Wouldn’t It Have Been Better For Republicans If They Cooperated With Health Care Reform?
I noted some months back that it was smart politics for Republicans to compromise on health care. Yes, they’re the minority party, but if they had worked with Dems the size and scope would have been more to their liking. And they could have easily peeled off 2 or 3 moderate Dems so Reid and company couldn’t get to 60 votes.
From way back when…
Here’s another incentive for the Rs…their ideas get into the most important health care reform legislation in the past 50 years. Listen, they had the opportunity FOR DECADES to do something about health care and yet they sat on their hands and let millions go without health insurance, go bankrupt as a result of skyrocketing costs or simply were refused insurance because of pre-existing condition clauses. Well, now Repubs are seriously outnumbered and they’re in danger of not having a say if they don’t back the Baucus bill…which absolutely gives them a serious seat at the table. And, by the way, Dems don’t have to do that. And yet they are.
Instead, the party of “no” agreed to nothing and now they’re ending up getting even more of what they didn’t want.
Jonathan Chait notes this as well…
But Republicans wouldn’t make that deal. The GOP leadership put immense pressure on all its members to withhold consent from any health care bill. 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 spasm of anti-government activism over the summer helped lock the GOP into this strategy — no Republican could afford to risk the wrath of Tea Partiers convinced that any reform signed by Obama equaled socialism and death panels.
And you want to know who pushed moderate Dems over the edge?
Lawmakers who attended a private meeting between Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats at the White House on Tuesday pointed to remarks there by Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, as providing some new inspiration.
Mr. Bayh said that the health care measure was the kind of public policy he had come to Washington to work on, according to officials who attended the session, and that he did not want to see the satisfied looks on the faces of Republican leaders if they succeeded in blocking the measure.
Yes, Mr. Centrist himself, Evan Bayh. The same Evan Byah who threatened to filibuster the bill with Republicans a few months ago.
My gut tells me that the GOP really overplayed this one and they’ll be feeling the aftershocks of not compromising for a long, long time. Especially if the CBO scores are right and this bill cuts trillions from the budget deficit in the next 20 years.
Here’s the question: What does your gut tell you?
(Photo: Getty via Daylife)
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The Republicans have made many suggestions but the Democrats shut them out of the debate right from the start. The Republicans reached out to Obama and the Dems, but they did not get a response from either the Dems or Obama. The creating of these bills was all done behind closed doors.
teresa,
There were very few Republicans who made serious suggestions, Olympia Snowe being one of them. However, she mostly told Dems what she didn’t want in the bill instead of what she did want. Long story short, Republicans could have had a seat at the table if they were serious about passing the legislation. But they overplayed there hand early on and came out again anything that wasn’t mostly their ideas. Well, they’re not the majority party so it doesn’t work that way.
Also, Obama talked to Republicans about health care. However, at a certain point, there comes a time when you realize the other side isn’t willing to actually negotiate and if they’re only going to waste your time, what’s the point?
As far as this being drafted “behind closed doors”…nearly every single bill is created the same way…by scores of different aides, not the Senators themselves. The various pieces are then pulled together and the bill is made available. That’s why these things are usually thousands of pages long. And where would you rather them draft it? In the middle of the Senate floor?
Justin,
You are highly mistaken. There were several Republicans who gave suggestions regarding the health care debate. The Democrats were not willing to listen to the Republicans one iota. They may have claimed that they would listen, but in reality the Democrats were not willing to listen Republicans. Olympia Snowe is a disgrace, so the Dems can have her.
Snow is a “disgrace” because she [kind-of but not exactly] tried to work out a compromise with the Democrats? Isn’t your point that Republicans were trying to compromise but Democrats weren’t letting them? If that’s your premise, yet compromising Republicans are disgraces because they worked toward compromise, your logic needs a little re-thinking.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Gardner,
You asked; “Wouldn’t It Have Been Better For Republicans If They Cooperated With Health Care Reform?” The answer is of course a resounding “no”. If they had cooperated, the public option or even, heaven forbid, a single-payers system might have been in the bill. By standing together and saying “no”, the Republicans prevented either of those options, their main objective.
Well david, I have to say I really disagree with that. Single payer was NEVER on the table. It wasn’t even mentioned in the election last year. Also, Republicans never would have come to the table to okay a public option or single payer, so I’m not sure how you got to that assumption.
My point is if Republicans would have come to the table, they could have pulled enough moderate Dems over to their side to get this bill shrunk significantly, both in cost and scope. Just look at how difficult the whole debate over the public option was in Democratic circles. Imagine if Republicans had really been interested.
And I’m sorry, but from very early on you had Republicans saying publicly that defeating this bill was a top priority because it would be good for them in 2010. So, no, they weren’t serious about working with Dems. Because it would have been PAINFULLY easy to do so and modify the bill to their liking. At least in the Senate, which is where the bill really takes shape anyway.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Gardner,
Well I did way either single payer (admittedly never on the table) OR the public option (which was on the table). Focusing on the public option, I agree that the Republicans did not get everything they wanted, the maximum objective was the complete defeat of any bill at all. However I suggest that the defeating the public option (or lower in the minimum age for Medicare) was their minimum objective. The reason I say this is that defeating health care reform all together was a political objective that the Republican Party felt it needed but was no particular interest to the insurance industry. However defeating the public option was the goal of the insurance industry and thus of greater importance. Separating those two objectives it is clear that they achieved the minimum that they set out to achieve, although not the maximum.
In response to another comment. See in context »I wonder, though: the Republican Party of twenty years ago could well have written this “reform,” no? It’s a massive give-away to an inefficient and corrupt industry – something Republicans used to be great at, but since their disintegration and [potential] re-branding as a sort-of “Libertarians for War” pseudo populist party, they have largely ceded the corporate welfare to the Democrats, who have turned out to be pretty good at it. With Democrats covering traditional Republican territory here, it’s hard to see what the Republicans could have added to this legislation. As it is, they get to sit it out and come back in a few years after this plan has imploded and say “see! We didn’t like it, either!”
Of course, their “solution” will be even worse, but as a tactic, this could work for them.
Yep, and if we cooperated with the nazis and japs in WWII, we could have avoided america’s part in WWII, and saved 100″s of thousands of american lives….
You don’t compromise with the enemy…..and obama, reid, pelosi are the enemy of the american people…..the health bill makes the IRS the enforce, they not only will have all your financial files, but all your medical records…..
Andy raises a surprisingly good point here- after having spent the past 20 or so years painting any & all domestic opposition as inhuman traitor-demons to their (as Karl Rove puts it) “highly commandable” base, the Republican party may have painted itself into a bit of a corner. Any appearance of cooperation with the Dems- no matter how subversive to Democratic Party goals that “cooperation” could have ultimately been- might very well have been taken as a betrayal to guys like Andy, who have very rigid expectations, & limited ability to understand the subtleties of parlimentary manuver. One thing the Republicans don’t want is Andy here redirecting his anger, because who knows where the focus of his rage could turn next? The Authoritarian-Dominators MUST conform to the image that Authoritarian-Submissives (that’s you, Andy) deem legitimate, lest their followers seek other Masters elsewhere.
In response to another comment. See in context »Agreed. Andy and folks like him are so bought into right wing nonsense that to cooperate at this point would feel like betraying America itself. Unfortunate and it’s sad to see folks so blinded by partisanship.
In response to another comment. See in context »Thanks for replying to my comment.
One thing I gotta say is, I sure hope that you (& the CBO) are right about the savings the final legislation- which is going to look a lot more like the Senate bill than the House bill- will produce. I honestly don’t understand how such a bill- without a robust public option, an end to the anti-trust exemption, Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices, or the freedom of consumers to purchase vastly cheaper Canadian or European drugs- could produce such vast savings, but, we’ll see. I can’t see a coerced mandate as anything but wildly unpopular, & I definitely have no confidence in industry good faith, but again, we’ll see. I gotta admit that my assessment is pretty much the same as Kramer’s (above), & I just don’t see how the Administration can split the difference between industry demands & the common good without screwing the common good into the floor. At the end of the day, Andy has a right to be ticked off. After all, he IS being taken advantage of- he just has a wrongheaded idea about who his friends are, & who his exploiters are. I wish I could say that I’m in a different position than him, but I can’t- I am rapidly losing faith in Obama’s & Emmanuel’s concern for my interests & needs, seeing as how I don’t have millions of $ to contribute to, or use against them. Surely Corporatism & Progressivism are incompatible philosophies. Maybe Andy has a point about ideological purity.
In response to another comment. See in context »Answering some of my own concerns- just come back from Rick Ungar’s latest blog, & I feel a little better now- but I’m still waiting for yet another shoe to drop.
In response to another comment. See in context »Adding to Kramer, primarily:
won’t implode so necessarily:
The banking majors cartel bet the wrong
side of mankind’s most aggregious bubble
in history, and unemployment rose to 10.2%
basis U-1 currently (17.6% on U-6 nationally, worse in some places, including California, I assume, and thus not far from Great Depression levels.)
So the health insurers, recognizing employers
are cutting off their (insurance) customers (by way of the employers firing them from their businesses,) now welcome Uncle Sam paying their premiums.
They all along welcomed Medicare, which is National Health Insurance for those 65 and older, cause older persons get sick.
This is also why the railroads welcomed Uncle Sam taking over Amtrak (moving people is expensive, not generally profitable in the manner of moving freight. this even though it’s still far more expensive, per passenger-mile, to travel by car.)
As to extending coverage to the poor, their costs were always “cost-shifted” to you by way of $15 band-aids built into your own premiums, making up for their never-paid hospital bills.
You will have to pony up for those newly unemployed but now covered by the taxpayer. Some states all along had modest coverage at substantial cost to them (yes, even with them newly laid off, even with kids) already.
But, you will save insofar as the poor will see doctors rather than parking themselves at the emergency room.
Beyond that, it’s to be a federally-enshrined cartel ostensibly with a quasi-utility rate structure, but with the policing of same a still nebulous affair to most, including yours truly.
The resolution for those in premium death spirals cause their particular (from among hundreds of thousands) policy groups are in newly “frozen” policies (simply cause they’re getting sick and are too expensive) amounts to rate increase limitations (see above as to the policing of same a still nebulous affair) plus insurance “exchanges,” which, though I’m still studying those, I understand involve the Medicaid system and are unlikely to satisfy the expectations of those in the middle class who to date have been willing to pay dearly for high quality care.
Personally, I’d trade ObamaCare for a repeal of the health insurers’ immunity from antitrust laws, plus a transfer to indigents in support of their coverage.
I’d feel differently if Congress were enacting a system of administration that had the patients’ and taxpayers’ interests at heart and that addressed the cost / quality result.
For instance, the Cleveland Clinic and Duke Medical Center have achieved savings and superior outcomes by using multi-specialty attention to given syndromes rather than by simply giving tests and parochial specialist attention mainly tuned to insurance company diagnostic time allotments.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/224585
http://sites.google.com/site/evernewecon
To me, insurance companies ideally don’t necessarily need to disappear. They could be part of an efficient mix that makes more widespread use of health cooperatives, which, having patients’ interests at heart, would provide good competition perhaps as well as or even better than a “public option.”
Everyone gets seriously ill sooner or later. The young need to understand they will get cost-supported in turn and meanwhile need to pay for coverage for the rarer misfortune.
Disease incidence uniquely bears no relation to supply and demand. Bacteria have a price elasticity of 1 (they’ll attack when they’re ready regardless of cost to you.)
But a good national plan could still make good use of competition and supply and demand even in spite of that.
Sadly, I personally, presently, don’t see the plan Congress is leaning toward enacting, providing that.