WASHINGTON--The next health care fight has already started. It's the battle to define the bill that President Obama will eventually sign as a victory for consumers, taxpayers and the common good.
You might say this view is premature. Legislation has yet to pass the House or the Senate, there are differences between the two bodies, and some moderates still have doubts.
But barring astoundingly self-defeating behavior by Democrats, a decent bill will get to Obama's desk. He and his party will then own the most sweeping reform of the American social safety net since the passage of Medicare in the 1960s and, arguably, Social Security in the 1930s.
Both parties know this. That's why much of the rhetoric you'll hear in the coming weeks will not really be about whether to pass a bill. It will be designed to shape how the voters who will decide the 2010 elections--and, ultimately, the fate of health care reform itself--come to view the new system.
Republicans will try hard to minimize the benefits that will flow from the reform and set themselves up to claim that anything bad that happens to anyone's health care in the next few years is Obama's fault. It will be a bit like those New York City taxi drivers during the late 1960s and early '70s who despised Mayor John V. Lindsay so much that they were prepared to blame him for bad weather.
And since most of the changes don't become effective until 2013, the next few years will be a time of uncertainties and unknowns. Citizens typically want to know what's in this for them, and what they'll get right now.
That's why the most important document House Democrats released last week when they unveiled their bill was a list of 14 benefits that will be created immediately.
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