The last attack on healthcare reform

The GOP is pulling out all the stops to try to prevent healthcare reform, hauling out protection of small business and the Constitution. Pretty pathetic.

On the Constitutional issue, the government power to tax incomes is enough authority for individual health care mandates.

On the small business front, most people are employed in an environment of monopsonistic competition, which means there is bargaining, but ultimately the employer sets the wage. Under such environments, such mandates as the increased minimum wage, mandatory leave and the imposition of health care payroll taxes do not result in a loss of jobs.

I hope the Democratic Senators hang together today and vote for cloture on final passage tomorrow. If there are flaws, the Conferenc Committee is the place to raise them. It might have been better to start with a Joint Committee to write and mark up the bill, but what is done is done.

Let's move this forward today.