Is Health Care Reform a Done Deal?

Signs of growing confidence among liberals that an end is in sight

After months of furious debate, a few prominent voices on the left are growing confident that health care reform is finally in sight. With moderate Democrats coming on board, the prospects of a bill passing are nearly inevitable, though some are withholding hope until the votes are counted.

• 'Health Care Reform Won'  At The New Republic, Jonathan Chait thinks the debate is over. "It’s very strange. We’ve had months of sturm and drang, and massive attention focused on the question, Whither health care reform? It’s just quietly turned into a fait accompli." Chait says it looks as though the moderate Dems are ready to pass a bill. "It’s nearly impossible to see health care reform failing because it would entail a Democrat voting to filibuster the central progressive goal of the last sixty years."

• Victory  At Marbury, Ian Leslie falls in line with Jonathan Chait. "Defeats and victories aren't quite what they seem. One day, you just wake up and realise that Obama has a tally of delegates that isn't going to be overtaken. Or, as Jonathan Chait explains in his excellent post, you wake up - after months of commentators telling us that Obama is blowing it on healthcare, of his enemies crowing and his supporters wailing - and realise that healthcare reform is going to happen."

• If the Dems Hold Together, It's Game Over, Ezra Klein writes at The Washington Post. "After months of mania and protesting and organizing, the conservative movement has not managed to turn a single prominent Democrat against the effort." He says Republicans are, at this point, irrelevant. "What stands between Democrats and success is not, at this juncture, Republicans. It's whether they can manage the compromises within their own base. They had the votes in the beginning. The question is whether they can keep them together at the end. That is all that has ever mattered, or really been possible. Everything else is just noise, and the players who matter appear to have ignored it entirely."
  

• All Eyes on Those Blue Dog Dems. At The American Prospect, Mori Dinauer says it's not over until the moderate Democrats vote. "I still think the 'moderates' who are holding out are uninterested in how their intransigence looks to the rest of the Democratic party, but knowing the pressure's on makes it all the more likely reform passes a floor vote."