Dems near accord on health care bill

[woolfe9999]

Will ramming this bill through with the 51 vote reconciliation trick help/hurt democrats at the polls this November?

Serious question

It would help energize their base to some extent, but would hurt with independents. On balance, I'd say it will hurt more than help, but it's impossible to predict/quantify how much.

- wolf

 

[werepossum]

This is exactly the problem I am pointing to. You are assuming because they have a plan, which is very close to legislation that passed the Senate after months of deliberation, that they are going to disregard the republican input. Based on that assumption, then of course there is no point in the repubs taking it seriously.

Now the difference between us is this: I do not assume that the dems are negotiating in good faith. I also just don't assume, in kneejerk fashion, that they aren't. I look at it this way: where is the harm in negotiating in good faith? There isn't any. Yet, if you always, reflexively assume that your ideological opponent is acting in bad faith, then you have a built-in, self-affirming excuse for always acting in bad faith yourself. This mentality is part of the logjam in Washington which is making it impossible for it to serve the public interest. And members of the general public, who are themselves partisan in the way they view things, are part of the problem. And by the way, that includes something you might like, such as agreeing to cut spending to reduce the deficit. Even "small government" types should realize that gridlock is and will continue to be a problem for fiscal responsibility in government.

Now if I'm going to be a cynic, which is all the rage, I will assume, for purposes of discussion, that there is zero legitimate, civic minded inclination toward bi-partisanship in the dem camp. That leaves us in the domain of realpolitik. In that domain, my best educated guess is that the notion of passing something with 51 votes is pure bluff on the part of the dems. It is meant to motivate the repubs into compromizing on healthcare reform. One the one hand, they agree to incorporate several repub ideas while keeping the basic structure of their bill intact - the carrot - while on the other, there is a threat to pass a more left wing bill without them - the stick.

If the dems could pass a bill with reconciliation, they well may have already done so. Indeed, they had the time to ram the bill through in the time it took to get Brown seated. But they didn't do that either. It is doubtful that reconciliation would even work, and even if it did, the political consequences to the dems would be very poor.

OTOH, there are two scenarios that can come out of a summit. One, where they get enough repubs on board for a bi-partisan bill, works out best of all for the dems politically. They would get the lion's share of credit for passing a bi-partisan bill. The other scenario is no compromize from the repubs, in which case we get no healthcare reform, and after a summit in which dems are busy caving to the repubs on several issues, on national television, they will blame this on the repubs. I think its a win-win for the dems either way, with the first scenario (a bi-partisan bill), being the bigger win. Ramming it through would be a gigantic lose, so from where I sit, I don't think that's going to happen.

- wolf

You got me there. When one party presents the other party with a fait accompli and then, months later under political pressure, schedules a summit whilst going full sped ahead on passing what they want in the mean time, I do indeed assume they are not negotiating in good faith. Call me cynical.

 

[Fern]

Advances medical liability reform through grants to States: Provides grants to States to jump-start and evaluate promising medical liability reform ideas to put patient safety first, prevent medical errors, and reduce liability premiums.

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/republican-ideas

1. States can already do that, don't need this bill for that. I.e., it's BS.

2. Somehow HC reform can't or shouldn't be be done state-by-state, but tort reform should? laugable.

3. They're just deceiving people, and then punting tort reform on to someone else. They don't wanna lose those campaign contributions.

Fern