Postponement: Deathblow or Fresh Air for Health Care?

GEORGE: My god, I'm getting married in December, do you know that?

JERRY: Yeah, I know.

GEORGE: Well, I don't see how I'm gonna make December. I mean, I need a little more time. I mean, look at me I'm a nervous wreck. My stomach aches. My neck is killing me. I can't turn. Look. Look.

JERRY: You're turning.

GEORGE: Nah, it's not a good turn. December. December. Don't you think we should have a little more time just to get to know each other a little.

JERRY: If you need more time, you should have more time.

GEORGE: What, you think I could postpone it?

JERRY: Sure you can. Why not?

GEORGE: That's allowed? You're allowed to postpone it?

JERRY: I don't see why not.

GEORGE: So, I could do that?

JERRY: Sure, go ahead.

GEORGE: All right! All right. I'll tell you what. How about this? Got the date; March 21st, the first day of spring.

JERRY: Spring. Of course.

GEORGE: Huh? You know? Spring. Rejuvenation. Rebirth. Everything's blooming. All that crap.

JERRY: Beautiful.

GEORGE: She's not gonna like it.

JERRY: No, she's not.

I don't think I've made it any big secret that I'm a pretty avid Seinfeld fan. I was reminded of this section from the second episode of season 7, called "The Postponement," when thinking about the news that Mike Ross and his Blue Dog cohorts successfully lobbied to punt the House vote on health care reform back about a month, after the recess.

For Ross and the Blue Dogs, it was a success. Now he gets to go back to his constituents not with a result that could be praised or damned by those voter, but with a benign open ear. For the elected official, it's always better to have something open that voters feel they can put their input into than have to discuss why something that has already happened and can't be changed happened in the first place.

But that's political. What about the issue itself? Was this the deathblow? Many people think so. Others don't.

The Wall Street Journal has released numbers saying that popularity over the President's health care plan has dropped 10 percent in the last month alone, and that a whopping 41 percent of Americans don't think the legislation is headed in the right direction.

Mike Ross says that he's going to talk to his constituents, that there's more room for changes and compromises between liberals, conservatives and everyone in between, but that this shouldn't change the overall plan to reform health care. Others think that the trend will continue, popularity of the health care legislation will continue to plummet to the point that enough votes to pass the bill would be scarce, if at all in existence.

I'm not sure this is the coup of health care reform, as opponents of such legislation would hope. There's been too much time, money and political capital spent on the matter. But will it look dramatically different by month's end? That's very likely.

With three parties going at it — Liberal Democrats, Moderate Democrats, and Republicans — there are more concessions, compromises, and sausages to be made.

UPDATE: Tim Griffin's link to this post says that I'm comparing this 'whole health care thing' to that episode. Nope. Just the postponement, not the whole issue. Just a note of clarification for the four of you who read his blog.