As our feature story notes, it’s not over yet. There’s still the big reconciliation vote in the Senate. As I’ve argued, the Republicans are pretty much just blowing smoke about being able to trip things up there. But still, the senate’s an inherently unpredictable place. So you never know. But I wanted to make sure that everybody understands that on the most fundamental level, it is over. 100% over.
Here’s what I mean: The the reconciliation bill is important. It will make the bill better on policy ground and probably even more than that on political grounds. But even if there was a complete and utter train wreck in the senate, and none of the fixes passed, you’d still have the senate bill as law. And as many problems as it had (and I don’t want to diminish the importance of the House changes), all the basic structural reforms are there — the exchanges, the subsidies (though less generous), etc.
If none of the fixes pass, it would be a really bad thing for Democrats politically. But reform would still be in place.
As I said, I think the all the GOP taunts and psych-outs about gumming up the reconciliation process are just trash talk. Now that the real aim of kicking up all that dust (scaring the House out of voting) is over, I’m not even certain they’re going to try that hard. But even if they do, and even if they succeed, reform will still be law. In that sense, it really is over. Or will become so tomorrow when Obama signs it into law.
