Mike Lux thinks that the tide is turning on health insurance reform legislation and that “political common sense” is beginning to set in, and make an outcome with a robust public option much more likely. Mike says that Democrats are starting to look at the Senate Finance Committee bill and that it is making them very nervous because they know that voters won’t like it, and they also don’t know how they’ll be able to defend a vote for it. He then gets pretty specific:
”The Finance bill is still pretty awful on middle class affordability issues, even though Baucus was forced to make changes in the right direction on that issue, and middle class affordability is about as central an issue for most voters as you can get. A tax on good health insurance benefits is also incredibly unpopular, and it’s in the bill. A public option is incredibly popular, and it’s not in that bill. An individual mandate to buy health insurance without a public option is very unpopular, and that’s what this Finance bill has in it. Business taking some responsibility for their workers’ insurance, which is common sense to most voters, is noticeably lacking in the bill. On issue after issue, when it comes to doing the things that are actually popular with the voters, the Finance committee chooses to go the other direction and do the unpopular thing.
”Rank and file Democratic Senators are just starting to realize all this, and are beginning to go to Harry Reid and plead with him to take more of the language from the HELP bill when he merges the two bills. Most Democratic Senators are not going to want to have to defend the unpopular mess that is the Finance bill, and the pushback against it is gearing up.”
Mike then adds the context of the prevailing political mechanics to this negative reaction to the Baucus bill.
”Which brings us to the 60 vote issue. The White House deserves a lot of credit for pushing through a provision in the budget bill passed earlier this year, over the objection of Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad, that allows at least part of health care reform to go through the reconciliation process (which requires only 51 votes). That option hangs over the heads of those conservative Democrats who don’t want to support a good bill, because they know if they decide to oppose health care reform, they can be rolled if needed. Even if they don’t want to vote for the bill on final passage, these Democrats are going to have to decide if they want to support a Republican filibuster to kill health care reform. If they do, they risk the wrath of their party’s President on his number one priority, the issue he knows will define him as a success or failure in the first year of his Presidency. They risk voting for all these unpopular provisions in the Senate Finance bill. They would risk a nosedive in the approval of the Democratic party nationwide, which will also hurt them in their state. They risk a drop in voter turnout among base Democratic groups in their next election. And if they actually were instrumental in killing health care reform when we had finally gotten so close, they would pretty much guarantee a serious well-funded primary challenge the next time they run. My question is: would they really risk all this knowing that if they vote with the Republicans on cloture, Democrats will just roll them and go the reconciliation route? Political common sense may finally prevail with these conservative Democrats in the end as well.”
And then Mike ends his argument by referring to recent supportive statements about the public option made by Nancy Pelosi, Tom Harkin, and Harry Reid, and opining that political reality and common sense may dictate a better bill with a public option that is more affordable.
This is an interesting argument and may reflect some of what is happening now. However, there are a number of reasons why things may not work that way.
First, even though the blue dogs and conservadems may risk the wrath of their President if they side with the Republicans on a filibuster, they may not be very afraid of his wrath. After all, no one has yet seen any concrete punishments for defying the President, other than having to endure Rahm Emanuel’s foul mouth. Mr. Obama might have considerably more credibility in that respect, if he had backed attempts to punish Joe Lieberman in the new congress, or if he had had Ben Nelson, Lieberman, and others down to the White House for some spankings when he was trying to pass his stimulus bill. Second, Mike refers to health care reform as the issue that will define the President as a success or failure in the first year of his presidency. But, again, even though that may be true, the President’s view of what he can sell as a success may differ from Mike’s and mine. There’s every indication that the White House may think it can spin any bill as a success, and convince the public of the truth of its evaluation. The blue dogs and conservadems may well share that evaluation. After all, if such a bill is passed, a lot of campaign money from the health insurance companies and Pharma will await them in the 2010 elections. And they can use that money to spin the hell of what actually happened. Will they succeed? I don’t think so. But they may think so, judging from the fact that many of the blue dogs are opposing the public option in the face of polls that show that their constituents are for it in heavy majorities. And that’s what’s important.
Third, Mike thinks that blue dogs and conservadems will risk drops in nationwide support for the Democratic Party, and in the support of their base if they back the Republicans. However, they’ve been risking this sort of thing right along in the face of polls showing them out of step with their districts. Why should they change now?
Fourth, Mike points out that they risk being successful in blocking reform, and that if they were successful that would guarantee well-funded primary challenges against them. So, he asks, would these folks really risk all of the above things knowing that they are likely to “get rolled” by their Party in a reconciliation process where only 50 + 1 votes to pass reform are needed? Well, my answer to this, is that it is an argument that cuts two ways. That is, if they do not believe that will be be responsible for defeating health care reform because other Democrats will just use reconciliation to pass it, then there is no reason for them to compromise with the public option folks, because they fear that their failure to do so might threaten health insurance reform. And if their opposition to reform should result in its failing, then while they risk all the other things Mike is pointing to, the risk of getting rolled is at least gone.
So, where does all this back and forth leave us? I think it leaves us at the choice Mike referred to in an earlier post of his, namely the choice between going for the insurance and Pharma “gold,” and trying to win elections. Mike believes that to win elections, we need to pass legislation that the voters favor, and that we can always find other sources of campaign funds. But, evidently, the blue dogs and conservadems believe that the best way to win elections is to get plenty of money first, and then manipulate what people think through advertising and slick political organization. So Mike’s choice is to go with the people, and their choice, so far, has been to go with the interests, and try to manipulate the people.
If the blue dogs and conservadems change their minds, then Congress will come around to some form of PO, if they don’t we may get no PO, and also mandatory insurance from the “murder-by-spreadsheet” types. Or even if we get a PO, it may only be enough to increase the chances that politicians can convince people that they delivered for them; but not the kind of PO that might, possibly, solve any of our problems, and it may also do us the damage of freezing health insurance reform until 2015. I’d hate to see that happen in return for a sham PO that has almost no effect on the insurance companies. But I’m afraid that may be the outcome of the kind of “common sense” we’ve been getting from the blue dogs, Rahm, and the President, rather than the outcome of Mike’s scenario.
The question which always arises at this point in a pessimistic scenario, is what should the progressives do if a sham PO bill is presented to them in the final stages of the legislative process? In that case, I think they need to defeat such a bill if they can. If they don’t, they, and the Democratic Party, will bear the responsibility for its passage, and its failure, and the Republicans will return to power sooner, rather than later, and then the United States will accelerate its ruinous march toward plutocracy.
But, if the progressives do defeat such a bill, then the Administration and the blue dogs cannot afford to give up. They cannot take no for an answer. They need a health insurance reform bill, even if it is a progressive bill with a robust PO, and even if its passage means a flood of campaign funds into the coffers of their Republican opposition, because having a bill they can sell as a success is a necessary condition for their re-election, and they can certainly sell that kind of bill as a success; and as Mike Lux says, they can always, in the end, get money another way.
(Also posted at firedoglake.com where there may be more comments)