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The focus in this health care debate has been the number 60.  Why? Because that’s the number of votes a health care proposal needs to thwart a filibuster on the Senate floor.  According to Senate rules, a single person can defeat a bill because it takes more than a simple majority of 51 senators to defeat a filibuster.

The threat of a filibuster is what made the original Senate bill weaker than what we passed in the House.  And the continuing threat of a filibuster is getting in the way of real progress now.

There are 57 Democrats in the Senate, to go along with 256 Democrats in the House, and, of course, a Democratic President.

The math on health care should be simple.  If a majority wants real reform, a simple abuse of Senate rules shouldn’t stand in the way. And if we can’t change the rules, then it’s time to get tough.  Let a senator who wants to stand in the way of reform filibuster in front of the entire country.

The questions we should be asking is not whether we need to reform health care.  It’s why we should need 60 votes to do it.

Anthony

Last night the President struck the right tone.  He made clear that we can’t give up on health care, and that containing soaring health costs will be essential to our country’s top priorities: revitalizing the economy, creating jobs and reigning in deficits.

But the most important thing he did was serve notice to all those who have been standing in our way: Republicans and the Senate.  Health care is one of a list of issues that have received decisive action from the House only to meet resistance in the Senate.  Instead of the cooling saucer of democracy, they’ve turned into the meat locker.

I’m glad to see the President stuck to his values, and made clear to my colleagues in the Senate that it’s time to either do the right thing, or be exposed to obstructionists.

The President isn’t walking away from health care with his tail between his legs—and we can’t either.  Now we’ve got a matter of weeks to get something done.  Let’s answer the President’s call and fight for what we believe.

Anthony

Right now people around the country are debating what impact the Massachusetts Senate race – which has turned Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat over to Republican Scott Brown – will have on the health care bill.

For many of us who were already frustrated with direction of this effort, there can be no doubt that this result is a major setback.

What went wrong?

We lost sight of our values.  We forgot that the target of our efforts should not have been Senators Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, or Ben Nelson.   Our target should be the middle class and those struggling to make it there.

It was we Democrats who created Medicare with its high quality and low administrative costs.  And – as you know because you led the way – the public option won the support of millions of Americans and was included in first major healthcare bill to pass the House in nearly half a century.

Let’s take a step back and then charge forward based on our values.  The important numbers aren’t 60 or 59 Senate seats.  They are the 39 million Americans with no insurance.  They are the 44 years of Medicare success.  And they are the 96 percent approval ratings for Medicare among the seniors who use the program every day.

Those are the numbers we should care about.  Those are the numbers we should focus on.

We’ve tried the “any deal is a good deal” approach.  Now it’s clear the American people want us to fight for them and their future.

Anthony