Health care on hold

Note to Senator Ron Brown (R-Eau Claire) - The actions by your colleagues yesterday is one of the reasons your constituents are forming coalitions in your area about health care reform. Your silence on the action guarantees that these groups will continue to grow and demand answers from you.

Yesterday the Republican lead Senate Committee on Organization voted 3-2 along party lines to delay putting out the recommendations of the Senate Select Committee on Health Care Reform.

Quick - three guesses as to which month the delay was pushed to and you won't need all three guesses to get it right.

If you guessed December, you get to advance to the next round.

Senator Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said this of the move to delay the release until after the elections:

With campaigns now in full gear after Tuesday's primary, Erpenbach believes that the committee missed an opportunity to have health care reform become part of the dialogue for candidates this fall.

And that's the point isn't it? Republicans don't even want to talk about this issue much less do anything to try to solve it.

What a smooth move by leadership. If the Republicans didn't want to talk about this issue during the election cycle, why did they have the release date scheduled for mid-September in the first place? It's not like election day was only recently scheduled. This action just puts their unwillingness to tackle this issue on public display right before an election.

Most likely the Republicans didn't like the sound of the recommendations they were going to have to make in the report. Trying to get people health care coverage sounds like 'big government' to most Republicans even though the business owners of our country are the ones clamoring the loudest for health care reform these days.

The health care cost issue won't be on hold until after the election just because the Republicans pull stunts like this. People will still get their bills and employees will learn that their employer will no longer provide coverage between now and election day.

And if the Democrats are smart, they will keep bringing this topic up.