The biggest reason I have been very pessimistic about the possibility of us seeing health care reform this year is because of the problems in the Senate. I know a lot of people have maintained that we already have a bill that passed the Senate, but we do have to remember that our Congress is bi-camel, composed of two houses with equal power. That’s where our problem lies. The House, that actually functions in a democratic nature 99% of the time is really leery of putting trust into the broken Senate. That’s causing things like this:

Dem Rep Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who voted for the House health bill last time, tells his local WLUK-TV that he doesn’t trust the Senate to fix its bill via reconciliation and suggests he’s leaning against:

“I have made the case to the speaker and also to the White House that we should take small pieces, small bites,” Kagen said. “In the practice of medicine, I can’t give a child a big pill. What do we do? We cut it up into pieces. Let’s find things we can agree on.”

Honestly, if I was in Kagen’s shoes I would probably say the same thing. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I really dislike the Senate bill, but if it could be fixed then I would be happy with it. Sadly though, with the current state of the Senate and it’s lack of leadership, how can anyone trust them to fix something so important?