Political Geniuses

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Schumer: Opt-Out Public Option Gaining Steam – TPMDC (10/8/09):

We’re chasing the ball on a new idea (is it a trial balloon? is it the magic answer?) to pass a health care bill with a public option that states–likely small, and conservative states–could choose not to participate in.

The velocity on this story seems to be on the rise, so I’m going to guess that the final bill will be a compromise between this (already a compromised version of a public option that in turn is a compromised version of single payer) and something further to the right so that Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu can preen for the cameras back home. This will, in theory, expand health care. But has no one stopped to do the political math?

If big blue states with big blue urban centers opt in, and small red states with no big cities opt out, Republicans will easily be able to argue that the big bad federal government is taking money from Texas and Alaska to provide “entitlements” to welfare queens in New York and Chicago. I do enjoy the irony that it will be the same red state Dems like Conrad, Nelson and Bacchus who pulled the bill right who will be the first to lose their seats in a massive pseudo-populist backlash.

From the Democrats’ perspective, they have to count on not only positive results (more access to health care and falling prices) but weathering the intensifying political storm that will dwarf the protests of this past August. If you’re a white red state Republican, it’s one thing to be mad because you think your tax dollars might be going to help poor people in other states, but something else when it’s actually happening, and worse, all of the money is going out of state and none is coming in.

I’d be more inclined to be optimistic about this working out politically if Democrats had been able to show that they could actually win a big battle on an important contentious issue. But they haven’t, and even a “win” on this will be the result of giving away a massive advantage to gain passage on a deeply flawed and potentially disastrous compromise.

Comments

  1. tom says:
    October 8, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    so how does the state opt in/out? is it done by vote? if so, that would probably lead to almost no states passing on that as the vast majority of people still prefer the public option. if it is done by order of the governor, that is almost BETTER as it forces the republicans to do something that the majority of people do not want. this could be almost the best thing possible in a way, depending on how the opt out works.

  2. matt says:
    October 8, 2009 at 3:52 pm

    most states don’t have provision for referendum, and no governor is powerful enough to say yes or no on his own. so state houses will probably make the decision.

  3. tom says:
    October 8, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    not quite as good as making a governor stand behind that decision, but that could lead to landslide changes in state houses towards candidates who support the public option. this is almost a smart way to go about this.

  4. matt says:
    October 8, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    it’s much worse politically. the blame on state houses which vote down the public option will be diffuse, and it’s harder to make an issue out of one thing on a national level when you have to go state by state to make the case.

    democrats are simply not good enough at politics to win battles like this, if they were, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. they would have put single payer on the table, and compromised on a real national public option and we’d move on to the next issue.

  5. tom says:
    October 8, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    i think that the support for as much assistance as possible in health care is enough that it wouldn’t take much coordination to hit back in the next election cycle by someone who supports the public option. also, the discussion on this things is going to out state senators and probably the governor as well. it’s certainly not the best way to go about it, but it is a way to get a public option (which to be honest, i already wrote off in my complete and total cynicism) and stick it to the republicans into the future. it would be nice to have these local elections being decided by a national issue, it’s not dissimilar to the gay marriage nonsense that fucked up state level ballots for the left (except that in this case the general public is not being completely retarded).

  6. matt says:
    October 8, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    i get the concept. it’s just not going to work in practice because dems don’t know how. you know this.

    not to mention, that all of this nonsense is just to get it out of the dem caucus. they still want republican votes, and it seems like a trigger is the only way to do that.

  7. Edward says:
    October 12, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    My fear about Health Care Reform is this:

    1) By the time they get all the arguing done and pass a bill, they will give federal subsidies to the Insurance Companies without any price controls or controls over denial of coverage.

    2) The Insurance Companies will continue business as usual, raising rates on customers, denying care and so on AND get the monetary assistance from the government, AND the people will have no options, no alternatives.

    3) People will now be forced by law to buy from these companies of face fines and even jail time if they do not comply.

    4) Everyone will take credit for “reforming health care” when in fact they will have created an almost irreversible disaster for the consumer and a major boon for the insurance corporations.

    So in the end, the corporations WIN, the Public loses and continues to loose.

    The real problem here is that corporations and special interest groups are allowed to lobby in Congress. What are the chances of putting THAT practice out? It is akin to bribery.

    I don’t have millions of dollars to give my senator to ensure he will look out for my interests! But apparently, that is what it takes.

    I predict health care will be a disaster, not because of repubs or dems, but because once again, corporations manipulate the system in their favor.

    They’ve done it for years and nothing is in place to stop them doing it now, or ever in the future.

    The real threat to American Society is from corporations and board rooms, not “right, left and moderate”. But they and the media get everyone up in arms over “repub” “dems” and right, left, liberal conservative as a major distraction. While we are busy screaming at each other, they are wheeling and dealing behind closed doors and taking us for fools.

    This is how democracy will end. Corporate Oligarchy will take over the democratic system. We will still have the freedom to pay, and pay, and pay.

    The government will NOT protect the people. It will protect the corporations. Wars will make money for them, so we will have plenty of wars. No need to worry about nukes, that would put them out of business, so we’ll instead have little wars that cost a fortune and pay private contractors huge sums of money, ’cause war is good for business.

    But we won’t care because the phara companies will sell us so many mind numbing pills on TV that we’ll be in a permanent haze, and paying for it when our insurance refuses to, on top of it all!

    Am I the only one who sees this?

    Does the emperor have any clothes?

  8. matt says:
    October 12, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    >Am I the only one who sees this?

    yes.

    you are the only one in the history of teh internets to see this.