: “The Nuclear Option”

It is becoming an increasingly remote possibility that an overhaul of the United States health care system will be adopted by the U.S. Congress through customary channels. With the Democrats’ loss of a “super majority” in the Senate, the likelihood of Republican Senators boycotting the measure through drawn-out discussion is now considered inevitable.

With the simple majority that Democrats now have of 59 to 41, President Obama will have to opt for the “process of reconciliation,” known in colloquial terms as the “nuclear option,” for his signature program to become a reality. Through the said process, any piece of “major legislation” can be approved by a simple majority.

The procedure has been employed on 11 occasions by Republican presidents, most recently to approve a sensible tax cut during the Bush administration. Democratic presidents have used the tactic on five occasions, one of which was to approve an insurance program for minors. It is not hard to guess that the former have used this resource to enact plans designed to cut taxes, limit regulation, and reduce the size of government. It has been used by the latter, mainly to gain budgetary support of plans for social safety nets, including health care.

This process is, perhaps, the only recourse that remains for President Obama in order for his health care overhaul to receive Congressional approval. It is also a method of satisfying those who have accused him of falling short in his promise of change. As demonstrated in past months, such large-scale reform cannot be achieved solely on the goodwill of its proponents. If Senate Democrats impose the legislation by power of majority, they run the risk of damaging the already worn social fabric of the U.S. The president’s critics must acknowledge that his power is not absolute, and that it is constrained by powerful interests that do not look compassionately upon those impacted.

However limited the proposed reform of the health care system may be, it is no small feat in that it should cover 30 million people who currently lack medical coverage, in addition to curbing the excessive ambitions of insurance companies through more strict regulation of their operations.

Certainly Barack Obama isn’t “just another president,” as some of his critics have asserted; the initiatives and changes made in the first 12 months of his term are proof of that. However, experience demonstrated how the complex operations of the democratic system in the U.S. impedes radical changes, even ones which seek to correct issues that threaten the system’s most basic principles; this political environment is complicated all the more by a right-wing so rabidly in opposition to those changes. President Obama was aware of this challenge, but now he knows it from experience and is compelled to act accordingly.