Sam Stein and Ryan Grim at Huffington Post:
President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan “triggered” into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.
The administration retreat runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Obama’s presidential campaign. The man who ran on the “Audacity of Hope” has now taken a more conservative stand than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), leaving progressives with a mix of confusion and outrage. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have battled conservatives in their own party in an effort to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Now tantalizingly close, they are calling for Obama to step up.
“The leadership understands that pushing for a public option is a somewhat risky strategy, but we may be within striking distance. A signal from the president could be enough to put us over the top,” said one Senate Democratic leadership aide. Such pleading is exceedingly rare on Capitol Hill and comes only after Senate leaders exhausted every effort to encourage Obama to engage.
“Everybody knows we’re close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don’t want to do it because it makes the politics harder,” said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn’t seen as bipartisan. “These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them.”
It seems that the administration believes that it’s better to deliver a bill that will not work than to take a chance on losing some seats. Since it’s nonsensical to think that that Republicans would take those seats because of the public option but not health care reform over all, they must believe that they must deliver a devastating blow to the majority of their own party in order to prove their bipartisan bona fides and give Rahm’s Blue Dogs a tea bag to take home with them. (Certainly, nothing would make the villagers happier…)
If the reports we are hearing are true (and that’s a big if) it looks like we have bigger problems.
Now, the talk over the last couple of days is that President Obama may actually prefer the trigger to the public option with the opt-out compromise. That may be true, but there’s reason for some skepticism. As we talked about yesterday, the issue here may be an entirely pragmatic one for the White House: Obama thinks a) center-right Dems won’t vote for reform without Snowe; b) Snowe won’t vote for reform without a trigger; so c) a trigger, while not ideal, will at least get a bill to his desk. The president is reportedly skeptical about whether a 60-vote Snowe-less majority is possible for the opt-out P.O. — not on policy grounds, but as a matter of legislative strategy — despite Harry Reid’s confidence that it will come together.
But as long as the competing strategies continue to play out, the inconvenient truth is, the trigger is almost certainly the wrong answer to the right question.
Obama isn’t the first black President, he’s the first modern Presentdent of the US. Why are they so surprised? They elected a guy who mainly voted present before he got there? HuffPo pronounces Health Care as a leaderless cause. Obama is voting present on Afghanistan, gay rights, on jobs, he’s voting no because he’s more interested in his own agenda and world image. I guess he’s still working the career path to Sec Gen of the UN when he’s no longer present in Washington.
The only thing he actually showed up to do was tank the American economy for all time and potentially lose two wars, one of which was mostly won before Bush left office. The Baghdad attack may have happened under Bush. But if the Left starts hammering him on Iraq, who knows what this presentdent might do.
But I think the White House also has some ulterior motives here — in short, their political self-interest is diverging from the public interest. The White House, understandably, wants to be re-elected. Passing health care is critical to that.
I think, though, that the White House also wants to say that they’ve restored bipartisanship, brought the parties together on big issues, etc. In short, I’m wondering if the White House’s shorter-term political calculations (for themselves) are making them more timid than they should be on this issue. I’d like to have Snowe’s support too, but I don’t think it’s worth sacrificing an opt-out policy that seems to have wide Democratic support (and would have more if Obama showed some spine).
Of course, this entire post assumes that the politics have fundamentally changed since the summer. The Dems survived the knockout punch, and reform now seems likely. The lack of Republican support doesn’t pose the same threat that it did in, say, August.
And of course, the entire debate shows just how undemocratic the filibuster and the 2-Senator rule have become.
UPDATE: Ezra Klein
Jonathan Cohn at TNR
