At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.
Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.
And Frum isn’t done yet.
We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.
There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?
I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.
Also, huge kudos to Frum for this bit, in which finally someone on the right owns up to what’s really going on at Fox News and elsewhere:
The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry.
“The conservative entertainment industry.” There’s a phrase that I hope enters the general lexicon. Because that’s exactly what it is.
Finally, Frum is totally, and accurately, realistic about the plausibility of the silly “repeal” talk now coming from Mitt Romney and the like.
No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?
Of course, Obama would veto a repeal. But let’s even assume that the 2010 midterms are so catastrophic that the GOP ends up with veto-proof majorities in both houses. Frum’s first point is still devastating: how are you going to explain repealing the protections against rescission and pre-existing condition exclusions? How are you going to justify reinstating the doughnut hole? You can’t — all that would do is guarantee Obama’s reelection in 2012, along with likely reestablishing Democratic majorities in Congress. Therefore, they can’t repeal the bill, even if they had the votes.
Finally, here’s Frum’s take on Mitt Romney, whose level of bluster is surpassed only by his own hypocrisy.
Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? … Too late now.
As Charley and others have already noted, Romney’s position is, well, absurd. Greg Sargent neatly sums it up:
Romney is feverishly working to downplay the similarities between Romneycare and Obamacare because he needs to appeal to the GOP base as he positions himself for the 2012 primaries. Hence his increasingly strident rhetoric about Obama’s plan.
But every time Romney does this, Dems – and soon enough, his GOP opponents – will point out that he signed a similar plan into law himself. This, in turn, will force Romney to spend time explaining why his plan isn’t like Obama’s, despite all the obvious similiarities.
And the sight of Romney doing all that ‘splaining will only remind folks of all the ‘splaining he did last time around on abortion and other matters, feeding the narrative that helped do him in last time: He’s ideologically opportunistic and malleable.
Fans of Schadenfreude would do well both to read Frum’s piece a few times, and also to consider Mitt Romney’s position.
Hardly has a winning ring to it.
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p>That is the same position “repeal” Republicans are girding themselves for at the moment.
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p>Come to think of it, maybe the same folks would like to have a go at repealing the 1964 legislation as well.
To nit pick:
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p>There are 18 seats held by Dems up for election in 2010. Even if every single one of them went GOP — a 36 seat sweep — they’d still only have 59 seats. They couldn’t even end a filibuster; they certainly wouldn’t have the votes to override a veto.
I mean, come on. Democrats? Filibuster? I know you were paying attention during the Bush years, you know better than that.
Jiminy Crispies, practically every politician is “ideologically opportunistic and malleable”. After that screed, to let Romney go with just that, is a grave insult to ideologically opportunistic and malleable people.
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p>I mean, Bill Clinton was malleable; Romney’s like Jim Carrey in The Mask.
I don’t disagree with his ideology, but I appreciate his intellect and civility. Maybe the fact that he’s a native Canadian has something to do with it.
He came this close to actually naming them lies. Which indicates the limits of his intellectual honesty, I guess.
John Dean (who, despite being disowned, is still a conservative) and Kevin Phillips come to mind.
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p>Hell, even Fukuyama sort of came to his senses a little (again, at the risk of being disowned).
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p>I’d say Powell, but he sold his bonafides to the right when he agreed to be duped into peddling WMD bullshit and to the Left when he decided not to tow the neocon line and again when he endorsed a Democrat.
…is I actually think when you get past all the bluster, and all the ridiculousness of their “start over” stand at the “summit” three or so weeks back, there are actually a few good ideas on the right side of the aisle that probably should be considered.
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p>And it’s almost a shame they didn’t get more of a place in the conversation. Most prominently, I think some kind of tort reform probably is called for. Hard to imagine why the GOP didn’t come into the conversation with “hey, let’s make sure some of our priorities are listened to” instead of the hard line in the sand that was doomed with big Democratic majorities in both houses.
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p>Most amazingly, they so completely whipped the tea partiers into such a frenzy, they backed themselves into a corner. By the time the summit came, it was too late to have a conversation. They could only say “start over start over”, because anything less would be seen as selling out by the very mob they had already incited.
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p>It is very possible that Democrats will lose seats in this election, and it will cost like 1994. But this is a little like a Tim Wakefield knuckleball. Nobody really knows which way this thing is going, and it could just as easily help Democrats, especially if they spend the next 8 months selling it. At the end of the day, Americans prefer to be hopeful that good things are coming, than made to feel like the sky is perpetually falling.
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p>”Get” is the wrong word. “Accept” would be better.
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p>This was Obama’s point, and he was right.
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p>The Dems were smart to not throw in tort reform. It is a good idea, though in a limited sense, and the reality is that it will have less than one percent of an impact on the cost of health care. But, it should be done — and the Dems should do it, but only in exchange for the GOP voting on it, along side something they aren’t crazy about.
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p>When the Republicans are willing to act like adults (in the minority) and come to the table to make a deal instead of frothing at the mouth, they’ll get some of what they want.
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p>Until then, they’ll get it crammed down their throats. That’s the tyranny of a democracy.
I don’t think the Dems should have put that (or frankly, just about any) GOP ideas into the bill, without their being willing to come to the table. No point in concessions without support in return.
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p>I do have to say, though, that I’m amazed that not one Republican could be won over. There has to have been a strategy to bring one or two republicans over on each side of congress, whatever that might have been. I am sure that the GOP pressure on their members must have been truly intense on their members to have a 100% party line vote like we saw. I’m sure any one of them who was even thinking about a yes vote probably was told they’d be queued up for a tea party primary with GOP funding. I have to wonder, though, with all the talk about which Democrats are vulnerable to a challenge from the right, I have to think there are now some Republicans who are now vulnerable from the left.
I wrote this on RMG in response to a TEA Party advocate I know who was bemoaning the lack of difference between the parties.
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p>That said – two things doomed any bipartisan action from the start. The first was Pelosi’s holding hearings without any GOP input, and the second was the refusal of the majoirty to allow a regular bi-partisan conference committee. Neither was the call of Pres. Obama, but of congressional leadership.
Really? You don’t believe that whipping TPers into a frenzy and declaring waterloo was the original strategy but that the original strategy was to work with the opposition? What GOP were you watching?
… that the whipping up could have been media driven first and before they knew it the leadership was backed into the corner of being forced to play it in a way that satisfied the whackos.
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p>In this case, what the GOP really needs to do is marginalize Rush, Beck, and Fox (and some more too numerous to mention). Fat chance.
That clause is the basis for a lot of what the federal government does. If the Republican majority on SCOTUS manages to undermine that, we’re closer to their dream of mercury-laced baby food, and other free-market triumphs.
At the Dartmouth town Hall meeting, I listened to Barney Frank give a detailed analysis of why cross-boundary purchase of insurance was not allowed – that it was a product SPECIFIC to each state.
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p>Baby food, etc., ARE sold and manufactured across state lines. Insurance is not. Look at the gazillion Mass-specific coverages – we don’t mandate coverage for Rhode Island or Iowa. And this is not a matter of pre-existing condition or lifetime cap, which is a general practice not specific to any illness or condition, but chiropractic, psychiatric, eligibility of newborns on family policy, etc. Mass. mandates these coverages which are not eligible in other states, ergo an Arizona concern cannot buy a MA polciy to get chiropractic coverage. So it is explicitly not interstate in nature.
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p>Now – HCR plans to use interstate commerce as a Federal level justification for compelling purchase. This is not like auto insurance – driving is a priviledge, and requiring such coverage as a condition of licensing is OK because you don’t HAVE to drive. But you DO have to breathe – Congress is mandating purchase of a specific product based on residence. BTW – I have no idea what non-citizens will do. And I don’t mean illegal – I had a hell of a time trying to cover the family of a legal Canadian business owner; he kept telling me he was a ‘landed immigrant’, a category that doesn’t exist in insurance.
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p>If insurance policy and regulation is specific to each state, and cross state purchase is not allowed – how can that be INTERSTATE commerce?
… the whole point of the previous ban across state lines is because different states have differing regs.
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p>Be careful what you wish for, because the ‘solution’ to the mandate objection could include the national regs that the Dems wanted in the bill but left out out of deference (God knows why) to the GOP.
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p>You could get your mandate-by-region ruling and wind up with a nationally regulated mandate.
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p>Also there’s this.
If you buy online, you’re engaging in all likelihood in interstate commerce, even if it’s from the same state. Half the health care available in this country comes from a company based in another state.
I’m not sure this is accurate, and I’ll give you an example.
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p>There is no ONE Blue Cross/Blue Shield – there are FIFTY of htem. BC/BS of MA, BC/BS of FL, and so on. Each is a separate legal entity, and each offeres different levels of benefits according to state laws. When people retire and move to other states, it’s often a shock that the beneifts/premiums change when it’s the ‘same’ company. IMO, THAT’S not interstate commerce.
And until my employer changed plans, I was on BC/BS of Pennsylvania despite living in Massachusetts and the corporate headquarters in Massachusetts. So, that’s interstate commerce as far as I’m concerned.
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p>I also moved Dental Plans — I moved from Delta Dental of MA to Delta Dental of Colorado.
And many of those BC/BS are owned by aggregator companies, such as Wellpoint, which sells in a dozen states and is based in Indianapolis.
There is no doubt — zero — that, under long-established Supreme Court doctrine, buying health insurance from a MA company “affects” interstate commerce (which is enough under current law). Just no doubt at all. That argument is a loser.
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p>However, it’s just possible that requiring individuals to purchase a product is outside the scope of “regulating” interstate commerce. IMHO, that is the argument these lawsuits should be pressing. I don’t see how any other claim has any shot at all. Even this one’s a stretch, but it does strike me as “non-trivial,” as I said on Emily Rooney the other day.
I have no idea what SCOTUS will do, but you comments about the way the GOP fought the bill are spot on. Had they acted like adults and used both emotional and logical arguments, both excited and calm exchanges, it may have played out much differently.
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p>As for dooming bipartisanship, that’s a load of bull. The GOP knew that legislation like this (though not any particular bill) was both (a) antithetical to their values, (b) popular, and (c) impossible to remove legislatively once passed. Hence, Waterloo. As a result of (a)-(c), they knew that they had to oppose anything and everything. They also knew that, politically, if they worked with the Dems, they’d have much less to run on nationwide in 2010. When you’re already down 60-40, you’ve got to go in big. Imagine if the GOP worked with the Dems, this legislation passed 8 months ago, and the Dems had spent these last 8 months passing popular banking reforms, spending money on mass transit and raising MPG standards, election reforms, more jobs bills, or any number of populist and popular provisions. Why, they might even win a few seats in 2010 — and in the House that would edge them toward a 2/3 veto proof and strengthen the odds that Pelosi can end-around the Blue Dogs, but in the Senate — imagine if the Dems only needed two of Nelson, Lincoln, Lieberman, Baucus, Byrd — or fewer if Collins or Snowe voted with the Ds on an issue. Why, they’d be able to pass lots of things GOPers don’t like!
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p>I don’t see any medium term GOP strategy that allowed for working with the Dems in this congressional session and still allowed for gaining — or at least not losing — seats in 2010. GOP leadership is smarter than me: they knew this too.
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p>Now PP you can lay blame at Pelosi’s feet all you like, but over 200 GOP amendments were included in the final bill. The televised Obamacare conference is awfully strong evidence that the GOP was simply never going to play ball. Not only that, but months in they were still behaving like little kids. The only one who acted like an adult on the GOP side of that interaction was that budget wonky guy who’s plan is to phase down Medicare. I don’t like his plan, but at least he had an honest plan, not some rhetoric about how tort reform is going to have a substantial impact.
… pretty much said his strategy was to be in total opposition:
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… want to accomplish. The leadership’s idea was to play politics rather than govern, and their strategy was fine for that – it just didn’t happen to pan out.
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p>Your legal strategy is probably going to fail, but I’ll take your word that it’s an honest attempt to reconcile the law with the bill (where I don’t think such reconciliation is necessary).
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p>I’ll tell you one thing, though… I agree with Ezra when he says:
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p>If I were in the shoes of conservatives, I’d try and figure out how to get the party back from the crazies and back to the job of governing like adults. That probably means not prolonging this tantrum with a legal challenge that still looks like a tantrum. As Frum points out, there were opportunities here to exert the influence of conservative thinking – it’s just that in practice, conservatives don’t seem to care as much about conservative thinking so much as political victory.
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p>Goldwater wouldn’t have put up with this s#!t.
If SCOTUS rejects this, then the result will be government-sponsored single-payer health care — mooting the entire issue. Be careful what you wish for.
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p>The bill, as passed, is the best the right-wing is ever going to get in this arena. The changes that follow (and there will be many) will chip away the giveaways to the GOP piece by piece.
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p>In the long run, single-payer is inevitable. I think the health insurance companies and big providers know this — I think they’re trying to squeeze as much as they can for as long as they can in the interim.
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p>The bill, as passed, fixes some problems and doesn’t begin to touch the big ones. Health care premiums, now mandatory, will continue to skyrocket. Health care costs will continue to skyrocket. As they do, increasingly incensed consumers will demand additional reforms. A “strong public option” might be tried — it too will fail.
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p>At the end of the day, we will land on government-sponsored single-payer health care. Today’s health insurance providers will be essentially dissolved.
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p>If SCOTUS rejects the current bill, it will serve to accelerate rather than stop this inevitable trajectory.
Sounds awfully similar to the shift from fossil to renewable fuels, actually…
It is the same flagrantly self-centered behavior, defended by the same flagrantly self-centered political interests — in many cases, by the same flagrantly self-centered individuals.
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p>Unabashed greed and selfishness, dolled up as a political philosophy rationalized by self-serving excuses, wrapped in the flag and claiming the blessing of the deity.
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p>In short, today’s GOP.
If inevitable, why not offered as part of the legislation?
I appreciate your support for single-payer. I’m sure we can count on your enthusiastic support for legislation creating a government-sponsored single-payer health system for the US. The current legislation can be sunsetted as part of that solution.
Aren’t they unnecessary?
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p>AND – if it is inevitable, then why wasn’t single payer in the legislatiuon? Or do you not want to discuss how the Democrats don’t want single payer either, despite your claims of inevitabiltiy?
Shifting from fossil fuels to renewables is inevitable – the fossil fuels will run out, period, there’s simply no question about that. Gee, why hasn’t anyone put forth legislation banning all petroleum products?
Nationwide recognition of same-sex couples’ right to marry is inevitable – even many staunchly opposed right-wing activists admit that all they can do is slow it down. Gee, why hasn’t anyone put forth legislation explicitly encoding that right into federal law?
while keeping a straight face. Nice try, but utter horseshit. The GOP chose to forgo having any meaningful input into the bill as a deliberate political strategy: any bill considered was SOCIALIST and leading us down the path to COMMUNIST FASCIST TYRANNY, perhaps to the benefit of TERRORISTS.
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p>In other words, the GOP has behaved, in the minority, as it did in power: it is extremist, reckless, absolutely bound to the whims of kooks, and has little apparent regard for the republic, its traditions, or its institutions of government, never mind simple integrity and honesty.
I get when I blast Porcupine. Makes up for the zeds when I react to the BMG majority’s Full Party Propaganda Mode.
There is still plenty of time to reposition himself as the guy who can “fix” healthcare ’cause he, you know, invented the Massachusetts plan it is based on.
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p>Watch for it.