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Go Home Health Care As Political Scapegoat

JONATHAN CHAIT SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

Health Care As Political Scapegoat

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Nate Silver and Jonathan Bernstein have good follow-up posts on this conservative idea that health care reform is the main reason why Democrats are in danger of losing the House. Let me add a couple thoughts.

First, to show that an issue is unpopular for Democrats does not mean that the issue in question, rather than the economy, is the cause of the party's woes. One of the things that happens during a terrible economy is that people turn against the president and his program. So, no question, people think Obama has expanded government too much. But during the 1982 recession, people thought Ronald reagan's anti-government program was too right-wing. And during the 1991 recession, people thought George H.W. Bush was doing nothing. Whatever the president does is going to be seen as too far to the right, too far to the left, or too little. So to show that a particular issue polls badly for the president during a recession does not prove that the president would be in good shape if he had a didfferent position on that issue.

Second, the argument that health care is the Democrats' political problem does not think very rigorously about the alternative. Actually, there are two conservative arguments here. The first, made energetically by right-wingers last Spring, was that Democrats would be wise to abandon health care reform even after passing it through both houses. That was a transparently ridiculous argument.

The more plausible case would be that they should never have taken up health care in the first place, and used their time pushing some kind of economic stimulus issue. I still have trouble buying this case. There's an issue of keeping faith with the base. It's also the case that the public may have made problems with Obama's plan, but it never wanted to do nothing on health care. Indeed, Republicans made strenuous efforts to convince the public that they merely wanted to start over and craft a better health care plan. It was a dirty lie to accuse them of favoring stalemate. This suggests that doing nothing on health care would also have alienated large swaths of the public.

Moreover, a recent Gallup poll shows that Democrats fare about evenly (+1) versus Republicans on health care -- it's one of the only issues where they don't have a disadvantage:

At the same time Americans trust republicans a lot more on the economy. None of this is reason to think spending less time on health care and more on "the economy" -- where it's not clear the Democrats could have passed anything substantial -- would have helped.

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14 comments

As for the argument from Republicans that the Dems should have skipped health care and worked on stimulating the economy, you'll recall that they were all gung ho for the stimulus when it was on the table, and that they've been oh, so supportive of other measures for improving the economy and the job situation that have been proposed by Dems since then. Right? You don't remember that?

- ramcat

September 2, 2010 at 10:57am

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Spring should not be capitalized, Republicans and Reagan should be. The Republicans were playing cynical games on health care all along. Now they are happy to ladle up healthy portions of the Wehner Fallacy and blame a large chunk of Barack Obama's unpopularity on his signing of the health care bill. This is the favorite shell game of the right at the moment.

- liberal reformer

September 2, 2010 at 12:12pm

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I agree. I also think it would have been worth it even if health care does cost the Dems the election. They've done a lot in two years in less than ideal circumstances. Both health care and the stimulus will have long lasting positive effects (see, e.g., http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2013683-1,00.html; for a rebuttal see http://www.theonion.com/video/time-announces-new-version-of-magazine-aimed-at-ad,17950/). It's too bad the Republicans made it impossible to do more for the economy. But it's not the end of the world if we end up with a couple years of a divided government. Obama should focus on foreign policy (as I think he already is). Maybe something will come out of the renewed Middle East peace effort. With hope, we'll be out of Afghanistan in the next few years. At the very least, I hope that Obama will continue to strengthen our relationships with Russia and the Arab states and will make a renewed push to improve our relationships with China and various Latin America states (Cuba and Brazil, in particular). There might also be some opportunity for some bipartisan domestic efforts in areas such as education and (less likely) tax policy and immigration. There are ample regulatory opportunities (e.g. tax policy, health care and the environment). With any luck, the economy will improve before 2012 (maybe the Fed will get its act together?) and Obama will have further opportunities in a second term to continue the more partisan aspects of his domestic agenda. Or maybe not. It would be deeply disappointing if the Republicans take over in 2012. But even in that case, at least Obama will have accomplished something (and more than a little). There is a natural ebb and flow in electoral politics esp. in the face of a crappy economy. Anyone else feeling sanguine?

- bradigan

September 2, 2010 at 12:18pm

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Anyone else feeling sanguine?

Nope. The instant Republicans gain control of anything they're going to do their damnedest to start rolling back everything, probably even the college loan reform because those banks are losing a lot of kick-back money for the subsidization but they could easily enrich the coffers of the RNC and still pocket a pretty penny at the end of the day. They'll probably kill Obama-care by "fixing" it so the program is inherently flawed and destined to fail under any circumstance. And since most economic indicators are aggregates they only have to flood certain areas of the country with money in order to make it look like the whole country is rebounding. And their corporate handlers are loving this "employer's market" environment, driving down wages as people who want to work but no longer have unemployment compensation finally cave-in and take the job at 20%-50% less pay so they can at least pretend to feed their kids.

not sanguine

- GSpinks

September 2, 2010 at 3:51pm

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GSpinks: I don't understand your point. Are you suggesting that the Republicans (or Rs plus conservative Ds) will have a 2/3 majority post-election? Obama will still be president post-election and thus wield the veto. In any case, the most likely outcome seems to be a split congress with the Ds controlling the senate and the Rs the house. The danger is gridlock not repeal of legislation or enactment of conservative legislation. There are two additional threats: 1) if the Rs control the house they will have investigative power over the executive which is likely to be annoying for the administrative and embarrassing for the country; 2) the Rs can refuse to fund legislation. 2) would lead to a government shutdown which didn't work out so well for the Rs in the 90s. The first two years of the O administration was a good demostration of how difficult it is to pass any legislation; the second two are likely to be a demostration of how difficult it is to repeal legislation.

- bradigan

September 2, 2010 at 4:51pm

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bradigan: I'm suggesting that they won't need a 2/3 majority to give themselves a fighting chance in 2012 because a divided government and the impending gridlock will give us 2 more years of the same dismal economy, which will increase the Nobama vote in 2012, and there are plenty of ways for the Rs to make hay (not to mention massive campaign contributions) with the cannon-fodder like catering to the Banks for repealing the student loan reforms, insurance companies for health care reform, and wall street for financial reform. It's a pretty slippery slope. The best option, the only positive one, is to maintain D control for another 2 years, Senate eliminates the filibuster this time, and they pass some more legislation. But, the liberals are already giving up and staying home in droves.

- GSpinks

September 2, 2010 at 7:15pm

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I don't think that anyone buys the theory that Health Care is the problem. The Deomocrats have really put themselves into this bind on their own. Similar to what the GOP did back in 2004-2006. With control of all of Government they forgot what got them there and ignored what annoyed them. The Democrats were so determined to avoid the Hillarycare Debacle that they carved up what they wanted and ended up with something about 2% of the public understands or appreciates. Now they own Healthcare for better or worse. Republicans will do nothing until the public screams, the worse it gets the better. Now they have opened a window for the Republicans who can steal a little thunder. Imagine a Republican House taking office in January with one purpose, to bring the economy back from the dead. With the business cycle turning they can pass tax cuts and proposed regulation reductions. Even if the President vetoes these, anything the President gets through the Congress the Republicans can take credit for. And like the divided governments of Reagan and Clinton the Republicans will be able to open the 'Investigations' into the adminstration to use the legal system as a political hammer. Instead of Hon Rep Conyers trying to impeach Bush. we'll have Hon Rep Wilson investigating Medicare funding to Illegal Immigrants. The Democrats focus on Healthcare avoided the failures of the past but missed the latest crises. It's hard to believe in the Trainwreck of the Financial Industry that the Congress never charged Moodys Rating Agency with Fraud or any of the other bad actors. Countrywide got off scott-free with their Mortgage Scams on Freddie & Fannie. No one stood up for the honest people who lost lots of money in these sophistacated financials. I am not completely convinced teh Democrats have lost the house yet. But it's starting to look that way.

- CRS9TNR

September 2, 2010 at 8:51pm

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GS: Your point about 2012 is well-taken. I agree that 2012 is the key election. In terms of policy I don't think it matters much whether the Ds are in the minority or barely in the majority for the next two years; in either case nothing in the way of helping the economy is likely to pass (or most anything else interesting)--unless, as you suggest, the filibuster is eliminated. The problem is if the Ds lose several seats (as seems unavoidable) they'll be in an difficult place from which to give themselves more power than they had before they lost those seats. In any case, I think there are enough recalcitrant Ds that senate reform is highly unlikely. On the other hand, if the Rs control the house at least they'll share in some of the blame in 2012. The price of sharing the blame is that the Rs would get to annoy the administration for the next couple years. There's also some chance that the economy will improve on its own or with some help from the Fed. (Generally I think the extent to which the government can effect the economy is overstated.) In that case it would be better if the Ds are in control. Ultimately I don't care that much. I'm resolved that the legislative branch will be largely frozen for the next two years. My hopes are on a second O term. In the meantime, I'm hoping for regulatory and foreign policy achievements. Regards.

- bradigan

September 2, 2010 at 9:24pm

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CR: "The Deomocrats have really put themselves into this bind on their own. Similar to what the GOP did back in 2004-2006." I don't think so. No matter what Democrats did, the economy sucks"right now, and that makes people unhappy, and they take it out on those they see in power. Sometimes the simplest explanation really is the most powerful one. No matter what Democrats did, they'd still be in trouble--which is exactly Chait's argument.

- dsimon

September 2, 2010 at 9:51pm

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CRS9TR: "No one stood up for the honest people who lost lots of money in these sophistacated financials." Bullseye.

- seattleeng

September 3, 2010 at 1:31am

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I don't think it matters what is rational or right or wise and its all perception. If Republicans want to blame Health Care, they will, and they will claim that as a mandate. My take is that when things are going well, people don't worry and when the Democrats took control they should have started worrying about the Republicans's next tactics. That death panel crap and those irate town hall meetings were an example of a failure to do that.

- Nusholtz

September 3, 2010 at 8:19am

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Nusholtz: "That death panel crap and those irate town hall meetings were an example of a failure to do that." Those feelings stemmed from absolutely helplessness that many felt. 401Ks had just been demolished. Many had been laid off. Nearly a trillion in spending had been passed with zero debate. People were starting to see signs that much of this was being spent on favors. Health care appeared as round two, where it wasn't really understood by anyone. And once it became clear at town hall meetings that the congressman didn't understand it either, people were understandably wondering "who is driving this train?" Add to that video loops of countless in congress saying fan and fred were rock solid, there was no problem, nothing needed to be fixed, etc, and you can see how this was a recipe for disaster. Add in congressmen laughing aloud that the bill hadn't been read and was too complicated to understand. And then figure that public employees haven't suffered a shred during this down turn, and in fact most saw their pay go up. Not a very good environment to build trust, is it?

- seattleeng

September 3, 2010 at 12:56pm

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If I understand you correctly, and I probably don't, you are saying that people were irate and it wasn't a Republican scheme to fight health care reform. You might be right to a degree, but that position doesn't directly respond to the nonsense about death panels and other misinformed public comments made at those meetings that came from the Republican propaganda mill. Chait's question, I believe, was whether there was a logical basis for health care to hurt the Democrats and I think it wasn't the Health Care itself that did it.

- Nusholtz

September 3, 2010 at 4:34pm

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It's the economy stupid.. and the Dems have been stupid about the economy. Starting with the inadequate stimulus bill. They are largely responsible for the mess they are in. A very cogent argument can be made that the best 2010 result is a big enough Dem defeat that the 2012 presidential race involves no incumbent.

- drofnats1

September 3, 2010 at 5:08pm

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