Make or Break Week for Schwarzenegger's Health Care Plan?

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

"Just wondering about the status of health care reform. Is it dead yet or still breathing?" That's the text of an email I got from one of the state's leading health care reporters yesterday. And that's the question of the year: will health care reform pass?
 
The short answer is this: if there's a will, there's a way. The Speaker and Senator Perata say they want it to happen. So has the Governor. So it likely boils down to one thing: Will the Governor bend enough and compromise so that employers pay their fair share? Or will he stick to his guns, oppose any increase in the employer fees and changes in the individual mandate, to appease his business community allies. Will he stick with a lottery financing plan that hasn't mustered much support from any camp, nor has it gotten a bump in the press?
 
There's no doubt that the California Labor Federation's publicity jihad against the Governor's bill got under the Administration's skin. Comments from administration officials in the mainstream press, along with op-eds, showed the Adminstration fully engaged in an effort to portray organized labor as the bad guy in the debate, even as the fires raged on in southern California.
 
That battle showed that there still is a gap between what Democrats are proposing and what the Governor will accept. Whether those wounds can be healed in the next few weeks remains to be seen. It will require both Democrats and the Governor to engage in some serious negotiation in the next month -- something both sides seem willing to do.

Photo courtesy Los Angeles Times.