THE PLANK DECEMBER 21, 2009
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
My argument that Republicans blew it by not offering Democrats a much smaller health care deal has drawn some dissent. Ross Douthat argues that Republicans got most of what they wanted in the bill anyway -- moderate Democrats did their work for them by taking out the public option and forcing deficit neutrality. The bill couldn't get much smaller without blowing up the whole thing: "To get something much more affordable," he writes, "you wouldn’t just need to persuade the Democrats to shave a few hundred billion off the price tag; you’d have to persuade them to take a radically different approach."
That's certainly true provided the Democrats insisted on offering universal coverage the the whole (non-illegal) population. But what if they didn't? Remember, at the beginning of the year, several Senate Democrats were urging President Obama not to take up health care reform at all. And they were dying for Republican cover. So imagine a Chuck Grassley offered them, say, a few hundred billion dollars in Medicaid expansion plus malpractice reform and bigger health savings accounts. I'd guess at least one Democrat would jump at that offer. And all they'd have needed is one Democrat to make that deal and say no more, and they'd have sunk universal health care.
The Atlantic's Derek Thompson, in the course of scolding me for what he oddly calls "chest-beating rhetoric," offers a couple retorts of his own. Thompson writes:
I see no evidence that cooperation from Olympia Snowe or a handful of Republicans would have tugged this legislation to the right. After all, some of the places where Snowe seemed willing to compromise -- for example, a public option trigger -- are actually to the left of the current legislation, which lacks any sort of public option, whatsoever. So it doesn't follow that Republican cooperation with health care would have "lured a chunk of Democrats to sign something far more limited."
I agree -- the assent of Olympia Snowe and a handful of other Republicans would not have tugged this bill to the right. What I wrote in my post was that if Chuck Grassley had offered a bill in the neighborhood of $400 billion or so, I think at least one Democrat would have taken the deal. Obviously, that's a counterfactual and nobody can know this for sure. Thompson has a right to disagree, but he should respond to what I actually wrote rather than respond to a different argument that I don't agree with.
Thompson continues, "Chait seems to think that this bill is not seen as partisan and too liberal, but I worry that he's wrong." Thompson proceeds to "refute" me with a lot of evidence showing that the health care bill has lost public support.
Wait, I think the bill is not seen as too partisan or liberal? I don't think that at all! I think the opposite, and that's what I wrote:
The strategy had some logic to it: If all 40 Republicans voted no, then Democrats would need 60 votes to succeed, a monumentally difficult task. And if they did succeed, the bill would be seen as partisan and therefore too liberal, too big government. ...The Republicans may gain some more seats in 2010 by their total obstruction, but the substantive policy defeat they've been dealt will last for decades.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough: the Republicans helped themselves politically short-term, but at a very high long-term policy cost. I think they could have prevented a universal bill by peeling away one or more Democrats who wanted a bipartisan deal more than they wanted universal reform. The GOP withdrew this half-a-loaf measure and gave the Democrats just two choices: enact a Democrats-only (or Democrats plus Maine only) bill, or have a 1994-style fiasco. It was a big bet, and the Republicans, while gaining short term, will be paying for it a long time.
7 comments
I dunno. The GOP came pretty close to unraveling the entire thing. I think they pursued the right POLITICAL strategy, even if they looked pretty evil doing it ("death panels!"). What's been so frustrating during this debate is the ability of Republicans to use extreme rhetoric to shift public opinion. It would be one thing if they were attacking the healthcare plan on its merits, but their attacks were generally unhinged...and they worked! The last two times the Republicans tried absurdly dishonest attacks on a Democratic plan or candidate (Swift Boat Vets and "Death panels"), it worked. There wasn't a backlash! Not only that, but the attacks failed to even rally the Democratic base. That's disturbing. It seems that extreme partisanship and lies might be the most effective strategy from here on out.
- Virginia Centrist
December 21, 2009 at 3:53pm
Another what if scenario. If Spector had NOT switched sides, the Democrats might have given up on 60 in the Senate six months ago, used some version of the nuclear option, gotten rid of the filibuster by a parliamentary maneuver like the nuclear option that need 50 Senators plus the VP, passed a much stronger version of health care reform, been in a much better position to pass finance/bank reform, and be in a much better position to lose fewer seats (or even gain seats) in 2010 and/or 2012. Voters least like wimps, wusses, chumps … which is the meme Obama and Senate Democrats keep reinforcing to date. Good luck with continuing that strategy.
- gdbittner
December 21, 2009 at 4:35pm
I agree with Jonathan. Whatever short-term political gain or loss will come from the health care bill will be almost completely overshadowed by the state of the economy and labor market as of the end of next summer (or else, God forbid, by some catastrophic act of terrorism or nature). There may be a Congressman or three, or even a Senator, whose re-election will be affected by the health care bill due to how it affects local politics or economics in their district or state, but the attention of the public and media will have passed on seven months hence to other issues. However, near-universal health coverage and comprehensive health care reform will be here to stay regardless of what happens in the 2010 elections, as social welfare programs whose direct or indirect beneficiaries include any portion of the middle class are impervious to repeal or major restriction. Then Republicans will realize that, from the standpoint of their idealogically committed campaign donors and think tanks, the party allowed another expansion of the welfare state to roll over them.
- wildboy
December 21, 2009 at 4:41pm
I can't wait to see some of the 30 Million Unisured people start collecting on their Health Insurance. Magically the insurance companies will drop their pre-screening exams and fling open their doors. Hospitals and Doctors will expang their hours and welcome these new potential patients. Drug stores will hand huge signs telling the great unwashed about free Viagra and oodles and oodles of Oxycotin. And all the whos down in whoville will join hands and sing.
- CRS9TNR
December 21, 2009 at 7:54pm
CRS9TNR has a point. So far this looks like a giant win for the health insurance business (see recent shares prices). Whatever benefits eventually materialize (2114?), we're not going to be getting French health care. In the mean time, it's all blue smoke and mirrors. "...extreme partisanship and lies may be the most effective strategy from here on out", indeed. Unless the Republicans recapture the House and are forced to compromise in order to get something useful done. Historically, divided government is about the only way to accomplish meaningful long-term progress.
- Robert Powell
December 22, 2009 at 11:41am
Divided government is the worst way to accomplish meaningful long-term progress, precisely because conservatives are defined by their commitment to using whatever power they have to stymie progress. Just about every meaningfully positive legislation in American history resulted from single-party government controlled by non-conservatives, from the Homestead Act to Social Security to Medicare.
- rhubarbs
December 22, 2009 at 3:07pm
Let's count: the Homestead Act, Social Security, and Medicare all received significant conservative support as it was defined at the time, and over time became generally accepted across the board as the new normal. Like "containment", and virtually every other significant US foreign policy initiative post-WWII, these programs were, or quickly became, bi-partisan. The civil rights revolution was accomplished with invaluable Republican participation: Earl Warren, whose Court ruled on Brown vs Bd, was appointed by Eisenhower, who also sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to enforce it; none of the LBJ legislation was possible without Republicans like Dirkson and Rockefeller. More recently, the Reagan tax revolution, the most significant reform of the next generation, was impossible without Speaker Tip O'Neil's mobilization of Democrat support. Clinton's "end of welfare as we know it", arguably the most significant reform of the generation after that, was impossible without Newt Gingrich and his new Republican majority. When one party dominates the government it tends to over-reach, and the out party digs in its heels and resists everything--see Clinton first term, Bush first term-and-a-half. When Congress is in the hands of one party and the White House another, reason breaks out, compromise becomes possible, and good things can happen.
- Robert Powell
December 22, 2009 at 4:44pm