Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Health Care Reform Is Epic, Man

Just on the level that people enjoy TV action drama series and sports seasons, I'm really fascinated with the way that health care reform is playing out. There are all these people with a variety of personalities and positions and powers, and they're interacting in a gigantic drama that determines the destiny of a nation. And it's my nation, and I've occasionally done bit-player things to try to affect the outcome. For real!

Every day you see something new and nifty to advance the plot. Today we see that legislative superhero Henry Waxman attracted the Blue Dogs to the House plan by offering to do a thing Peter Orszag likes where an independent body sets Medicare payment rates [corrected]. This is the kind of thing that Waxman and his allies in the leadership are going to deny, but I'd have to guess that he left Orszag's thing out of the initial bill just so he could trade it off to Blue Dogs for their support. Happy story, and I hope there's more of that ahead.

Feel free to post spoilers in the comments.

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