There’s been a lot of media speculation lately around the potential for health care reform to die if the Republican candidate wins the Massachusetts race to replace Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate.  While such an election result may indeed give the Republicans the ability to effectively veto any new bill that comes to a vote in the Senate, it would be overreaching to say that having 41 Republican Senators will enable them to kill health care reform. 

There are several options that the Democrats may consider utilizing to continue to drive towards passing a health care reform bill that is President Obama’s top domestic priority.  The simplest option is for the Democrat-controlled House to vote to adopt the health care reform bill that has already passed the Senate.  While they may not be thrilled with some of the Senate bill’s provisions, it would enact a baseline reform package into law and they could always negotiate with the Senate in the future on what changes to make to the law rather than having to debate whether any reform package should be adopted.

There are other reform channels available in addition to adopting the already passed Senate bill that are briefly discussed in this New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/health/policy/18health.html?hpw

Regardless of who wins the Massachusetts Senate seat, we expect some form of health care reform to be adopted this year.