Mar
5
House Democrats Would Love This!
Filed Under American Politics | 9 Comments
So just a brief summary of where the healthcare bill is.
1. The House passed their version of the bill.
2. The Senate passed their version of the bill.
3. Democrats in the House and Senate disagree as to which bill is the best. House Democrats won’t pass the Senate bill as is and are looking for a fix.
4. The current strategy is for the House to pass the Senate bill as is because that means that the two different bills won’t need to be reconciled and Obama can sign the Senate bill into law straightaway. However, to appease House Democrats, the Senate will pass (via reconciliation) several “fixes” that will appease House democrats. The fixes are vital, otherwise, progressives in the House will see the Senate bill as far too conservative.
So with that backstory, this analysis by Judd Gregg, a Republican Senator, is fairly revealing:
The White House may renege on passing fixes to the Senate’s healthcare bill once the House has passed it, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) claimed Thursday.
Gregg, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, suggested that President Barack Obama may back off making changes to the Senate bill through the reconciliation process, which the White House and the Senate have said they would use to make changes to the Senate bill in order to placate House members.
“They’re using reconciliation to pass the great big bill,” Gregg said during an appearance on CNBC. “Once they pass the great big bill, I wouldn’t be surprised if the White House didn’t care if reconciliation passed. I mean, why would they?” . . .
“If you’re in the House and you’re saying, ‘Well, I’m going to vote for this because I’m going to get a reconcilation bill,’ I would think twice about that,” Gregg said. “First because, procedurally, it’s going to be hard to put a reconciliation bill through the Senate. Second because I’m not sure there’s going to be a lot of energy to do it, from the president or his people.”
“In my opinion, reconciliation is an exercise for buying votes, which, once they have the votes they really don’t need it,” he said.
I think this makes sense. The whole healthcare fiasco has damaged Obama’s Presidency and attempting reconciliation will only drag it out further. Obama needs the win now and then needs to move on to other subjects. It is not in his best interests for another three, six, twelve months (?) of this.
But of course, it is a calculated risk. To ignore the progressive caucus and alienate the base in this way will become a dynamic to his Presidency in it’s own right and would lead to talk of a primary from the left. If this is his plan (and I’m sceptical), his calculation must be that his political strength lies as much outside of the liberal base as it does currently within it. Who needs the liberal base when you can rely on the African-American vote, on loyal conservative Democrats, on moderates and for general election purposes, placate the swing voter who may no longer see him as aggressively liberal. Congressional Democrats are unpopular right now, running away from them might not be an altogether bad strategy. And of course, this would be a strategy looking ahead to 2012 whilst sacrificing Democratic chances in 2010.
I think it’s more likely that Judd Gregg is just trying to stir the pot here, hoping to make progressive Democrats already suspicious of the strategy to pass the Senate bill first and fix it later, balk at the idea and demand a more progressive bill. But Gregg’s analysis does have a ring of truth. Obama needs to kill the healthcare debate soon, it’s sucking all the air (and political capital) out of his Presidency.
And as an additional note of interest, vote counters on the right think that Pelosi is well short of getting the votes to pass the Senate bill in the House right now.
Feb
4
Reihan Salam, a very smart writer from the right and one whom I really should read more often, explains why it is both reasonable to oppose the recent attempt to pass health care reform, and why Republicans never had a chance to partake of a bi-partisan approach, because one was never put on the table by the Democratic leadership in the first place:
I think that the approach taken by the White House and its congressional allies was wrongheaded, and that one potential benefit of the Brown victory is that it might chasten the Democrats in a constructive way. The hypothetical example — a reform model that actually works — was not a realistic option after Arlen Specter defected from the Democratic caucus in the Senate and Al Franken won his recount battle. At that moment, the incentives for cooperating with moderate Republican senators weakened tremendously….Senate Democrats offered “compromises” like interstate compacts that bore little resemblance to robust interstate competition. There wasn’t a serious effort to woo Senator Bob Corker, who has explicitly said that he’d be interested in compromise legislation that placed a heavier emphasis on catastrophic coverage
And on the weakness of the Democratic bill:
I do not believe that a weak mandate, a sharp increase in implicit marginal tax rates, and a regulation-driven strategy to addressing adverse selection — as opposed to an incentive-driven strategy using state-based high-risk pools and, better still, well-designed public reinsurance — will work. In fact, I believe that it will turn out very badly and that it will prove impossible to reverse.
I may have been against the original Democratic bill on principle, but at least that bill had substance. But as it progressed through both houses of Congress, it became watered down and corrupted by back-room compromises and deals to such an extent, that the remaining bill does little in the name of reform, but lots in increasing the cost of healthcare for the taxpayer. What is the point in requiring insurance companies to accept medical pre-conditions, if the mandated insurance for the healthy is so weak that there is every incentive to forego insurance until one becomes ill? How, in any conceivable circumstance, can it be a good thing to require non union workers to pay an excise tax whilst exempting union workers?
Republicans have done Democrats, and the cause of decent health reform a favour by obstructing the passage of this bill. Perhaps now, Democrats and Republicans can grow up a little and actually fashion something worthy of the title reform.
Jan
23
A new USA Today/Gallup poll out today shows 55% of respondents want President Obama and Congressional Democrats to “suspend work on the current health care bill … and consider alternative bills that can receive Republican support.” And 39% want to see Democrats “continue to try” to pass health care.
A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows 61 percent of adults surveyed saying Congress should “drop health care reform and focus on more immediate ways to improve the economy and create jobs.”
As Obama fails to provide leadership to Congressional Democrats, perhaps the man with the tin ear is finally listening to the voice of the American people. Or perhaps he’s just indecisive.
Jan
20
Health Reform Is Dead
Filed Under American Politics | 2 Comments
At least as it’s currently constituted.
Two key moderate Democratic Senators have effectively said as much. Via Marc Ambinder:
Jim Webb:
“In many ways, the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform, but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated,”
Senator Evan Byah:
Democrats would find themselves “in even further catastrophe” if they failed to learn from the “wake-up call” of Coakley’s pending defeat, Bayh said.
“It’s why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message,” Bayh told ABC News. “They just don’t believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems. That’s something that has to be corrected.”
There isn’t going to be the appetite in the House to pass the Senate bill as is. And I’m not sure Obama will be able to cobble together 50 votes in he Senate right now, never mind 60.
So does Obama have the capacity to accept a defeat, go back to the drawing board and finally start to put together a bi-partisan coalition (the right move), does he abandon health reform altogether and move on to more populist measures like banking reform and a jobs bill or does he become more combative and continue to press his radical agenda? The next few weeks will define his Presidency starting next week at the State of The Union.
Jan
20
Early Thoughts
Filed Under American Politics | 10 Comments
Well it’s nearly 5am, so I’ll get some early thoughts in before heading to bed.
Firstly, my second shot at predicting and at least I’m getting warmer. At least I picked the right side this time but exaggerated the margin.
This will be a bit stream of consciousness, things will get more organised tomorrow after the pols and the pundits gather themselves and speak.
Republicans have hit upon a new way of campaigning. They now speak for the “independent voters of (insert state name here)”. It’s 3 for 3 in statewide elections in Obama won states in the space of a year. Not bad for what was supposed to be such a dysfunctional party.
“gas up the truck” – Funny chant and the whole truck thing worked well for Brown. But it’s time to drop it.
Who are the winners?- Apart from the obvious choice, Mitt Romney who lent a lot of support to the Brown team and Michael Steele who fed $500,000 to the campaign from the RNC without the press being aware. Publicly it would have tied Brown to the GOP too blatantly for Massachusetts voters.
Is any Democrat safe?- A poll in New York State had Republican George Pataki beating Kirsten Gillibrand comfortably in a hypothetical senate race. Very few Democrats can be comfortable today. That doesn’t mean I think that Republicans will sweep in November, just that Democrats are walking a high wire right now. A slip could bring things crashing down for them.
What might be that “slip”?- The Democrats have a decision now obviously. Do they rethink their strategy and move to the middle. Do they ditch healthcare, focus on bi-partisanship, ditch immigration reform and focus on jobs? That’s the safe bet. It might not excite the base but it’s not the base causing Democrats problems right now. Or do they go left. Force through healthcare, use legislative tricks like reconciliation and delaying the seating of Brown (not going to happen), fight the class war and push through immigration reform to shore up the hispanic vote. It’s a very high risk, high reward strategy. If he’s successful, I can see it bolstering Obama’s support. I can see a scenario that once the Democrats pass healthcare, moderates and enough independents to matter may just accept the fait accompli and move on. The Dems will probably be better protected in November and Obama probably wins in 2012. But if he takes this route and misjudges the strength of feeling, he’ll probably win Republicans the house, possibly the senate and even the White House. The Democrats have a significant blue wall of states that helps them in Presidential elections and gives them an advantage in the Senate. Tonight that wall was breached. Whether it is one that can be patched or becomes a breach that brings the edifice down will depend on how the Democrats react in the next few days and weeks.
Republicans should not get complacent. There was Obama-esque, Blair-esque (1997 version) excitement in this race. But many still were holding their nose as they pulled the lever for the Republican.
Rasmussen’s exit polls showed that 23% of Democrats voted for Brown as did 73% of independent voters (wow!) and Coakley only won union voters by 6%. Probably the most important number – 58% of voters said that health care was the most important issue in casting their vote. Of those, 41% strongly oppose the bill.
This may unite Democrats, but there will be too many looking at polls for this to happen. For the next few months it will be every vulnerable Democrat for him/herself.
This was not as much about Coakley’s bad candidacy as the Democratic spin machine will have us believe. It may have caused the final result, but it was the unpopularity of the Washington Democrats that put her in the position to lose. In late December she was still leading by upwards of twenty points. Since that moment, there has been the Ben Nelson Cornhusker kickback, the Christmas Eve Senate vote on Healthcare, the Christmas Day terrorist attack, the backroom dealings on reconciling the House and Senate bills and the Democrats hand out to the unions. Without these, even the disastrous campaign of Coakley would not have led to the result we’ve had.
This one’s important – If anything proves that the tea-party conservatives and the pragmatic east-coast conservatives need to work together, this result is it. What a potent force. The dynamism and energy of base conservatives and the independent and cross-party appeal of pragmatic conservatism. They’ve found a common cause in Scott Brown. Both sides need to remember this night.
Finally. Wow! what a transition in the space of a year. See; politics can be exciting. It may not be better than sex, but sport can’t hold a candle to it.
Massachusetts started one revolution. it might be hyperbole but perhaps the home of Lexington and Concord fired the first, thankfully metaphorical, shot that starts another one. The “people’s seat” may bring about a return to the people’s government.
Good night (5:33 ugh!), I’ll be online tomorrow afternoon. I think it’s going to be an interesting day.
Jan
16
Rich Lowry at The Corner runs through the options:
They can try to pass health care before he can be seated. The problem is that it will strike people as unfair and undemocratic—brazen really. It will create a roiling populist revolt that will far outstrip anything we’ve seen so far. It also will be tough to pull off. There’s the issue of timing—could they cut a final deal and get an acceptable CBO score and all the rest of it before Brown arrived? Plus, there would be the heavier political headwinds created by Brown’s win and the above mentioned revulsion at the process. Would Blanche Lincoln be comfortable going along with this ploy? Would every Blue Dog who voted for the bill the first time around? Seems unlikely.
There are other routes: The Democrats could make another run at Olympia Snowe. This would be the easiest solution. But would they be able to address her concerns about affordability without another drawn-out negotiation (with time continuing to work against them) and without creating other problems in the bill? Also, if Brown won, it well might stiffen her resolve.
There’s always reconciliation. If they go that route, they no longer need 60 votes in the Senate. But my understanding is that they would have to send the bill back through committee. It would be a time-consuming process, making it impossible for Obama to do his “pivot” to jobs anytime soon. And a lot of the most popular features of the bill couldn’t be included, meaning Democrats would have to pass just the Medicare cuts and tax increases through the House and not lose any votes (again, in an environment where a Democrat lost in Massachusetts in an election defined by health care).
In theory, they could try to get the House to pass the Senate bill in its entirety. That means the unions give up the Cadillac loophole, the liberals eat every single one of their concerns, and they don’t fix their Stupak problem, which itself threatens to bring down the bill in House. A very heavy lift.
It wouldn’t be impossible for Democrats still to get it done if Brown won (and the leadership would be more desperate than ever to make it happen), but the odds would be against them. That’s why the stakes are so gigantic and Obama is going to Massachusetts. The fate of his signature piece of legislation—and perhaps his presidency—hangs in the balance.
The problem with all of these options is that it gives those waverers on the Democratic side (either from the right or the left) the chance to bolt, allowing them to blame it on the Massachusetts result. Personally, I think their only real option is to get the House to pass the Senate bill. In that instance, another Senate vote is not needed rendering Scott Brown’s 41st vote irrelevant. But that means passing a bill that doesn’t have a public option as the House bill does, passing a bill that doesn’t go as far as the Senate bill in who benefits from government subsidies and also passing a bill that doesn’t prevent government financing abortion. It will be a bill that the left and rigt of the Democratic house caucus will be unhappy with. However, Obama has reached the stage where has to get a bill passed soon as the longer this drags on, the less he can refocus on the economy. The other routes will either take too long (negotiating) or will be hugely unpopular (reconciliation and not seating Brown).
Jan
13
The Democratic Senatorial candidate for Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, hosted a fundraiser in Washington D.C. yesterday. The roll call:
As first reported by Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner, the host committee for the fundraiser at Pennsylvania Avenue’s Sonoma Restaurant includes lobbyists for Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, Novartis and sundry other drug companies that have been among the biggest of ObamaCare’s corporate sponsors. Other hosts—who have raised at least $10,000 for Ms. Coakley—include representatives from UnitedHealthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana and other insurers. As far as we can tell, the insurance industry claims to oppose ObamaCare’s current incarnation.
So why are health insurance companies lining up to give their lobby money to Martha Coakley who represents the 60th vote in the Senate that breaks a filibuster on the Democratic healthcare legislation? Surely, as Democrats tell us ad nauseum, health insurance companies are opposed to the proposed reforms.
Well consider what the reforms do:
1. The Health Insurance mandate – With the public option off the table, the mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance just means that the health insurance companies get a whole host of new customers.
2. Reforms aimed at requiring health insurance companies to not disallow people for pre-existing conditions means that insurance companies now have carte blanche to put up prices.
3. This is likely to be the last significant legislation on healthcare (should it pass). That means that Republican calls to open up the market (allowing people to buy insurance across state lines for example) has been effectively killed off for the foreseeable future. That makes it harder for smaller businesses to enter into a more heavily regulated marketplace thus protecting the share for the large incumbent companies.
The Democratic Party – Good for the health insurance business.
Jan
9
Democratic In Name Only
Filed Under American Politics | 2 Comments
Republican Scott Brown has an outside chance of winning the special Senatorial election in Massachusetts. The Democratic pollster PPP calls it a “losable race” for the Democratic Party:
At this point a plurality of those planning to turn out oppose the health care bill. The massive enthusiasm gap we saw in Virginia is playing itself out in Massachusetts as well. Republican voters are fired up and they’re going to turn out. Martha Coakley needs to have a coherent message up on the air over the last ten days that her election is critical to health care passing and Ted Kennedy’s legacy- right now Democrats in the state are not feeling a sense of urgency.
-Scott Brown’s favorables are up around 60%, a product of his having had the airwaves to himself for the last week. By comparison Bob McDonnell’s were at 55% right before his election and Chris Christie’s were only at 43%. Coakley’s campaign or outside groups need to tie Brown’s image to national Republicans and knock him down a notch over the final week of the campaign.
This has become a losable race for Democrats- but it could also be easily winnable if Coakley gets her act together for the last week of the campaign. Complacency is the Democrats’ biggest enemy at this point and something that needs to be overcome to avoid a potential disaster.
It would be a huge story should Scott Brown win. Massachusetts is about as blue as states get. But there is another reason why a Republican win would be big news; it’s impact on the healthcare vote. Should Brown win, he represents the 41st anti-healthcare vote, the vote that can sustain a filibuster regardless of how many Democrats vote for reform. The Democratic Party is planning for such an eventuality:
Few have considered the Jan. 19 election as key to the fate of national health-care reform because both Kirk and front-runner state Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee, have vowed to uphold Kennedy’s legacy and support health-care reform.
But if Brown wins, the entire national health-care reform debate may hinge on when he takes over as senator. Brown has vowed to be the crucial 41st vote in the Senate that would block the bill.
The U.S. Senate ultimately will schedule the swearing-in of Kirk’s successor, but not until the state certifies the election.
Today, a spokesman for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who is overseeing the election but did not respond to a call seeking comment, said certification of the Jan. 19 election by the Governor’s Council would take a while.
“Because it’s a federal election,” spokesman Brian McNiff said. “We’d have to wait 10 days for absentee and military ballots to come in.”
Another source told the Herald that Galvin’s office has said the election won’t be certified until Feb. 20 – well after the president’s address.
Since the U.S. Senate doesn’t meet again in formal session until Jan. 20, Bay State voters will have made their decision before a vote on health-care reform could be held. But Kirk and Galvin’s office said today a victorious Brown would be left in limbo.
Does the argument that because it’s a federal election, a requisite ten days have to pass before certification can take place? No:
In contrast, Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell) was sworn in at the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 18, 2007, just two days after winning a special election to replace Martin Meehan. In that case, Tsongas made it to Capitol Hill in time to override a presidential veto of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Deliberately delaying Brown’s certification (should he win) so as to avoid his no vote on healthcare gives lie to the way the party of the left identify themselves. It would be disingenuous for them to refer to themselves as the Democratic Party.
Jan
3
Writing in the Wall Street Journal (with two others), Senator Hatch of the GOP argues that the individual mandate aspect of Obamacare is unconstitutional:
President Obama’s health-care bill is now moving toward final passage. The policy issues may be coming to an end, but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional. Legally speaking, this legislation creates a target-rich environment. We will focus on three of its more glaring constitutional defects.
First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress’s powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends.
The obvious response to this from Democrats would be to point out that the individual mandate is constitutional precisely because it is a tax:
WSJ again:
Chairman Max Baucus’s bill includes the so-called individual mandate, along with what he calls a $1,900 “excise tax” if you don’t buy health insurance. (It had been as much as $3,800 but Democrats reduced the amount last week to minimize the political sticker shock.) And, lo, it turns out that if you don’t pay that tax, the IRS could punish you with a $25,000 fine or up to a year in jail, or both.
Under questioning last week, Tom Barthold, the chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, admitted that the individual mandate would become a part of the Internal Revenue Code and that failing to comply “could be criminal, yes, if it were considered an attempt to defraud.” Mr. Barthold noted in a follow-up letter that the willful failure to file would be a simple misdemeanor, punishable by the $25,000 fine or jail time under Section 7203.
And that of course will allow Republicans to juxtapose that response with this video in any future political adverts:
The rest of the Hatch article is interesting. The one point he makes that really stands out is referencing the Nebraska bribe that got Senator Ben Nelson on board:
A second constitutional defect of the Reid bill passed in the Senate involves the deals he cut to secure the votes of individual senators. Some of those deals do involve spending programs because they waive certain states’ obligation to contribute to the Medicaid program. This selective spending targeted at certain states runs afoul of the general welfare clause. The welfare it serves is instead very specific and has been dubbed “cash for cloture” because it secured the 60 votes the majority needed to end debate and pass this legislation.
“General welfare” is the other constitutional argument made by Democrats in defending the constitutionality of the health care legislation. In this case, the word “general” is applied way too “generally”.
Dec
31
As noted by Megan McArdle at The Atlantic:
The good is that some people who cannot now acquire insurance will get it; even if this does not make them noticeably healthier, it will make them less worried, and insulate them from catastrophic medical bills. If our technocrats get things right, we may improve the practice of medicine–the most hope probably lies in improving IT and streamlining the bloated provider administrative processes.
The bad in my opinion, is that I’m not particularly sanguine about the ability of our technocrats to deliver unmitigated fabulousness, nor our politicians to resist the lobbying groups who will be steadily pressing them to make everything less fabulous. I think we’ll probably end up eventually with price controls that reduce innovation, providers that turn into horrid quasi-public utilities, brain drain out of the medical profession, and pretty serious rationing, which as David Cutler told me the last time I interviewed him, no other country has managed to avoid.
Oh, and there’s a good chance we’ll also end up with a fiscal crisis. Those are usually pretty bad for everyone, but particularly the everyones who rely on government benefits.
Does the good outweigh the bad? You decide.