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WASHINGTON, DC —
Forget the two thousand page bills, the trillion dollar price tags and the soaring rhetoric. Health care reform, at least as we've known it, isn't going to happen anytime soon.It didn't take long for one man to change everything in Washington. Massachusetts Senator-Elect Scott Brown made the rounds of Capitol Hill with a throng of media on his heels. He gives Senate Republicans the 41 votes they need to block health care reform.
"I think everybody's the 41st vote now, and I don't think it's just republicans," said Brown.
For those that doubt the impact, just read these two statements from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, about 24 hours apart.
"We will move forward for healthcare."
"I don't see the votes for it at this time, no."
All those months of debate, the midnight sessions, the Christmas Eve vote all of it now down the tubes. Even the White House is backing off.
"It is the exact right thing to do, by giving this some time, by letting the dust settle, if you will, and looking for the best path forward," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
But on the other hand, he says the president still thinks a massive reform bill is possible. But for his part, the president seemed to content to let it lie, moving on to reforming the financial sector and talking jobs.
Republicans and some Democrats say it's time to start over and perhaps work on some kind of scaled back version.
"We need to stop, scrap the bill, and start over," said Minority Leader John Boehner, (R-OH). "And start over in a bipartisan way."
The problem is that reforming health care is so complicated that breaking it into smaller parts can create new problems of its own.
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