Megan McArdle is typical of a Republican argument that is making the rounds. The GOP is arguing that the Democrats are committing an act of political suicide (political self-injury is how I put it) by passing a major overhaul of the health care insurance and delivery system. I think McArdle is smoking the rock when she predicts that the Democrats will lose the House of Representatives, but we’re going to lose seats. And she’s right that any loss of seats in the Senate will make it almost impossible for Obama to do anything worthwhile. A lot of the progressive critique of the Reid bill is less ideological than practical and political. As Atrios repeats like a mantra, people have to actually like the reforms.
The bill itself is not bad. It only looks bad when compared to what we should have done, which is either abolish the private health insurance industry or regulate it like a power or water utility. On the merits, this bill should be passed. The politics are more complicated. Would a failure to pass anything be more damaging than a bill that too many people don’t like? One of the dangers of the current bill is that a lot of people won’t see their benefit until 2014. Another danger is that the subsidies won’t make mandated insurance affordable.
Progressives who are fighting to improve the bill in Conference to make sure that it is stronger and kicks in quicker are doing the right thing. But the president and the Democrats have to succeed in passing a health care bill. Betting that we can restore the enthusiasm of the base by failing to pass health care reform and avoid electoral losses? That’s a fool’s bet. Fight to improve this bill, but then fight to pass it.
One of the dangers of the current bill is that a lot of people won’t see their benefit until 2014.
That is huge in and of itself. Why did Democrats so needlessly shoot themselves in the foot like that?
A question I’ve been asking too. We have problems today, why are we waiting to do something about them?
It’s a way to make the bill stronger overall and still come in as budget neutral (actually better than budget neutral) in the first 10-year window.
But that’s just the thing. I hear people(Ezra Klein as one example) saying that we’ll be saving lives. Not for another 4 years we won’t. People don’t want to wait 4 years for reform. Wasn’t Social Security set up in like 9 months? And the technology was like the Pony Express back then compared to today
existing condition and recission restrictions start right away.
Most government programs do not start immediately. Social Security, Medicare and others didn’t start immediately. There’s needs to be time for the programs to be implemented.
Huge?
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! The Great Oz has spoken!
“People don’t want to wait 4 years for reform.”
Well, now, look at the “bright side” : on the issue of global warming, progress there has (once more) been pushed off another ten years. 2020: that’s when we can again take a careful look at how we’re (not) doing, at which time it will be the moment to push any actual deeds off for another ten or twenty years.
I think the biggest mistake was the budget neutral bullshit. They were in a political bind, though — good policy strategy would have been tax reform first to negate the deficit obsession, but would have been a politically poisonous first big initiative. Still, it’s too bad they just bought into the “defict hawk” scam — they set themselves up to be permanently crippled by a silly myth.
they will raid Medicare — half a trillion over ten years.
Medicare Advantage.
Answer $600 million in lobbying expenses handled by former Democratic Senators, former Democratic Congressmen, and former Democratic staffers. Daschle, former Hoyer staffers, former Baucus staffers, even a former Kennedy staffer all were out lobbying.
And then there is former Conrad staffer Elmendorf who made a political call on Rockefeller’s requirement for a 90% medical loss ratio. Elmendorf argued that it was equivalent to nationalizing the insurance companies.
And pro-life activists in the House and the Senate who hijacked the bill.
Any other questions?
Can’t stand Elmendorf. He’s a hack and always has been.
But I nominate Marcy “stupak” Kaptur for worst behavior of a US Congress member during this process.
Betting that we can restore the enthusiasm of the base by failing to pass health care reform and avoid electoral losses?
Who is betting that? No one I know of(Besides Republicans and their ilk)!!
1/2 of the netroots seems to be arguing that killing the bill and blaming the Republicans and Lieberman will fire up the base.
They are delusional. The “base” whatever that means will be at least relieved, at most – fired up – when A bill passes and Obama and Reid and Vicky Kennedy take to the airwaves to announce it.
I am looking forward to seeing the coalition dedicated to defeat or repeal — ‘strange bedfellows’ doesn’t begin to cover the subject.
No, they want a better bill. Using reconciliation as part of the process to take away leverage from Lie-berman and Nelson
The so-call base is saying to primary Obama in 2012, and joining up with the teabaggers to get it done.
the whole 2014 is insane.
if they
do you think that progressives would be as crazy against the mandates as they are?
answer is no from where I sit.
The whole 2014 date allows them to run on healthcare reform again. Or repeal.
From a political standpoint for 2010 and likely for 2012, doesn’t this simple fact really make it political suicide? Isn’t that danger enough?
Regardless of the fact that passage of this bill might likely make things much, much better for a lot of people down the road, how could it really have any short term political benefit when the Democrats have essentially done a political self-immolation during this whole process?
It has been ugly, it has been brutal and I still have a somewhat difficult time seeing the Republicans really suffering any political consequences from the opposition and obstructionism during this whole debate. Tactically, they have been pretty successful. It remains to be seen how this plays out long term. Why do I feel so disheartened when we are on the cusp of passing this reform? The rational side of my brain is fighting with my emotional side trying to come to terms with whether this will be a success or a monumental political catastrophe for the Democrats and for Obama.
Coming out of the gate with this, it just seems like I should have a little better feeling in my gut. But I can’t say that I do.
Now that the centrists have extracted their pound of flesh, they’re unlikely to give up their pork over minor to medium concessions. What progressives should be doing is pushing for changes that will increase the subsidies and that will frontload as much of the reform as possible. Remember, I have always argued that once we win 60 votes for the base bill, we’ll have a ton of leverage post-Conference. We can’t put the public option in because that was poisoned. But we can do better on making this bill kick in quicker and in avoiding an unaffordable mandate. Ben Nelson just won federal funding for medicaid in Nebraska in perpetuity. Too bad we gave that to him without demanding a PO. But do you really think he will give that deal up over other changes?
We’ll have leverage in conference? With this?:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/20/conrad-senate-health-care_n_398459.html
Come on Boo!! At least be honest and state that the Senate will stuff this bill down the House’s throat. Given the barrage today, and the fact that Obama wants any damn bill to trumpet, you know that’s what is going to happen. Do you really think Obama is going to wait till the end of January to sign something?
How do you live with all that negative energy? Always trying to prove optimism and hard work as a futile exercise? The only thing that you seem positively gleeful about is any congressional activity that you somehow always want/need to pin to Obama. Have you posted once something that could be construed as connstructive dialogue? In fact, what I am curious about is what is it exactly that pisses you off about poor people getting insurance and people with pre-existing conditions being eligible for coverage? I’m sure those folks are pissed off as hell that they now get coverage. That damn Obama – wanting to get it done by January. How dare he!
Such we always have with us.
From J.S, Mill, On Perfectibility.
How the Reps come out now depends on whether the Dems take advantage of a prime opportunity to say “We did our damndest, sacrificed much to give the opposition a fair chance to help us shape this monumental step toward reform. What we got back was scorched-earth obstructionism aimed at destroying the Obama administration and preventing the Democratic congressional majority from accomplishing what we were elected to do. As of now we dedicate ourselves to relentlessly pursuing the Democratic vision of progress for America in this new century. The days of letting ourselves get sucker punched by an intransigent and childish minority are over.”
Agree completely with the above three comments. We need the improvements and should fight hard to achieve them but we need the basic bill most of all. The Everest of decent health care for everyone will be obtained eventually but, first, we must commence the journey. Would that the Republicans had at least a spark of human kindness because then the trip would be much shorter. Let’s be very clear and very public where the difficulties on reaching this goal are coming from.
The issue for 2010 is the disconnect between members of Congress and their districts. Specifically, it is the fact that $600 million in lobbying and campaign donations created that disconnect.
And Republicans have the same problem because of their strategy of being the Party of No.
The fact that any healthcare bill gets through at all will be a process victory against the Party of No.
And progressives are already angry at that disconnect. Channeling that anger into motivated campaigns to reduce the number of compromised Congressmen and Senators will be the key challenge over the next month or two.
When Republicans march in lockstep, they win or lose big. We can make it the case in 2010, like in 2006 and 2008 that they lose big.
McArdle’s piece actually give me hope that the GOP is deceived by its own rhetoric.
“And progressives are already angry at that disconnect. Channeling that anger into motivated campaigns to reduce the number of compromised Congressmen and Senators will be the key challenge over the next month or two.”
I wish we could get that tattooed on the foreheads of incumbents and lefties alike. It’s the only viable battle cry as we prepare for 2010.
I think this is going to be sellable if they do make some improvements. The real challenge for Dems, and for Obama, is to be honest about not getting what we need to get and vowing to fight for the rest by any means necessary. Blogosphere dwellers forget how little normal people know about the details. It’s going to be the big picture that determines reaction to what’s been accomplished, which is in fact earthshaking compared with what’s gone before.
The bill has to be seen as both triumph and battle cry for near-future improvement. Dem-leaning voters are not disappointed by the details of the bill — they’re disappointed by the Dems’ and Obama’s reluctance to openly and ferociously take up the cudgels against the bad guys. Dem promises to clean out the Senate’s fossilized crap “rules” and end the rule of the obstructionist minority would go a long way to restoring enthusiasm. That would require senators and the beltway leeches to get over the idea that the nation idolizes them and their silly little dances.
Right now the impression is that the only all-out populist fighters are the teabaggers, even though they’re nuts. If the Dems replace them as the champions of the people instead of collegial patsies, they’ll do just fine next year. If they fail to learn the lessons this attempt and this outcome taught about trusting Republicans and not breaking any eggs, they’ll go back where they came from. But yeah, the start has to be the best bill that can be salvaged from this sorry process, preferably one that does a lot of people a lot of good starting now.
The way I see it, we simply never had the votes in the Senate for the real public option. The problem isn’t really Nelson and Lieberman (but they were both behaving like real dicks). The problem is trying to pass something as monumentous as this with a bare minimum number of Senators who might support it.
Initially they tried for a bi-partisan type of solution, which if it worked could have given us a bit of a margin. Many of us would have said right from the start that this would never have worked – the Republicans have purged the moderates from the party, and what’s left are the real nuts.
The only other strategy that they could have tried would have been reconciliation. There are of course limitations to what you can do under reconciliation, and anything you do under reconciliation will expire after 10(?) years. That’s why the Bush tax cuts are expiring next year – the Republicans wanted to make it permanent, but they never had the votes for it.
From the outside, it is frustrating to be yanked back and forth as to what might or might not be in the bill. I guess the ball will be back in the hands of the House now – Stupak wants to make more mischief, but I don’t think he has the leverage to do anything. So I suppose the question is whether the House makes changes to the bill and risks blowing the thing up in the Senate, or whether they just pass the Senate bill and avoid taking that risk.
The ultimate game of chicken.
Not sure we can write off the possibility of using budget reconciliation even now.
Look at it this way. The Bush tax cuts will expire in 2010 – this is because they were passed under reconciliation, and that was the best they could do. They never had the votes to make them permanent, and right now Congress doesn’t need to do anything in order for them to expire. No bill, no need to vote, no filibuster.
Now consider any health care reform that might have been done under reconciliation. The Republicans could just wait it out and in 10 years the thing would expire unless we ever had the votes to make it permanent. Our only hope would be that the changes would be so popular that we would be able to later find the votes to make them permanent, but remember that the Republicans never found the votes to make their tax cut permanent either. There are no guarantees if you go down that road.
I didn’t mean recon was necessarily the way to go. I’m still not betting the farm that the bill will pass in the Senate.
Senate. We have a good chance of winning seats in MO, OH, and NH. We also have an outside chance of winning seats in KY and IA.
The only Dem seats in trouble are AR, CO, NV and CT. I think we’ll lose AR and CT but keep the other two.
All we need is one more seat to make Lieberman irrelevant.
I appreciate the optimism, but unfortunately it is more likely that the Democrats will lose seats in the Senate.
I also disagree that one more seat will do it. It wasn’t just Lieberman who pushed this bill to the right. There was also Nelson, Landrieu, and Baucus. And I am sure other others worked behind the scenes to degrade the bill.
What the Dems need to do is reduce or eliminate the filibuster. If they don’t, nothing of significance will get done before the 2012 campaign starts in earnest.
Senate rules require 66 votes to change the rules. We can’t even get 60 right now.
And some Democrats can argue that they would see a day in which the filibuster is more useful for them than the Republicans (i.e. when they are back in the minority, which will undoubtedly happen again someday in the future).
Check out the list of 2010 Senate races on Wiki, which also lists the current set of predictions for the races:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2010
Delaware and Connecticut seem in danger…but other than those, there are several seats both Dem AND Rep that are toss ups. At 538, the top 8 races are split 50/50 between parties. 2010 is a toss up year. If Dems can stop sulking and work, we could definately pick up a seat or two in the Senate – thus making Lieberman/Nelson utterly irrelevant.
As for the House…we look even better there than we do in the Senate. Structurally we’re defending a lot because of all the red districts we hold. But keep in mind this link:
http://mydd.com/story/2009/12/20/1562/0364
The DCCC has over $15 million in the bank, with only $2.5 million in debt. The RNCC has $4 million in the bank, with $2 million in debt.
That’s a HUGE money advantage, and the DCCC is STILL raising more money than the RNCC, even with liberals becoming disfranchised over HCR. That’s a lot of cash for Dems to play defense with, and not much money for Reps to play offense with. Plus…the RNCC might end up having to spend some of that defending more electable candidates against tea-baggers.
Structurally, Senate races in 2010 are about even. Dems have a bigger party ID, but Reps (currently) have more enthusiasm. Call it a toss up. Structurally, Congressional races are lean Republican. Dems have a HUGE money advantage to counter that. Again, probably considered a toss up.
I hope the WH and Congress move on immigration reform, then repeal DADT and DOMA in the summer…liberals will be re-energized, and I think we’ll see the CW get proven wrong yet again.
I wish that so many progressives hadn’t drawn lines in the sand and vowed that they wouldn’t vote for the bill if it wasn’t to their liking. They are going to cave and vote for the bill, and will thus have pissed away a lot of credibility and political capital. It’s going to be very hard to take those people seriously in the future. All hat, no cattle.
almost but not quite.
progressives HAVE no credibility or political capital because they ALWAYS cave. Killing a shitty bill would give them political capital and force people to take them more seriously in the future. But it won’t happen.
There will be enough goodies to justify them voting for it without losing credibility. See Sanders and Cardin, for example, talking about how they got a provision to bring primary care physicians and health clinics to 16 million Americans who currently don’t have such access. There’s a lot of good stuff in this bill, even though is is not the Big Answer we wanted. No credibility is at stake.
This fight isn’t going to be remembered very much. The important thing is to finish it … start implementing what can be done in 2010 … and then get a jobs program through. The dems need to really push jobs. Let the Republicans stand in the way of that as the “party of no” and see how the public likes that in 2010 ! Get progressive with jobs, folks. And then start supporting Democrats in the most vulnerable districts in 2010. It’ll all work out because the Democratics are the reasonable and caring people in these battles and the Republicans seem only to care (and scare) about money, not about people. If they take the stand that it’s too expensive to create jobs, the Republicans will lose more seats, not less, in the next election cycle.
38/52 for/against health care plan.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html
And that’s before Medicare recipients, who tend to vote, feel the impact of Medicare cuts and younger voters get penalized for not buying insurance, plus whatever else is in the one thousand plus pages of this abortion (ooops) the basic intent of which is to burden more Americans with unresponsive medical insurance.
Medicare recipients won’t feel cuts, because the cuts in Medicare were subsidies to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage. They will actually see the donut hole become smaller and will save money on prescriptions.
I am going to talk about voting for cloture but that’s it.
McArdle has written some odious columns during this healthcare debate. Why she’s employed is a mystery.
it’s time for this White House to step up, BooMan.
—a) stripping the anti-trust exemptions
—-b) real teeth in regulation
no more half-assed, too cute by half bullshyt by this White House.
I think that’s the direction things are likely to take. Once the health bill is passed, Dems will take take a deep breath and realize what they’ve accomplished, rather than snipe and squabble about what they haven’t. A lot of political capital and a lot of energy will be freed up. The electoral prospects will look better. Flawed as it is, this bill will help a lot of people. The President will use the bully pulpit once it becomes law.
“One of the dangers of the current bill is that a lot of people won’t see their benefit until 2014. Another danger is that the subsidies won’t make mandated insurance affordable.”
Nit-picker , aren’t you!?! You’re not looking at the “Big Picture”.
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Fortunately, I didn’t need you to explain that part for me.
In other words, unlike our present system which leaves millions outside of any meaningful coverage because they haven’t the means to afford any available health-care plans, under the new legislation, they’ll be required to enroll under some plan—though there’s nothing to require or insure that any of those are any more affordable than the currently unaffordable plans on “offer.”
And, if anyone should dare to not even offer an unaffordable plan, why, then such a person or enterprise would face the horrors of a fines— which surely won’t be tardy in being applied fairly and reasonably.