I'm feeling better about what's happening on the healthcare reform front, and I'm trying to determine if there is any basis in reality for such a shift. On what data do I base such a shift in feeling? And do those data have any relationship with what's really going on? I don't know for sure, but here's my take on the causes for my change in feeling:
One data point is the Baucus Bill's imminent release and markup. It's every bit as bad as we were led to believe it would be. Even the Olympia Snowe "trigger" isn't going to be in it. So why should that be a cause for optimism? Because my sense is that it's now widely perceived as a joke, whereas earlier it was seen as the only bill to be taken seriously, that it was, in fact, the Obama/Emmanuel bill. Maybe it was at one point, and maybe it still is, but it would surprise me if this bill represents the substance of what we'll finally get. My sense is that Obama has distanced himself from it in the last week or so. Maybe we'll be hearing more now about the HELP version of this bill.
Another part of the data that has changed is that earlier you didn't hear much in the way of insider defense of the public option. The conventional wisdom a few weeks ago was that it was dead. There were a few lonely voices in Congress that spoke in support of it, but a shift occurred when several members of the progressive caucus drew a line in the sand and said they wouldn't vote for a bill without it. The early signals in response to that threat coming out of the White House were along the lines of: "It's an empty threat. What are the progressives going to do–vote No on a bill that solves problems a, b, and c, but not d? Are they willing to lose three improvements because they can't get a fourth? They can't do that, because they can't be associated with another failure to reform healthcare. They'll have to support whatever comes out, public option or no."
That's the Emmanuel line of thinking, and there was reason to believe that Obama was captured by it, because it was echoed by Sebelius and Gibbs. But the indicators from his speech last Wednesday and his "60 Minutes" appearance suggest otherwise. Again, it's flimsy evidence, but it worked to reassure me that he was not willing to settle for the insurance company giveaway coming out of the Finance Committee.
And my sense is that recently there's been a fairly strong pushback on the idea that
the public option is not just a far-left component to be bargained away.
True, the president did not communicate that this was a make-or-break component of reform, but my sense is that it's more a possibility now than it was in late August. The public option has more legitimacy now than it did then. The case for its centrality in controlling costs has been presented
much more strongly, and more pols are willing to publicly support it,
whereas support a few weeks ago was much weaker and more muted.
So there's a lot of analysis in the last couple of days about the Baucus version, and almost all of it is negative, and it's hard to believe that it has any real widespread credibility anymore. It's looking more and more as though wingnut opposition and GOP rigidity has backfired and has worked to de-legitimate opposition to reform in the minds of moderates. It's looking more and more as though it will be easier for Dems in congress on the fence to support more robust reform. Even Harry Reid is talking about subverting the filibuster with reconciliation.
The question remains to what degree the insurance companies own several of the Blue Dogs in the Senate whom they are pressuring to vote No. But if things have shifted the way that I'm saying they seem to have, then it will be a lot harder for the Blue Dogs to vote No. They should feel isolated the way moderates Snowe and Collins feel isolated on the Republican side. They should be tarred with the same brush as the increasingly discredited Republican wingnut opposition is, and they should feel that their credibility and legitimacy as politicians free from corporate influence is at stake. And they should be reminded that all the money in the world from lobbyists isn't going to get them elected next time if they are widely perceived by their Dem constituents as bought men. It's up to Obama and other Dem leaders to make them feel the heat along these lines.
So, I don't know. I'm just trying to explain why I'm feeling slightly more optimistic. We'll see how this plays out. I'm sure there are several more twists and turns that we will have to negotiate. But I'm feeling better about the good guys in this fight getting a spine and beginning to push back. It remains to be seen whether they have enough punch to win.
Update: I don't know how much of what commenter Tony C. at '538' says is true, but it supports my Baucus-bill-is-a-joke thesis:
Baucus Just Wanted A Delay.
Baucus received at least $3M in lobbyist money from health insurance companies and was just doing the maximum he could to delay the bill past the recess; so all the August idiocy the insurance companies had already bought (through donations to Freedom Works, the Dick Armey con game) could take place.
Pay no attention to the Baucus bill. In consulting we call this a "sham deliverable." It is a pile of nonsense crap one can write in a weekend and get paid a fortune for other reasons.
The content of the bill was never the point, the delay was the point, giving time to the enemy to make their public attack with tea party lies and town hall disruptions and media hand-wringing, and to also work their private magic with cash bribes and threats to the elected.
The true deliverables were delay and as dilute a bill as possible; and to insure it, Baucus invited the very people from his committee he knew he could count on to help manufacture those deliverables.
I think the content was meant to be taken seriously, but we'll see if it will be taken seriously by anybody in the next week or so. I guess the more disturbing question is whether Obama ever took it seriously, and whether he does now. I guess we might also ask to what degree Emmanuel influences his thinking and his perceptions, and whether that is changing.
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