In case you missed it, the major engagement between Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration and the Senate Republican Caucus over insuring the uninsured goes to the latter:
The prospect of expanding subsidized health coverage to thousands of uninsured Pennsylvanians before the end of the year died Wednesday, as Gov. Ed Rendell and Senate Republicans failed to reach a compromise on the plan’s price tag.
After the Legislature ended what was expected to be its final working day, Rendell expressed disappointment over the lack of an agreement. He called the Senate GOP’s resistance to his efforts at a compromise “inexplicable.”
“We bent many times to reduce the number of people (covered) to meet their concerns,” Rendell said. “This was mean-spirited conduct by people who did not want to see action taken on what is the most fundamental challenge for most people.”
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, who so far in two years has successfully beaten back ever major spending initiative by the governor that may include a tax increase, any tax increase (like say on flowers, cigarettes, video games and breakfast cereal), said with the current economic crisis the state could not afford to take on the cost of this new bureacracy. And he may be right. Rendell, after all, called for a hiring freeze to deal with slowing state revenues as the economy continues its turn into the mud.
Rendell supporters are going to hate to hear this, but the guv’s heading into his lame-duck session. Only starting, mind you, but the first half of his last term ends with the defeat of a Rendell cornerstone. Not an ideal way to start the second half when a governor’s influence over the legislative branch begins to wane. Next year, the names of potential gubernatorial candidates will creep into the daily news with their own plans for solving the state’s problems. With the GOP in control of the Senate and very nearly in control of the House, there’s an incentive for them to continue drawing a hardline against Rendell in hopes one of their potential candidates (Tom Corbett, Patrick Meehan) will rise to the governor’s chair in 2010.
