JONATHAN CHAIT JANUARY 13, 2010
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In National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin wax Churchillian, or perhaps Belushian ("Nothing's over until we decide it is!") over the fate of health care reform:
Passage of health legislation is probable, though not nearly as certain as the Washington consensus would have it. But the extensive debate over the legislation has revealed more opportunities for conservatives than anyone imagined possible a year ago. Moreover, that debate will not end if the Democrats’ bill passes — and in fact, the opportunities may increase....
We stand at the end of the beginning of the health-care fight, not the beginning of the end. And more than ever, it’s a fight the Right can win.
Okay, so Republicans can still defeat health care reform even after it's signed into law. How will that work?
They wanted the Congressional Budget Office to report that their plan would spend less than $1 trillion over the next ten years, so they rigged the bill to generate such a report. They achieved that goal in part by making tax increases and Medicare cuts go into effect several years before the bill’s benefits do. This sequence is likely to create years of political vulnerability for the new scheme. Voters will see mostly pain, not gain, from the legislation in its first four years — and four years is a very long time in politics. Conservative politicians will not have to threaten existing benefits in order to press for repeal, and they will be able to point to the bill as an example of the Democrats’ misplaced priorities while championing their own version of health-care reform. ...
Such an argument, which can serve as a means of opposing Obamacare now and of calling for its replacement with actual health-care reform if it passes, is the obvious path for Republicans in 2010, since it will connect public unease with Obamacare to the case for economic growth through fiscal restraint.
In the first paragraph, Ponnuru and Levin have a point. Democrats -- or, at least, the handful of moderate Democrats who hold the balance of power -- decided to hold down the top-line cost of reform by delaying implementation for several years. That does nothing to make the bill, which reduces the budget deficit, any more fiscally responsible. And it does open a window of vulnerability.
The strongest asset the Republicans have right now is fear of the unknown. While the public favors the health care bill when its contents are described to them, most people have little or no idea what's in the bill, and the economy-induced cynicism of Washington makes them believe the worst. As long as the law remains an abstraction, Republican scaremongering about rationing and massive tax hikes will take hold. Once the bill is in place, people will see that they're not paying massive new taxes, and Grandma is not having her care rationed by a death panel. But until then, Republicans will have chance to score political points.
What I don't understand is how Republicans can actually repeal reform. First of all, if you want to craft a repeal law, you suddenly have to draw up a law of your own. Republicans have resisted doing so all year, for a good reason: any plan they could concoct would fall apart upon scrutiny. And once you're designing a law, then the public is focused on you, and you become the subject of public cynicism about Washington. You have to explain why we should change the law to remove insurance subsidies from thirty million Americans, or allow insurance companies to refuse to cover preexisting conditions.
Ponnuru and Levin make no attempt to explain how that debate would work. Nor do they explain how the Republicans are going to acquire a veto-proof majority to pass that vote in 2010, or control of both chambers plus 60 Senate votes in 2012. And remember, the more senators the Republicans add, the deeper they'll have to reach into blue states where running on a platform of repealing universal health care may not be popular.
Unsurprisingly, GOP leaders Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy said last night, per Mike Allen, "They WILL NOT campaign for full health care repeal, but will demand partial repeal, including mandates for health coverage." Even that limited step is probably bravado. Keeping in place the highly-popular community rating provisions, which prevent insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of preexisting condition, requires a mandate -- otherwise, people will just stay out of the system until they get sick, causing costs to spiral, and more people to drop out, until the whole thing falls apart. Not only that, but the first ones to go down would be the insurance companies, and you can believe the Republicans won't put them out of business.
The reality is that the current system is totally dysfunctional, and the reform that will pass is a sensible centrist compromise that happens to lack any Republican support because the GOP has been overrun with wild right-wing partisanship. Republicans may extract some political benefit over the next couple years from opposing health care reform. Can they repeal it? Not a chance in hell.
9 comments
And the amusing thing is that they are also trying to run as defenders of Medicare (in reality the massive payouts to big pharm). Save Gov't run healthcare (medicare) get rid of gov't run healthcare, all in the same breath.
- blackton
January 13, 2010 at 10:54am
Republicans have little chance of winning control of the Senate in 2010, but a GOP majority is conceivable after 2012, even if Obama wins reelection. Even so, they're unlikely ever to win a 60-seat majority. (Their post-94 max was what, 55 or 56 seats?) Might this offer a chance for Republicans to join an anti-filibuster movement? They've already failed to stop reform by filibuster, so it doesn't do them any good. Meanwhile, Democrats will be able to kill by filibuster (killibuster?) any GOP changes to reform, whether tweaks or repeal, even if they get blown out in the next two elections. If so, what would be the best reform of the filibuster? A straight repeal would allow a narrow majority to run the Senate like the House and effectively not allow debate at all. So that's not an ideal option. But neither am I a fan of the Harkin proposal for a series of decreasing hurdles, where the first cloture vote needs 60, the second 57, and so on until a final cloture vote requires only 51 votes. You still have a supermajority that gives undue leverage to individuals willing to switch votes on cloture for tactical gain. What about a simple round-robin debate schedule, where every senator gets to speak twice, once in each round, and can speak for as long as he is physically able at each turn, but then at the end of the second round, debate closes and a vote may be taken. That restores the original nature of the filibuster, it allows for actual give-and-take debate, but it also guarantees an eventual vote. By requiring senators to take the floor and, you know, filibuster, while delaying all other needful Senate business, it also makes it much easier for the public to hold individuals and parties accountable for their actions. Under a two-round debate system, a 49-seat minority could plausibly filibuster a measure for about 24 days. (Much longer if the majority fails to keep the Senate in continuous session.) This makes the filibuster a useful tool for minority action, but restores majority rule -- and majority accountability -- to the Senate.
- rhubarbs
January 13, 2010 at 11:36am
rhub, even that seems a bit complicated, and it leaves out the most compelling feature of the filibuster, preventing a disastrous piece of legislation passing because one party has barely eked out a majority (and in the Senate 50-50 would equal a majority). I figure the simplest solution is the best. Make it 55 votes. We all agree that 60 is too high a hurdle, but why remove the hurdle entirely? 55 seats seems plausible of either party to aim for and means they can run on an honest agenda.
- blackton
January 13, 2010 at 12:14pm
If the right wins a majority, let them govern. If the left wins, left them. Then, hold them accountable. But, let at least ONE of the parties govern.
- Tilghman
January 13, 2010 at 1:53pm
blackton, name one "disastrous" piece of legislation that has ever been blocked by filibuster. Just one. Ever. In the entire history of the republic. Or more to the point, take the number of times the filibuster has prevented urgently important acts supported by a large majority from becoming law, add one, and cite that many disaster-blocking filibusters. I'll start the bidding at six, since off the top of my head I can name five pieces of urgent and popular anti-lynching and other civil-rights laws blocked by filibuster since the Civil War.
- rhubarbs
January 13, 2010 at 2:47pm
Repulicans can easily repeal this by doing the following: - Advise all republicans to stop paying taxes as the 'no taxation without representation' clause can be invoked Given that republican pay almost 80% of net federal incomes taxes -- that would do it: - Sorry Gov employees and those working for Gov don't pay net taxes, rather taxes fund their salaries and benefits so they are really a net tax payee - Liberals are the least likely to own / grow small-business -- the creator of jobs and tax revenue for US. If you stop giving blood to the parasites, they will die
- mr_rationale
January 14, 2010 at 12:58pm
Mr. Rational - can you please provide us parasites a link or two of data supporting your points? Also, are you trying to make sense with your third point or are you just glad to see me? Your post is so airtight in its mindless cant, its a thing of beauty.
- WandreyCer
January 14, 2010 at 1:52pm
Several excellent points by Mr. Chait. I would only add that those on the left who currently criticize the bill due to lack of a "public option" will nevertheless be opposed to repealing the law once it passes. Once the law is in place, its advantages will be apparent, and liberals and most moderates will not want to let Republicans take it away. As for "Mr. (ir)rationale"......Atlas shrugged because he couldn't be bothered with pesky facts.
- baxterjones
January 14, 2010 at 5:12pm
Perhaps Mr. Rationale can point to where there is a "no taxation without representation" clause in the Constitution, and then maybe he would like to explain how it is that Republicans do not have representation in Congress.
- dhurtado
January 16, 2010 at 2:27pm