And Then There Were 20

Ezra Klein (4.00 / 2)

said on Olbermann's show yesterday (IIRC) that critical mass starts at 25.

I think they can do this.

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by: Jennifer Daler @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 18:24:27 PM CST

What appears to be going on - (4.00 / 3)

- and I have no special glasses or senses here -

The Democratic leadership is telling the GOP leadership that this will play out one of two ways:

• With a conservative bill that gets 60+ votes from both parties; or
• With the least conservative bill that can get 50 Democratic votes.

There is no third option: the leadership is now (I think) committed to getting SOME bill passed.

Will Republicans blink and provide the 60th vote for a very weak Senate bill?

No: I'll bet hard cash on that.

But will they make cooing noises and try to delay this for another six months, then kill it as campaigns make legislating  impossible?

You may rely on it.

Are the Dems prepared for the stalling and ready to move forward on reconciliation?

Do they understand that using the public option as a threat to the Republicans means raising hopes with the base?

Stay tuned next month.

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by: elwood @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 18:34:23 PM CST

If I were to guess what the strategy is here, (4.00 / 4)

and given how badly this has gone for all of last year, my guess is certainly not driven by prior experience (but instead more by tea leaf reading), I'd say the plan is:

• Have Grand TeeVee health care summit with GOPers.

• GOPers behave badly.

• POTUS says, "OK, have it your way, then, which is to say, we'll do it our way since you have no desire for meaningful input."

• The Dem majority pushes through the most progressive bill 51 votes and Judd Gregg's tricks can let them get away with, and then in the face of any criticism, they point from now to November at that last offer of bipartisanship that the Rs spat on.

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by: Dean Barker @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 18:50:22 PM CST

[ Parent ]

So long as it isn't (0.00 / 0)

• Make noises about a public option.
• Have Grand TeeVee health care summit with GOPers.
• They couldn't possible DARE to behave badly with that threat hanging over them!
• Uh oh! NOW what do we do???

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by: elwood @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 19:04:31 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Yes, which results in this: (0.00 / 0)

But will they make cooing noises and try to delay this for another six months, then kill it as campaigns make legislating  impossible?

And the collapse of the base.

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by: Dean Barker @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 19:22:12 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I'd love that (4.00 / 3)

Harry Reid says that the Senate will be done in 60 days.  No more stalling.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-...

The Republicans had many chances.  They opted to vote no on every option -- even the weak tea measures -- in the hope that lies and distortions will weaken Democrats in the fall.  As far as I'm concerned, this makes it essential for us to pass the most effective bill we can, not a compromise measure that might pry away a couple of Republican votes.  If they want to do battle, let's get our biggest guns.

I had heard that getting a public option through reconciliation would be difficult.  If the White House believes they can overcome this obstacle, then I say. . . .

Get 'er done.

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by: Dartmouth Dem @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 20:48:34 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Menendez is making the right calculation here. (4.00 / 2)

The public doesn't care about procedural precedent.  They care about getting things done.  Getting things done makes the party in power look good, because it makes us look effective.  And by the way, what we're trying to do is good for the country.

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 21:26:14 PM CST

47,000,000 care about getting Health Care Insurance (4.00 / 1)

Think they'll remember who wanted to keep them out of the system.

'Aints no more

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by: JonnyBBad @ Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 01:03:15 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Earplugs (4.00 / 1)

I just went out and bought earplugs, because I think this is going to happen.  Right now, the right wing fruitcakes have exhausted their energy to defeat this, and probably think that they have - heck, I thought they had.  But wait until this starts looking like a real possibility again - who knows what level of idiocy we'll see from these people.

The other thing worth noting , I think, is that the insurers hate the public option more than health care reform.  There is a fairly broad coalition of Senators (D - Aetna), (R - Cigna) that will be forced by constituents to bargain out the PO.  

I think the Republicans are boxed in here - the political implications of dividing the Rs from the insurance companies or the teabaggers is too good to think about for more than a minute or two.  I also think the president will provide a face-saving path for the Republicans - he intimated this several weeks ago at their caucus by telling them not to box themselves in with rhetoric...is it possible that he's that smart?  

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." A. Einstein

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by: StraffordDem @ Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 07:49:21 AM CST

He's certainly smart enough to (4.00 / 1)

win a battle and lose the war - which is what that sort of maneuver would be.

The teabaggers will not vote for Democrats. They are like the religious right for the GOP: the only downside to disappointing them is reduced turnout. So, deftly forcing the GOP to side with the insurance industry in killing a public option is a minor victory.

But it would further demoralize the Democratic base, and reduce the Democratic majority (perhaps turning it into a minority) in November.

I know one thing about eleven-dimensional chess. The game never ends, and yet we always, paradoxically, lose.

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by: elwood @ Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 10:42:15 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I don't think that would be a Pyrrhic victory (4.00 / 2)

because I think that the hcr bill with some solid tweaks is a really good, but not great piece of legislation that moves us solidly down the road toward single payer.

It may be demoralizing to lose the PO once again - true, enough, elwood - but if they beef up the subsidies for the public exchanges it's not that much different from the public option.  And down the road, it's a lot easier to ammend this bill or add to it than it is to start over.

The caveat - The WH can only negotiate the PO away in exchange for Republican support - maybe throw some tort reform in.  That's the beauty of this position - faced with the PO, the Rs are going to get killed by the insurers.  Faced with hcr, they're gonna get killed by teabaggers.

The question Dem leadership must ask themselves is, in the likely event that Rs do not play ball, what s%$Tstorm do the Dems want to deal with?  The storm over a so-so plan, or the storm over a public option that has significant majority support in the country?

Please don't answer this rhetorical question, but leave me to my innocent, and very optimistic daydreams about the use of political power to get stuff done.


"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." A. Einstein

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by: StraffordDem @ Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 17:30:52 PM CST

[ Parent ]