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Go Home The Panic Begins

JONATHAN CHAIT JANUARY 18, 2010

The Panic Begins

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Andrew provides a good preview of the mentality that we're probably going to see a lot more of following tomorrow's special election:

I suspect serious health insurance reform is over for yet another generation.

Even if Coakley wins - and my guess is she'll lose by a double digit margin - the bill is dead. The most Obama can hope for is a minimalist alternative that simply mandates that insurance companies accept people with pre-existing conditions and are barred from ejecting patients when they feel like it. That's all he can get now - and even that will be a stretch.

Andrew is right only if the Democrats start thinking like him. There are perfectly viable ways to pass a major health care reform without taking another vote in the Senate. The easiest is just to have the House pass the Senate bill, and promise to use a reconciliation bill, which requires just a majority vote, to smooth out any changes. It's very, very doable. It's also in the interest of the Democrats in Congress. They already cast a vote, might as well reap the benefit of having an accomplishment.

The only question is whether they can keep their heads.

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12 comments

Kent Brockman: Professor, would you say it's time for our viewers to panic? Professor: Mmm, yes I would, Kent.

- ratnerstar

January 18, 2010 at 6:30pm

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Love the graphic and agree with Andrew. Dems have proved that are hopelessly lame.

- WandreyCer

January 18, 2010 at 7:22pm

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Panic should be reserved for moments when it's really appropriate, e.g. the RNC actually fires Michael Steele.

- ironyroad

January 18, 2010 at 7:51pm

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I will be honest and say if that bill had passed I wouldn't really care if that princess (what, me shake hands with voters IN THE COLD?) gets her ass handed to her. Climate change is going to bite us on the ass sooner rather than later so the EPA alone can move on it, and as to financial reform that will get eaten away by revision soon enough, and the rest (DADT) Obama can do on his own. AND FP Obama has Republican support, Democrats having 59 votes would be fine, but yeah, Dems will panic, health care will collapse and we can all look forward to en empty headed Conservative in 3 years. I am sure it will be either pretty boy Rubio or pretty boy Brown.

- blackton

January 18, 2010 at 8:04pm

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Health care reform is the only issue important enough for me to take an easy shot at Chait and instead say "right on" -- and those of us who support reform need to put pressure on Pelosi and the Dem Nat Committee to say we'll hold the House responsible if they don't pass the Senate bill. Also, I know this is delusional, and Coakley is as unbelievably awful as she seems, but I just can't wrap my head around Mass. replacing Ted Kennedy with health care on the line with this guy. I'll believe it when I see it (probably in 24 hours...)

- Lymon1

January 18, 2010 at 8:12pm

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Chait, you cannot believe that, after losing in Massachusetts, of all places, Lieberman and the other fence sitters will actually pass reform. They've had all year to pass reform, for God's sake! And diddled. And went on endlessly about public options, and tax increases, and mandates, and Cadillac plans. Couldn't sell water in the desert. "[K]eep their heads"? Lost, a long time ago.

- raylward

January 18, 2010 at 8:20pm

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Lymon, why would Massachusetts voters vote for the interests of anyone other than Massachusetts voters? This doesn't mean I support Brown, only that I totally do not get this entire line of thinking that seems to be dominating analysis of the Massachusetts race by umpteen outsiders. I mean, I'm a Californian, and the day I vote for a candidate I loathe just so Massachusetts, America, the planet, or the freakin' Milky Way will feel good is a day that doesn't end in "y." All politics is local, like the man said.

- williamyard

January 18, 2010 at 9:01pm

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Right bill, but isn't it more like a movie situation where the guy who can save the mission is the one that nobody likes? Where everyone else on the team has to swallow hard and admit that there's a time to put the local/personal aside for a more important goal? "Yeah you're all better than me, you're all so goddam smart. But you need me now, eh? Dontcha wish ya didn't? I want to hear these guys say they need me now!"

- ironyroad

January 18, 2010 at 10:07pm

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I'd like to break away from this health care thing for a second to focus on the real issue at hand. Namely: the fact that Andrew Sullivan blatantly stole my Kent Brockman quote. George Washington didn't write the Declaration of Independence just so some snooty Englishman can come over here and appropriate our cultural touchstones. Somebody get me some tea, cuz I'm ready to party, bitches.

- ratnerstar

January 18, 2010 at 11:31pm

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Ok so the President campaigned at the last minute for a candidate that may lose, so what? If he didn't he would have been criticized. Coakley is the one on the ropes here. Ted Kennedy over stayed his visit to the Senate by about 15 years. He was unresponsive to his voters and did what ever he wanted. Senator Kennedy thought of himself as the lone voice of liberalism and acted accordingly. The Alpha Male doesn't panic. No matter what happens he is still on top. OK so they can't ram health care down our throats, is that such a bad thing? I think the Democrats will find something better and more productive to work on. And the President will be fine too.

- CRS9TNR

January 19, 2010 at 6:42am

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Most disturbing to me is Sullivan's delusion that it's possible to pass the limited coverage reforms he proposes. It's not, for the simple fact that such a measure, on its own, would be much worse for insurers than the actual comprehensive reform bills passed by Congress. Such a bill would destroy the private insurance market. The industry would lobby harder against Sullivan's bill than against the real bills, and despite their claims of interest in limited coverage reform now, not one Republican would vote for that bill either. It's probably the Senate bill or nothing, and if Democrats choose nothing, then I'm joining the Modern Whig Party.

- rhubarbs

January 19, 2010 at 8:28am

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WY: I don't think Scott Brown is really in alignment with MA voters belief is their interests (the line as you state it is too vague -- Rush Limbaugh would say it's in Vermont's interests to vote for Jim DeMint...) Examining their votes for the last 10 years would indicate they want a senator who will vote very differently than Brown will.

- Lymon1

January 19, 2010 at 11:00am

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