ObamaCare: What Went Wrong?
[Posted by Karl]
ObamaCare remains Undead. Sen. Maj. Ldr. Harry Reid reportedly hopes to decide next week whether he can wrangle 51 votes for a reconciliation bill — and whether he should. ObamaCare cannot be pronounced dead until the Democrats start picking it apart for spending cuts, rolling out small-bore, face-saving measures (e.g., drug re-importation, repealing the antitrust exemption for insurers), or the budget reconciliation clock runs out.
Nevertheless, Pres. Obama’s recognition that failure is an option, and the Senatorial grumbling about his lack of leadership on the issue has some — on the Left, tellingly — writing pre-mortems on the effort. Of course, the Left is unwilling to consider that the primary problem is that most Americans do not want the government to take over the healthcare system, that most Americans have health insurance and are (relatively) satisfied with it, and do not trust the Democrats when they promise greater coverage at less cost without rationing (contrary to all real-world examples). Accordingly, these pre-mortems from TPM and the WaPo’s Ezra Klein blame the process.
Klein’s piece is (unintentionally) hilarious. He asserts:
People don’t know very much about policy. *** [P]eople do know quite a bit about process, or feel they do, and in contrast to their weak policy preferences, they have very strong process preferences. The strongest among them is the belief that the people sent to do the people’s work shouldn’t be working on behalf of special interests, which explains the fury over the Nelson deal. Similarly strong is the aversion to partisan conflict, as most people think that these problems have common-sense solutions, and too much conflict suggests the two parties are deviating from that middle path.
Yet the conclusion Klein draws is that the Democrats’ problem was that they did not cut their backroom deals up front, and then ram the bills through without attempting to gain Republican support. (TPM adds other items, but largely agrees with Klein.) The only way this argument works is if one assumes that being even more blatantly corrupt and nakedly partisan would have secured final passage before the Massachusetts special election for the Senate. It assumes that this approach would not have brought the public reaction against the bill to a quicker and even greater boil, that the House would have been able to still squeak their bill through in that environment, that the Senate GOP would not have taken a truly obstructionist approach on the floor, etc. — all fairly dubious assumptions.
What the pre-mortems leave out is that the Senate Finance Committee bill — which lacked the so-called “public option” — did get a vote from Sen. Olympia Snowe. Yet super-genius Harry Reid stuck the controversial provision into the version of the bill he sent to the Senate floor. A bill with Snowe’s backing would have opened the door to the Dems picking off Sen. Susan Collins. The lack of a public option would have avoided the episode in which Sen. Joe Lieberman brought the process to a halt until the public option was removed. And a bill with Snowe’s support would have given far less leverage for Senators like Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson to demand those offensive payoffs. Instead, Reid chose to pander to his base, nationally and in Nevada, where he was already in electoral danger.
Another aspect the Lefty pre-mortems ignore is that throughout the process, the primary to sole imperative of Democrats was to “keep the process moving.” The general situation was always the Democrats’ ideological fervor trumping not only the public opposition to the effort, but also the fact that the Dems did not have a consensus bill that could pass both houses of Congress. The leadership twisted arms on the promise that the differences in the bills could somehow be worked out.
Sen. Tom Harkin has claimed that negotiators from the White House, Senate and House reached a final deal on healthcare reform days before Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. But has there ever been any supporting evidence for that claim? If there was a solid deal, why is Harry Reid still trying to figure out if they have the votes for it — and whether they should proceed in any event?
Reid may decide to push this again next week. But if the Left wants to be honest about what went wrong so far, they will have to do better than blame the process. They need to face the problems raised by the substance of their efforts, their supposed leaders, and the lack of planning for an endgame.
–Karl
(Self-links to honor Patterico’s bycott of the Politico. But you may also want to check there for my answer to a comment from Steven Den Beste, whose U.S.S. Clueless blog was among the first to make me think there was a value to blogs.)
A better question may be “what went right?”
GeneralMalaise (55c598) — 2/6/2010 @ 8:39 amWhenever I see “ram it through,” I envision a hapless truck driver who’s just learned there wasn’t sufficient clearance under that bridge.
Dan Collins (5a991b) — 2/6/2010 @ 9:03 amIt’s as if backroom deals don’t occur in the backroom because they’re so smelly and foul.
FatBaldnSassy (7d6bc1) — 2/6/2010 @ 9:05 amKarl – Myron isn’t going to be happy with you.
“They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast”
daleyrocks (718861) — 2/6/2010 @ 9:19 amYet the conclusion Klein draws is that the Democrats’ problem was that they did not cut their backroom deals up front, and then ram the bills through without attempting to gain Republican support.
There’s a tiny bit of truth to that, in that the arrogant, concealed and foolish manuvering of the White House and Congress — or just the opposite of the “we’re going to be transparent” claims of Obama — and the “we won” disregard of bi-partisanship made a bad situation much worse.
And a person would be an idiot to not suspect that most healthcare legislation emanating from the left will end up being similar to, for example, mandates of a few decades ago to integrate public schools. IOW, limousine liberals (and much of the left is exactly that, regardless of income level) talked a good game — particularly if they were judges looking down on the peons and ruling from on high — but at high noon they got the hell out of Dodge.
Mark (411533) — 2/6/2010 @ 9:23 amObama’s greatest career accomplishments:
AD - RtR/OS! (a61dac) — 2/6/2010 @ 10:10 amSpeaking Well (Thank You, TOTUS);
Voting “Present”!
It’s all cause of Sarah’s “death panels,” Karl!
I can’t wait til she unloads with her quippy quip what fixes the deficit!!
Yay Sarah!!!
happyfeet (713679) — 2/6/2010 @ 10:24 amIs Mr. P still boycotting Politico cause I thought I saw him link a Politico link awhile ago and I remember wondering if the boycott thing was done.
happyfeet (713679) — 2/6/2010 @ 10:29 amWho cares what that arrogant, still wet-behind-the-ears pup Ezra Klein thinks about anything?
Seriously.
GeneralMalaise (55c598) — 2/6/2010 @ 10:38 am#
See? I loved. We had a love that I thought could go the distance.
But I was wrong.
[note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]
happyfeet (713679) — 2/6/2010 @ 10:40 amoh… here’s what I said right after I found out about Bristol’s baby…
I’m … I was so sweet.
happyfeet (713679) — 2/6/2010 @ 10:48 amoh. here’s the link for that last one… and here’s a bonus one.
happyfeet (713679) — 2/6/2010 @ 10:53 amoh. I’m sorry, Karl. This was all supposed to go under DRJ’s Palin thread cause of what ian said about how I hated Sarah Palin ever since Bristol revealed her pregnancy.
happyfeet (713679) — 2/6/2010 @ 10:55 amfeets!
Also, is anyone buying Dan’s claim about what he thinks when he sees the phrase “ram it through”?
Karl (cc4af5) — 2/6/2010 @ 11:08 amUh, not me.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/6/2010 @ 11:21 amMitch Stewart from OFA just wrote me again today about the urgency of getting healthcare reform passed and asking me to help out.
daleyrocks (718861) — 2/6/2010 @ 11:41 amCan anyone say “Waterloo” for this scenario?
So how can I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose
Just following daley’s lead.
Dmac (539341) — 2/6/2010 @ 11:57 amI was about half way through this piece “Why are liberals so condescending?” and it reminded me of this conversation from the 1974 movie “Dark Star” …
Does “Bomb #20” remind you of anybody ?
Neo (7830e6) — 2/6/2010 @ 12:25 pmIt’s easy to see what went wrong. It’s those “ignorant, childish Americans who don’t appreciate what The Won is doing for them.
I don’t mean to suggest that honesty is what separates the two parties. Increasingly, the crucial distinction is between the minority of serious politicians in either party who are prepared to speak directly about our choices, on the one hand, and the majority who indulge the public’s delusions, on the other. I would put President Obama and his economic team in the first group, along with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Yes, Obama will make it all better and we are just too dumb to understand. You can’t write comedy scripts like this anymore.
Mike K (2cf494) — 2/6/2010 @ 12:52 pm“Obamacare” is/was a lousy plan, poorly thought out, and haphazardly executed. it was doomed as soon as it bogged down and the usual suspects demanded their pound of flesh in an environment where such acts can no longer be kept from the general public.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 2/6/2010 @ 1:02 pmNeo – Check out Krauthammer’s The Great Peasant Revolt of 2010 next for reinforcement of that view.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403623.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
daleyrocks (718861) — 2/6/2010 @ 1:09 pmMr. Klein has an over abundance of the asshole gene.
mike191 (d4febe) — 2/6/2010 @ 1:16 pmI am personally glad it failed.
Mr. Pink (52b5c4) — 2/6/2010 @ 1:20 pm“Mr. Klein has an over abundance of the asshole gene.”
Combine that with his unusually high level of self-esteem, preening arrogance and smug nature and you have quite the little junior achiever!
GeneralMalaise (55c598) — 2/6/2010 @ 2:35 pm===============================================
> ObamaCare: What Went Wrong?
November 4, 2008: American voters suffer sudden, inexplicable mass dimentia while in vicinity of polls.
===============================================
IgotBupkis (79d71d) — 2/6/2010 @ 8:44 pm> You can’t write comedy scripts like this anymore.
Sure you can. Unfortunately, the actors reading them aren’t acting.
IgotBupkis (79d71d) — 2/6/2010 @ 8:46 pmI think the bottom line of what went wrong was that the whole thing was built on lies. The claim of universal coverage and lower costs for everyone was just a lie.
When it started to leak out to the public that they would pay more money, for worse insurance coverage, they had no reason to support it.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/6/2010 @ 9:02 pmAnyone who believes 1 word of what Tom Harkin says without independent verification is a fool. Harkin even lies about where his residence is. The donkey only shows up in Iowa to electioneer.
PCD (00115c) — 2/7/2010 @ 10:34 amNone of the health care reform ideas does enough to control overall costs. Why don’t we ever know the costs of health care procedures and treatments? I got a kick out of this fun, short video. Check it out.
ChristineWithRegence (e0f1d6) — 2/9/2010 @ 10:17 amhttp://www.whatstherealcost.org/45secondstoshare