Americans Can Speak for Themselves on Federal Health-Care Reform
Have you voted on any of the Democratic health-care-reform plans? Me neither.
No such vote was ever taken. But with coordination that the Rockettes would envy, Republicans insist that “the American people have spoken” on the matter, and they want the proposals killed.
House Republican Leader John Boehner: “The American people have spoken, loudly and clearly: They do not want Washington Democrats’ government takeover of health care.”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell: “The American people do not want this bill to pass.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele: “The American people have spoken. The White House hasn’t heard their message.”
Quite a coincidence, these guys saying the same thing on the same day. No matter. What they’re saying is nonsense.
All politicians try, but Republicans excel, at creating a fantasy public always marching behind their baton. What the GOP leaders lack in veracity, they make up for in confidence.
They base their public mind-reading on polls showing displeasure with the Democrats’ reform legislation (or what the public thinks is in it). They ignore polls that don’t.
Some Americans are unhappy with the lack of a public option in the Senate bill, others with its inclusion in the House version. Many already have their government-guaranteed health coverage and don’t want to share.
Almost everyone detests the “Cornhusker kickback,” a special deal arranged by Nebraska’s Democratic senator, Ben Nelson.
And how does one count strong opinions by those who don’t have the foggiest idea what’s really in the bills — but who are taking their talking orders from partisan yakkers?
It’s worth noting that President Obama’s proposal, based on the Senate bill, does not include a public option. It eliminates the Cornhusker kickback. It eases up on the controversial tax on so-called Cadillac health plans. And in an appeal to older voters, it does away with the Medicare drug benefit’s “doughnut hole.”
The public option has been the most demagogued item in the entire health-care debate — not because it’s a bad, or even radical, idea but because the deep-pocketed insurance industry opposes it.
Republicans have been portraying it, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private options, as a socialist Satan intent on destroying the American Way. The public option has been burning at their stake for so long, it’s a wonder there’s even an ash left of support for it. But a recent Newsweek poll has 50 percent of Americans still favoring a public option and 48 percent opposed. That the administration refused to strenuously defend a cost-saving device that always enjoyed widespread backing is something I’ll never understand (and may never forgive). Nonetheless, health-care reform must pass, with or without the public option.
The last time “the American people” came close to officially speaking on this subject was in November 2008, when they elected a Democratic president and expanded the Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate.
It’s mind-boggling that any sophisticated analyst would attribute Republican Scott Brown’s surprise victory in the Massachusetts special senatorial election to public rejection of government-guaranteed health care. As a Massachusetts state senator, Brown voted for a universal coverage plan that’s a lot less conservative than what’s on deck in Washington.
The Newsweek poll also asked for feelings about the job that Obama and Republicans and Democrats in Congress were doing on health care reform. Some 52 percent disapproved of Obama’s performance, 61 percent disapproved of the congressional Democrats’, and 63 percent disapproved of the congressional Republicans’.
No one is walking away from this with an Academy Award, but what’s coming out of Republican leaders’ mouths clearly isn’t what’s coming out of the American people’s. The people will speak definitively on Nov. 2.
By: Froma Harrop-Syndicated Columnist-The Seattle Times-Feb 25, 2010 3:54 pm
When Conservatives Play Make-Believe: Jonathan Cohn
Paul Waldman, today, writing at the American Prospect: The only problem is that there is no tyranny to rebel against. President Barack Obama isn’t rounding up his opponents. He isn’t punishing them for their free speech. He hasn’t even raised anyone’s taxes, save for a boost in the federal cigarette tax (we await the event where the tea partiers dump cartons of Marlboros into the Chesapeake). So what are the outrageous crimes that have driven the right to shout “Enough!” until their faces turn red? In the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Obama passed a large stimulus bill. And he might pass health-care reform that could extend coverage to those who don’t have it, all while preserving the private insurance system. He’s also embraced a market-based initiative for reducing greenhouse emissions. Not exactly a program that would that would offend the delegates of the Continental Congress. What has driven conservatives to distraction isn’t tyranny — it’s the oldest political complaint in the book: The other guys won and are attempting to implement their agenda.
Yet when conservatives criticize the administration, today’s playacting revolutionaries imagine themselves heroes of liberty, bravely staring down the forces of oppression. This notion must be called what it is: a puerile fantasy. The tea-party sign-waver is not the man standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. The conservative blogger is not Jacobo Timerman, exposing the barbarity of the Argentine junta only to experience it himself. The activists and operatives and think-tank denizens are not Vaclav Havel, or Ken Saro-Wiwa, or Nelson Mandela.
And they sure aren’t Washington, James Madison, or Thomas Jefferson. Precisely because they live in the country those American visionaries made, the Founding Father fetishists risk nothing by objecting to the current administration, no matter the apocalyptic language they use to clothe those objections in glory. They are participants in public debate in the world’s oldest democracy–nothing more, nothing less. It’s a fine thing to be, but it doesn’t make you a hero. And putting on a tricornered hat won’t make it so.
Jonathan Cohn-Senior Editor: The Treatment-The New Republic- February 23, 2010
A Brief Reconciliation Primer–Jonathan Chait: The New Republic
The health care debate is quickly going to focus on whether its passage entails some immoral act of partisan hardball or merely a common legislative procedure. Unfortunately, it seems that very few people understand the details of it well enough to form an opinion, and this includes reporters who cover it.
Senate Republicans collected quotes from 18 Senate Democrats expressing skepticism about using budget reconciliation to pass health care reform. The Hill reports skeptically on this claim, pointing out that many of the quotes are dated, and the Senators have since expressed openness to using reconciliation. But this response misses the deeper problem here: the Republicans are conflating two extremely different things.
Let me explain. Reconciliation is a legislative procedure for passing changes to the budget — taxes and spending — that only requires a majority in the Senate. Last year some Democrats pondered passing health care reform entirely through reconciliation. Critics pointed out that such a move could result in many of the crucial features of the bill being stricken by the Senate parliamentarian on grounds that they aren’t budget changes. (Say, insurance regulations would probably not be able to pass through reconciliation.) Ultimately, Democrats decided to go through the regular order, and they passed a health care bill through the Senate with 60 votes.
Now that they’ve lost the ability to break a filibuster, Democrats plan to have the House pass the Senate bill, and then use reconciliation to enact changes to the Senate bill demanded by the House. These changes — higher subsidy levels, different kinds of taxes to pay for them, nixing the Nebraska Medicaid deal — mainly involve taxes and spending. In other words, they’re exactly the kinds of policies that are well-suited for reconciliation.
It’s not just The Hill that misses the distinction, but the whole political media. Here’s Sunday’s New York Times:
Many Democrats in Congress said they doubted that it was feasible to pass a major health care bill with a parliamentary tool called reconciliation, which is used to speed adoption of budget and tax legislation. Reconciliation requires only 51 votes for passage in the Senate, but entails procedural and political risks.
Again, using reconciliation to patch up the Senate bill is a totally different thing than using it to pass an entire health care bill. I can understand why Republicans would treat them as identical — they’re spinning for partisan purposes. Reporters covering this issue have no good excuse.
Saturday February 20, 2010 3:04pm
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