And at last, Obama commits to something. My bet is that he wouldn’t be saying this if he didn’t think that there’s an excellent chance the Democrats can pass health care reform soon. The big hurdle is getting enough Democrats ((I say “Democrats” because it’s clear that not one Republican will vote for the bill.)) in the House to vote for the bill the Senate already voted for; after that, all that’s left is to make some small fixes through reconciliation.
I’ve put the entire speech after the break (it’s not long). So what do folks think?
My view is that this is a long, long way from what I’d really like, which is a French-style health care system. But that wasn’t an option on the table. Neither was “Medicare for all,” aka single-payer health care, which is what most of the lefties I know want.
But even though it’s not what we want, it’s a large improvement over the status quo. It would set up systems that could “bend the cost curve” down; it would get a hell of a lot more people covered; and it would make it possible for nearly all Americans, including those with pre-existing conditions, to get health insurance coverage.
So if the Democrats do pass this plan, that will do a lot to make them seem other than worthless. On the other hand, if the Democrats don’t manage to pass health care reform, then I barely see any point in supporting them at all. It’ll be time to rejoin the Green Party, I guess.
President Obama’s speech:
Good afternoon. We began our push to reform health insurance last March with the doctors and nurses who know the system best, and so it is fitting to be joined by all of you as we bring this journey to a close.
Last Thursday, I spent seven hours at a summit where Democrats and Republicans engaged in a public and substantive discussion about health care. This meeting capped off a debate that began with a similar summit nearly one year ago. Since then, every idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said and just about everyone has said it. So now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and businesses.
Where both sides say they agree is that the status quo is not working for the American people. Health insurance is becoming more expensive by the day. Families can’t afford it. Businesses can’t afford it. The federal government can’t afford it. Smaller businesses and individuals who don’t get coverage at work are squeezed especially hard. And insurance companies freely ration health care based on who’s sick and who’s healthy; who can pay and who can’t.
Democrats and Republicans agree that this is a serious problem for America. And we agree that if we do nothing – if we throw up our hands and walk away – it’s a problem that will only grow worse. More Americans will lose their family’s health insurance if they switch jobs or lose their job. More small businesses will be forced to choose between health care and hiring. More insurance companies will deny people coverage who have preexisting conditions, or drop people’s coverage when they get sick and need it most. And the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid will sink our government deeper and deeper into debt. On all of this we agree.
So the question is, what do we do about it?
On one end of the spectrum, there are some who have suggested scrapping our system of private insurance and replacing it with government-run health care. Though many other countries have such a system, in America it would be neither practical nor realistic.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are those, including most Republicans in Congress, who believe the answer is to loosen regulations on the insurance industry – whether it’s state consumer protections or minimum standards for the kind of insurance they can sell. I disagree with that approach. I’m concerned that this would only give the insurance industry even freer rein to raise premiums and deny care.
I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America. I believe it’s time to give the American people more control over their own health insurance. I don’t believe we can afford to leave life-and-death decisions about health care to the discretion of insurance company executives alone. I believe that doctors and nurses like the ones in this room should be free to decide what’s best for their patients.
The proposal I’ve put forward gives Americans more control over their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable. It builds on the current system where most Americans get their health insurance from their employer. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Because I can tell you that as the father of two young girls, I wouldn’t want any plan that interferes with the relationship between a family and their doctor.
Essentially, my proposal would change three things about the current health care system:
First, it would end the worst practices of insurance companies. No longer would they be able to deny your coverage because of a pre-existing condition. No longer would they be able to drop your coverage because you got sick. No longer would they be able to force you to pay unlimited amounts of money out of your own pocket. No longer would they be able to arbitrarily and massively raise premiums like Anthem Blue Cross recently tried to do in California. Those practices would end.
Second, my proposal would give uninsured individuals and small business owners the same kind of choice of private health insurance that Members of Congress get for themselves. Because if it’s good enough for Members of Congress, it’s good enough for the people who pay their salaries. The reason federal employees get a good deal on health insurance is that we all participate in an insurance marketplace where insurance companies give better rates and coverage because we give them more customers. This is an idea that many Republicans have embraced in the past. And my proposal says that if you still can’t afford the insurance in this new marketplace, we will offer you tax credits to do so – tax credits that add up to the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history. After all, the wealthiest among us can already buy the best insurance there is, and the least well-off are able to get coverage through Medicaid. But it’s the middle-class that gets squeezed, and that’s who we have to help.
Now, it’s true that all of this will cost money – about $100 billion per year. But most of this comes from the nearly $2 trillion a year that America already spends on health care. It’s just that right now, a lot of that money is being wasted or spent badly. With this plan, we’re going to make sure the dollars we spend go toward making insurance more affordable and more secure. We’re also going to eliminate wasteful taxpayer subsidies that currently go to insurance and pharmaceutical companies, set a new fee on insurance companies that stand to gain as millions of Americans are able to buy insurance, and make sure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of Medicare.
The bottom line is, our proposal is paid for. And all new money generated in this plan would go back to small businesses and middle-class families who can’t afford health insurance. It would lower prescription drug prices for seniors. And it would help train new doctors and nurses to provide care for American families.
Finally, my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions – families, businesses, and the federal government. We have now incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care – ideas that go after the waste and abuse in our system, especially in programs like Medicare. But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits, and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.
Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next two decades. And those aren’t my numbers – they are the savings determined by the CBO, which is the Washington acronym for the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress.
So this is our proposal. This is where we’ve ended up. It’s an approach that has been debated and changed and I believe improved over the last year. It incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans – including some of the ideas that Republicans offered during the health care summit, like funding state grants on medical malpractice reform and curbing waste, fraud, and abuse in the health care system. My proposal also gets rid of many of the provisions that had no place in health care reform – provisions that were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans.
Now, despite all that we agree on and all the Republican ideas we’ve incorporated, many Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies. And if they truly believe that less regulation would lead to higher quality, more affordable health insurance, then they should vote against the proposal I’ve put forward.
Some also believe that we should instead pursue a piecemeal approach to health insurance reform, where we just tinker around the edges of this challenge for the next few years. Even those who acknowledge the problem of the uninsured say that we can’t afford to help them – which is why the Republican proposal only covers three million uninsured Americans while we cover over 31 million. But the problem with that approach is that unless everyone has access to affordable coverage, you can’t prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions; you can’t limit the amount families are forced to pay out of their own pockets; and you don’t do anything about the fact that taxpayers end up subsidizing the uninsured when they’re forced to go to the Emergency Room for care. The fact is, health reform only works if you take care of all these problems at once.
Both during and after last week’s summit, Republicans in Congress insisted that the only acceptable course on health care reform is to start over. But given these honest and substantial differences between the parties about the need to regulate the insurance industry and the need to help millions of middle-class families get insurance, I do not see how another year of negotiations would help. Moreover, the insurance companies aren’t starting over. They are continuing to raise premiums and deny coverage as we speak. For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last for another decade or even more. The American people, and the U.S. economy, just can’t wait that long.
So, no matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform. We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for a year, but for decades. Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of sixty votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up-or-down vote that was cast on welfare reform, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and both Bush tax cuts – all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.
I have therefore asked leaders in both of Houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform. And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well – every family, every business owner, every patient, every doctor, every nurse.
This has been a long and wrenching debate. It has stoked great passions among the American people and their representatives. And that is because health care is a difficult issue. It is a complicated issue. As all of you know from experience, health care can literally be an issue of life or death. As a result, it easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship; misrepresentation and misunderstanding.
But that’s not an excuse for those of us who were sent here to lead to just walk away. We can’t just give up because the politics are hard. I know there’s a fascination, bordering on obsession, in the media and in this town about what passing health insurance reform would mean for the next election and the one after that. Well, I’ll leave others to sift through the politics. Because that’s not what this is about. That’s not why we’re here.
This is about what reform would mean for the mother with breast cancer whose insurance company will finally have to pay for her chemotherapy. This is about what reform would mean for the small business owner who will no longer have to choose between hiring more workers or offering coverage to the employees she has. This is about what reform would mean for the middle-class family who will be able to afford health insurance for the very first time in their lives.
And this is about what reform would mean for all those men and women I’ve met over the last few years who’ve been brave enough to share their stories. When we started our push for reform last year, I talked about a young mother in Wisconsin named Laura Klitzka [KLITZ kah]. She has two young children. She thought she had beaten her breast cancer but then later discovered it spread to her bones. She and her husband were working – and had insurance – but their medical bills still landed them in debt. And now she spends time worrying about that debt when all she wants to do is spend time with her children and focus on getting well.
This should not happen in the United States of America. And it doesn’t have to. In the end, that’s what this debate is about – it’s about the kind of country we want to be. It’s about the millions of lives that would be touched and in some cases saved by making private health insurance more secure and more affordable.
At stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem. The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don’t know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law. Thank you.
If it passes it will lead to a (I hope peaceful) revolution, in which you will lose a lot of the social capital that has become invested in liberal ideas. We’re sick of the national government telling us how to live, Amp.
I really don’t think you guys get it. Some of your Congresscritters do, or at least seem to, since getting it is part of their job security.
Best case (for you), if this passes there will be a Republican sweep in November that will make the Gingrich change look like an elementary school food fight, and the whole bill will be negated as the first act of that massively Republican (but really more Tea Party) Congress.
I don’t want to think about the worst case.
The smart thing for Obama to do would have been to come out and say “wow, we really misjudged the country, I tell you what, we’re going to table this and try again with a more modest bill under our new Congress.” Then he could have done a Clinton and gotten some useful reforms out of the mildly Republican Congress going forward, a la welfare reform.
Obama isn’t smart.
How is the government telling you how to live? The closest thing I see in the HCR proposal is mandatory health insurance purchases. I’m not thrilled with that, personally, because I think our taxes should be good enough to support a thriving health care system for everyone; but until the military-industrial complex goes the way of Chrysler, I guess I’ll have to live with a mandate. Provided, of course, the poor and others who can’t afford it are provided subsidies.
Robert, regardless of if this passes, there will be HUGE Republican gains in November. That’s just math; the party with the second-largest majority in a century is inevitably defending a bunch of vulnerable seats. And, absent a war or some other game-changer, the party with the White House nearly always loses seats in the mid-terms. Add that up, and it spells big loss for the Democrats in 2010.
My point is, “if you do this, you’ll get crushed in November” is only a viable argument if there’s a plausible chance of the Democrats doing well in November. Since the Democrats won’t do well regardless, the best thing for them to do is to concentrate on getting good policy passed while they can.
No, it won’t.
1) Republicans talk a good game, but in practice, they’ve never had the guts to do anything hard in congress. It’s one thing to vote for massive tax cuts (without paying for them) or a massive Medicare expansion (without paying for it). It’s politically easy to give things away to voters and ignore the question of paying for it.
You can be totally gutless and still pander to voters and avoid ever making tough choices — which is pretty much the only thing your party has ever done, economically. It’s much, much harder to take away things from voters that voters really want.
And if you look at the polling, as unpopular as the Obama plan is (and a significant minority of that unpopularity is from liberals like me who think it doesn’t go far enough), the individual elements of the plan are very popular.
You really think Republicans will pass the “insurance companies can reject people with pre-existing conditions and insurance is no longer subsidized” bill? That would require not being gutless panderers. I don’t think there’s any evidence that Republican politicians are capable of that.
2) Even if Republicans want to, they can’t do it immediately, because they won’t have 66 votes in the Senate and 2/3rds of the house — which is what they’ll need to overcome Obama’s veto. So we’re talking 2013 at the earliest, and maybe not until 2017. (Assuming that they can even get past the filibuster).
3) A more modest bill would save fewer lives. Saving more lives is better. So on that basis alone, I’d say it’s better that the Democrats pass this bill while they can.
The main thing that is likely to kill the Dems in Novemeber is that Democratic voters are demoralized by the inability of a Dem Senate, House and President to pass the Democratic agenda. The Republicans are already fired up to an impressive level, so passing HCR won’t push many extra tea partiers to the polls. Independents are mixed in supporting the elements of the health care bill, so passing HCR is unlikely to produce a massive independent swing towards the Republicans (particularly since Independents seem to be turning away from the Dems for the same reason that Dems are turning away from the Dems, no one likes an ineffectual government — except maybe Republicans). Democrats are more likely to be fired up by passing some of the agenda (or at least not more turned off), so passing HCR is pretty obviously going to marginally help the Dems in the fall elections. It will also eventually help prevent tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths a year, which is probably more important.
I wrote to my congressman, who was one of the signers of the “no public option = no HCR” letter last summer, to tell him that half a loaf is better than none (although I also told him to keep fighting for the public option). Although his initial response to my “pass the damn bill” email was a “a bad plan is worse than no plan,” his second reply seemed to have fallen in line with the “Senate bill plus reconciliation side car is better than no plan,” so I’m pretty happy with his choices.
We deserve a hell of a lot better, but nothing that was seriously considered this year was a hell of a lot better than this, so I say let’s take it.
Dilbert, unintentionally(?) topical.
Amp, under normal circumstances, yes, a moderate or even large Republican surge in 2010 is to be expected. I am not talking about that. I am talking about the kind of surge where Barbara Boxer loses her seat. They WILL have veto-proof majorities. Democrats face the choice of losing or weakening their majority but still remaining a potent force, or going to their weakest position ever in the house. The Senate is less vulnerable, of course, but could in theory shift as much as D41, R59 – assuming nobody else decides to “retire”.
Charles, you are right that our side is already fired up. But there is room for a lot more fire.
I disagree. Wanna make a bet on that?
Sure, if it passes.
I don’t think it will, actually. The people with jobs on the line like their jobs; they aren’t going to throw them away.
So, to clarify the terms of the wager…
Health care reform doesn’t pass – null result
Health care reform passes and the Republicans get a 2/3 majority in the House in 2010: You win the bet
Health care reform passes and the Republicans do not get a 2/3 majority in the House in 2010: I win the bet
How much are you willing to bet, and at what odds?
$100, even odds, payment to be made to the charity of the winner’s choice. I usually name the Federalist Society.
http://www.longbets.org/rules
Always a good way to bet, if you can afford the minimums.
So not only do you think the Republicans will sweep in November, but you think they’ll get a veto-proof majority in both House and Senate which would permit them to bull through a revocation of the health care plan? And yuo think that they would actually do it, if they could?
Best case in the Senate would only be 59; as Amp said, veto-proof is probably not in the cards in 2010. But it might be effectively veto-proof, as the political calculus for the president would be very different.
The Democrats currently hold 59 seats. There are 18 Democratic senators up for re-election. If the Democrats lose 18 seats, they will still have 41 seats, enough to filibuster, and trivially enough to sustain a veto. Unless an extra 8 seats somehow are forced to hold special elections, the constitutionally imposed system for electing senators makes it physically impossible for the Rs to gain a veto proof majority.
There might be issues where enough Ds would join the Rs after an 18 seat sweep to override a veto, but there is no way that there will be enough Rs alone to do it.
And Boxer is not the least vulnerable D senator by a long shot. To take 18 seats and fail to get to a veto proof majority, the Rs would have to defeat Wyden in Oregon and Schumer in New York and Blumenthal in Connecticut (and several others who are safer than Boxer).
I’m not sure why Doug S restricted the bet to the house. You’d need a 67 seat majority in the senate to override a filibuster too. No way, no how (short of a campaign of assassinations).
Wow. Although I’ve disagreed with you on almost everything over the years I never thought that you were this deluded. Unless, of course, this is just a scare tactic. Do you really think that a) Tea Partiers (vs. actual party Republicans) are likely to be even a significant minority of congress and b) that Tea Partiers have anything remotely resembling a coherent agenda that they could all fall in line with? Both of those propositions, in light of the facts in the real world, are far fetched.
You truly overestimate the energy and ability of TP’ers. The fact is, their demonstrations have been far smaller than those of the left in the early aughts. Tea Partiers are also unlikely to have either influence within the Republic Party nor the knowledge of electoral politics necessary to get many of their members elected to even small, local positions.
If the “Tea Party” started working on an infrastructure and stayed dedicated to a coherent movement, they could have quite a bit of influence and a good possibility of getting their candidates elected in as few as 3 to 5 years. They won’t be a factor, in terms of getting their own members into congress, this fall. I doubt they’ll be a factor in 3 to 5 years or that they’ll exist at all in 10 years. They are nowhere near as popular or as well organized as the socialists were 100 years ago, so I’m really not worried about them.
I believe that’s why Doug left that out of the bet, Charles – the Senate being less responsive to democracy, it isn’t going to shift as rapidly as the House. The House is the fairer test of the immediate national mood.
Technically we could still get to 60, someone else could resign. Not likely, but then, it wasn’t likely that the Dems would get to 60 either and yet there they were, briefly.
The Tea Party isn’t going to run its own candidates, Jake; they aren’t a third party, they are a populist movement. They’ll elect a lot of Republicans, but not qua Republicans. They’ll elect a few Democrats, too, in places like the deep south.
Your sanguinity regarding their impact is not shared by the people in the Democratic party who run for office. We’ll see.
Robert, I don’t know you, and I’m sure you’re a decent person, but I don’t like the undercurrent of violence in your first comment. “I hope peaceful.” “Best case (for you.)” “I don’t want to think about the worst case.” I don’t know what these are meant to be: warnings? Threats? I’ve seen this kind of language everywhere in the opposition to health care reform. Why has this idea raised such a spectre of violence on the right?
And, “Obama isn’t smart” ? The former president of the Harvard Law Review, a magna cum laude graduate, a senior lecturer in constitutional law, “isn’t smart” ? Perhaps you mean he isn’t politically savvy. Or perhaps you mean that he’s not bowing to his opponents in the way that you’d prefer him to. But there’s nothing smart about giving up your ideals and turning aside from the path that millions of Americans elected you to walk.
Sounds fine to me!
Hopefully we won’t get into an argument about whether health care reform passed or not. It’s pretty easy to know if there are 290 Republicans in the House.
This is my preferred charity.
That’s pretty much right. There’s much less turnover in the Senate, at least in part because of the six-year terms as opposed to two-year terms. The House is at least possible.
Neat! We have a bet.
Doug, out of curiosity, what charity will you have Robert donate $100 to?
I think Robert’s “Obama isn’t smart” was more rhetorical than serious; it was the closer to the argument that started “The smart thing for Obama to do would have been….”
That said, a lot of conservatives do seem to genuinely believe that Obama is stupid, is unable to speak without a teleprompter, etc.. I find this bewildering.
I agree with other orange, the use of violent rhetoric on the right is very disturbing. While there was certainly a small amount of violent rhetoric on the left during the Bush years (and during the Clinton years and now, the far left is completely shut out of American politics in a way that the far right isn’t), the main stream of the left wing didn’t constantly amplify the violent rhetoric of the fringe in the way that the right wing is currently doing (and as Robert did here).
Robert,
So you agree that when you said that the Republican wave would be so great that it would be able to overcome a presidential veto you were talking complete nonsense and that that isn’t going to happen (indeed, they won’t even make it to overcoming a filibuster if the Ds were actually united).
Given that, are you willing to make a bet on the possible version of your silly claim? $100 at even odds that not a single Democratic candidate wins a Senate seat in the 2010 election, with the $100 donate to the charity of the winners choosing?
By the way, the Tea Party is running a candidate against Harry Reid this year on the Tea Party ticket, so you are not entirely right about their tactics. I do think that Jake is underestimating the power of a tiny group who have an entire new network devoted to creating and empowering them. The Tea Bag protests may have been tiny, but they got way more news coverage than the much larger protests on the left in the early ’00s.
vs.
All right, then.
Independents are mixed in supporting the elements of the health care bill, so passing HCR is unlikely to produce a massive independent swing towards the Republicans
Hm. Pres. Obama won by far the majority of independents in Massachusetts in 2008, but the Sen. Brown won the majority of independents in the recent special election. There may be a lot of independents that support elements of the health care bill, but the issue that they’ll take to the voting booth is supporting it as a whole – whether the aspects they support outweigh the aspects they don’t like.
Charles S., remember that two of the Senators you count as Democrats are actually Independents that caucus with the Democrats. They could at least on some issues vote with the Republicans.
other.orange:
And, “Obama isn’t smart” ? The former president of the Harvard Law Review, a magna cum laude graduate, a senior lecturer in constitutional law, “isn’t smart” ?
Meh. Frankly, given academic politics at Harvard, I’m not so impressed. He’s certainly a bright guy, but no genius.
Perhaps you mean he isn’t politically savvy.
Now we’re talking. He seems to be highly impressed with himself and is somewhat amazed and frustrated that people aren’t falling in line behind him. He grew up politically in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois politics where the leadership (of which he was not a member) tells the back-benchers what to do and they either fall in line or the leadership flushes them out of office in short order. Actual effective opposition is not something he’s used to even seeing dealt with at all, never mind something he’s had any experience dealing with it himself. He’s also used to seeing exactly what he’s now trying to do, which is that the political leadership tells the electorate what they’re going to get whether they like it or not.
turning aside from the path that millions of Americans elected you to walk.
I did some research. In the 2008 election about 9% of the exit-polled electorate named health care as a factor in their vote. About 54% named the economy and about 20%+ named the war. How do you like the job he’s doing on those? No, me neither. He’s spending a huge amount of political capital on a path that 90% of the electorate did NOT elect him to walk.
It’s my opinion that Obama got elected because a) he was not George Bush – he was relatively young and very articulate, b) the economy took a dump, and c) people got enamored with the historical significance of electing a black man as President. I see no evidence that people elected him to ram through a 3000 page health care bill.
Edit add:
I’ve heard an undercurrent that some blacks are afraid that if Obama f**k’s up too much people won’t vote for a black man again. I don’t think that’s going to be that kind of an issue. But I’m guessing that “community organizer” won’t be considered an ornament on a Presidential candidate’s resume for a long time to come.
I don’t see a veto-proof Congress coming. I do see a cloture vote-proof Senate coming. I’d love to see the Democrats lose their House majority (note the careful phrasing), but I’m not going to bet on it. They’ll certainly lose a good chunk of their majority, enough that stuff like this mess of a health care bill won’t be passable. And that’s why he’s going to ram this bill through now. There’s no possibility that the next Congress will pass anything like it, and he and Nancy and Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Reid (not that Harry will be around for the next Congress) know this.
RonF,
While Lieberman might simply switch to being a Republican if the Rs won all of the senate seats (probably not, he’d be a pretty unimportant and very left wing R), no way would Sanders even join the Rs in many votes. I explicitly said that: “There might be issues where enough Ds would join the Rs after an 18 seat sweep to override a veto, but there is no way that there will be enough Rs alone to do it.” There are several Ds who would be far more likely to vote with the Rs on veto overrides than Sanders would. The fact that he has an I next to his name doesn’t mean he is open to voting with the Rs to repeal HCR.
But that reminds me of another bet to put on offer for Robert:
If HCR passes, next session it will be repealed in full. That doesn’t take the Rs winning 67 seats or even winning 59 seats, so it is slightly more possible than either of your specific senate seat claims so far.
RonF,
The issue in Brown’s election was the same as the issue in this fall’s election: under-turnout by people voting for the Dem candidate. Brown didn’t get more votes than McCain, he just succeeded in turning out a lot more McCain voters than what’s her name succeeded in turning out Obama voters. Passing health care will help turn out D voting independents. R voting independents are already fired up, so firing them up a little more won’t change turn out by that much (same for Rs, despite Robert’s claim that the Rs still have a lot of room for getting more fired up, they may, but they don’t have a lot of room for getting better turn out).
This is exactly why teabaggers don’t worry me. The most impact that they could have would be to split R votes by going 3rd party (Libertarian or, hilariously, Constitution) or putting somebody through the primaries so far to the right or inexperienced or flat out irrational that they won’t be elected. Teabagging isn’t going to significantly increase R turnout since they’ve been highly motivated for the midterm election since about November of 2008.
Sen. Brown’s win was, to a large degree, the fact that Martha Coakley ran an extraordinarily bad campaign. And Brown ran a good one. Massachusetts is a complex state, and I’m not sure that this was the “independent voter referendum on Obamacare” that you may think.
RonF,
So your theory is that the people of Massachusetts, a state which already requires most residents to buy health insurance (and fines those who fail to), heavily subsidizes insurance for low income residents, and heavily regulates insurance companies, voted for Scott Brown, who supported and in fact voted for the health care reform laws that enacted those policies in Massachusetts, because they have some sort of major objections to the bills proposed at the national level?
And it couldn’t have been that, say, Martha Coakley ran a terrible campaign while Scott Brown ran an excellent one, and that Coakley was suffering from all of the disadvantages of being an incumbent without any of the advantages during an economic downturn?
RonF,
I’m not sure how three terms in a state senate and three years at the national level, not to mention years as an attorney specializing in civil rights litigation, leaves one without experience in “effective opposition.” But I freely admit my limited knowledge of Chicago politics! I’m not equipped to take up an argument in either direction.
I’ve seen the polls as 7% energy policy, 9% health care, 9% terrorism, 10% the Iraq war, and 63% the economy. So roughly the same. And no, I’m not a fan of the continuing war or the economic slump. We certainly have that in common. But I think it’s entirely possible that a percentage of the people within that 63%, many of whom had already lost their jobs or soon would, were worried about their employer-based health care and benefits. Millions lost their health care between 2007 and 2009. The economy and health care are not unrelated.
And yes, I think we can all agree that Obama is “bright.” I would go further, but everyone’s entitled to their own opinions.
I really, really have to get a hold of whatever Robert is smoking.
Right now, Democrats hold 254 seats in the House, and Republicans hold 178. Now, for the GOP to get bare control of the House this year, they’d need to win 40 seats.
That’s not undoable. The GOP won 54 seats in the 1994 realignment, and Democrats have won as many as 75 seats in a cycle as recently as 1948. Winning 40 would be a long shot — seats are generally less competitive than they were even in the 90s (the Democratic wave year of 2006 netted just 31 seats), and the ’94 realignment was helped by the fact that a lot of conservative Democrats were replaced by conservative Republicans. But historically, it’s not out of the question.
But to get to a veto-proof majority of 290? There is not a snowball’s chance in hell that the GOP will get remotely close to that.
A quick look at The Google shows that the largest swing in house seats in the history of the Republic occurred in 1932, when Democrats gained 97 seats in the House. There have been percentage swings that were close to that — Democrats gained 74 seats in 1890, which was the equivalent of a 96 1/2-vote swing — but that’s the absolute, high-water mark for change in the history of America.
What was going on in 1932? Well, America was in the midst of a deepening Great Depression. Roosevelt was at the top of a ticket promising radical change. Unemployment was stratospheric even compared to now. And even that produced less than a 100-vote swing.
For the Republicans to win a veto-proof majority in the House, they would need to win 112 votes.
That will not happen. Not even if Barack Obama goes on national television and declares that he was too born in Kenya, and whitey can suck it.
Now, I expect Democrats to lose 25-30 seats this fall in the House. If they fail to pass health care reform, I expect they might lose 40-50. But for them to lose more seats than any party has ever lost in the history of the country — that will not happen.
Incidentally, even if Democrats lose their majority this fall, don’t assume that means happy times are here for Republicans. In 1946, Republicans gained 55 votes, took over control of the House on a platform of rolling back the New Deal, and began patting themselves on the back. They passed a lavish budget for the 1949 inaugural, when, they expected, a Republican would be sworn in.
In 1948, Harry S Truman edged out Thomas Dewey. And Democrats gained 75 seats back, sweeping the Republicans from power in the House after only two years.
Truman and the Dems won, in no small part, by painting the Republicans as a party of obstructionists who didn’t care about the country.
History doesn’t repeat. But sometimes, it rhymes.
Ironically, Roosevelt campaigned on the premise that Hoover was having the government do too much to fight the Depression…
Robert, if you’re still up for the bet, e-mail me at cronodas at yahoo.
Done.
If Barak Obama does that I’ll vote Democratic in the next House election. It would be worth it.
Barak Obama appeared in court about 3 times, I believe, during his years of practicing law. Otherwise he spent his time preparing briefs, and at that billing about 1/2 the hours of what the people trying to make a career as a lawyer did.
As far as his 3 terms in the Illinois State Senate go, he knocked out his primary opposition in his first successful run by challenging their nominating petitions and getting them thrown off the ballot. In the next two primaries I believe he was unopposed. The general elections were meaningless; in Cook County winning the Democratic primary is tantamount to election.
I’ve described his Senate election in detail in earlier threads. Suffice it to say that during his campaign the Illinois Reflublican Party imploded spectacularly. He did not face significant opposition.
The Senate seat that he occupied is up for election this coming cycle. We may see a repeat of what happened to the Senate seat formerly occupied by Sen. Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. The GOP candidate is liberal as GOP’ers go. The Democrat is spending a lot of time explaining why the bank that his family owns a) lent money to corrupt Illinois politicians and b) is about to go belly up.
1. Who’s Barak Obama?
2. Whatever you think about Barack Obama’s previous tenure, he beat Hillary Clinton in the toughest primary in modern history. Clinton ran a tough, well-financed, and superlative campaign, one that would have crushed a lesser candidate. That, to me, is proof of Obama’s mettle. And remember: Clinton spent most of the primary challenging Obama from the right.
Shit, Jeff. Obama “won” against Clinton because every formerly pony-tailed hippie in the media was in full balls-wash mode on Obama from day one, because the idea of a numinous negro President was so tremendously appealing to them.
George Bush won campaigns against tough, well-organized people too. Does that give him “mettle” in your eyes? Of course not. “He did so well in the campaign, he must be a geeeeeeenius” is akin to saying that my daughter is a brilliant scholar because she does such a great job walking to the bus stop before school.
The nice thing about saying something like this is that it’s so completely vacuous that it can’t be criticized. I could point out the many media figures — including some of the media’s most prominent lefties, like Paul Krugman — who weren’t at all friendly to Obama. But since your comment doesn’t actually commit you to anything — there’s no way to tell who the hell is a formerly pony-tailed hippie, or what exactly a full balls-wash mode is — you’d be able to wiggle out of any imaginable criticism.
When the campaign began, most of the media didn’t pay much attention to Obama, because they had initially pegged the contest as being between Clinton, who they clearly expected to win, and Edwards. It was only after Obama began doing well in the early primaries that he began to get a competitive amount of airtime. And then they were far from friendly to him all the time; coverage of Reverend Wright was pretty devastating, for example.
The most primal racist conservative argument: If a black person has accomplished more than you, it must be that his skin color gave him unfair advantages. What next, he can’t speak well without a teleprompter? He’s not really an American?
* * *
That said, Jeff, I have to disagree with you on Clinton’s campaign being “superlative.” Clinton was obviously a very tough opponent, but Clinton and her people badly screwed up in understanding the caucuses; otherwise, no amount of excellence from Obama’s campaign would have sufficed to beat them. It really was Clinton’s primary to lose.
I agree that Obama ran an excellent campaign, but sometimes all the skill in the world won’t help unless someone else fumbles the ball.
* * *
If health care reform passes (and I suspect it well), then a lot of people will end up remembering Obama’s presidency up to this point as fairly successful. After all, this is something that many presidents have attempted, and none of them have gotten nearly as close as Obama.
My problem with him is not that I think that he’s stupid, or incompetent; it’s that I don’t agree with his policy choices, and that I’d prefer him to be more combative and less compromising.
Shit, Jeff. Obama “won” against Clinton because every formerly pony-tailed hippie in the media was in full balls-wash mode on Obama from day one, because the idea of a numinous negro President was so tremendously appealing to them.
Why do I have the feeling that if Clinton had won this sentence would end…the idea of a ballsy girl President…or something similar?
Dianne, you’re probably right. And you know what? I figure it would BE right. Because what that comes out to is that a lot of people vote for someone because of who they are instead of what they can be expected to do. And I think that’s pretty accurate.
Amp, I wouldn’t say that offering the opinion that a lot of people voted for Barack Obama because he was black is racist. But it’s worth considering that actually casting one’s vote on that basis was racist
Maybe. For a little while. And then they’ll look around and figure that there’s still a large number of people unemployed or underemployed and there’s still some wars going on. The effects of those issues on the vast majority of people in this country who are not in an immediate personal health care crisis is a lot more pressing than the health care system.
The main issues for people in America right now and at the time of the election are and were the economy and the war. He has not fixed those, and the “It’s Bush’s fault” timer expired at about the one-year anniversary of Obama’s election. If the health care change comes soon the bloom will be off the rose by the 2nd Tuesday in November. President Clinton was right – “It’s the economy, stupid!”. He stepped in this trap as well, but backed out of it. Changing health care will be touted as a victory, but it may well end up being the foundation of his (or at least his party’s) defeat.
So I guess the promises that the President made both as Senator and as President that he was not going to “be like Karl Rove and throw [his] base red meat and push through a health care bill on a 50% plus 1 majority” was just lies.
Hardly a surprise, I guess. Like I’ve been saying, he’s just a Chicago politician.
Ron, the health care bill passed the senate with 60 votes.
Also, I think Obama was assuming, back then, that there would be at least a couple of Republicans willing to negotiate in good faith. That’s obviously not the case.
I’d say that’s an ignorant thing to say unless it’s part of a considerably more nuanced analysis, including some evidence; but no, it’s not racist. It’s also not what Robert said that I was responding to.
What Robert said is that Obama “won” (scare quotes Robert’s — presumably he thinks Obama didn’t actually win?) the primary because ex-hippies in the media gave him a free ride because he’s black.
And how would THAT be racist? It’s either true, or false.
“The only way Obama could have won would be if the media covered for him – that’s how stupid and incompetent black politicians are.” That’s racist, whether true or false, because the speaker is ascribing individual negative characteristics to someone based on a racial grouping.
I think very little of Mr. Obama. He is an empty suit, of no particular earned accomplishment (other than winning the presidency), of questionable political affiliations, and of clearly deficient political character. And I do think that he won (especially the primary, but also the general) because he was helped across the finish line by guilty white liberals in the establishment press.
But my disdain for him is not racially based. It’s all the (mostly worthless) individual, baby. There are black politicians with very full suits, with tremendous earned accomplishments, whose political affiliations are impeccable and who have good political character. I’ve voted for/supported them in the past.
Obama sucks. “Black people” are ok.
Ron, the health care bill passed the senate with 60 votes.
Yes, but what the House will pass will not be the bill that the Senate sent them. So the Senate will vote on it again. And right now it appears that Obama will not abide by his earlier statements and will try to get it through with 50% + 1 votes.
No, Ron, that’s not true. Here’s what will happen, in all likelihood:
1) The house will pass the exact bill the Senate passed. (This will be the second HCR bill the House has passed this year).
2) Later, the house will pass a bill making a handful of modifications to the already-passed bill. All of these modifications have to do with tweeking what already exists (for instance, by removing Ben Nelson’s special Medicaid provision, and by marginally increasing the HCR’s already-existing middle-class subsidies). The overall structure of the HCR bill which got 60 votes in the Senate will not be changed (and indeed, cannot legally be changed through reconciliation).
Out of curiosity, Ron, do you oppose getting rid of the Ben Nelson deal? Do you oppose, given that the HCR bill has already passed the Senate (which it has), making insurance a little bit more affordable for middle class Americans? If not, what is your policy basis for opposing the tweeks to the HCR bill?
3) The Senate will pass the tweeks bill, if necessary through reconciliation. However, it’s likely that it will pass with 54-57 votes. There is next to no chance that the result will be a 50-50 tie with Joe Biden casting the tiebreaking vote, which is what a “50% +1” Senate vote is.
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Amp, you’re so right about everything. How could I have failed to see that? Damn, I wish that I could take away everything I’ve ever said in public and just agree with you all the time about everything.
It’s possible that some (or, indeed, all) of my words in this comment have been altered, because I attempted to post on “Alas” after being banned. But if Amp did do that to my comment, then he did the right thing! Oh, how I worship him. Almost as much as I worship Obama.
It took me a second before I realized that the above was not snark from Smithee! Almost too clever, Amp.
Richard noted that he believes that the first act of the new Congress will be to negate the health care changes. The arguments against that are that any such recission would be vetoed by President Obama (which would put it off for two years until his successor was elected, but that’s beside the point I guess).
However, Congress does have an alternative besides putting up a bill that explicitly rescinds a previous act. It can simply refuse to vote up allocations for the various agencies and funding that the act calls for. You don’t need a 2/3 majority for that. Of course, the President can refuse to sign any funding bills until one that he likes is forwarded to him, but that’s a hard row to hoe.
I’m starting to enjoy Alan Smithee’s contributions.
Ron, it’s doubtful the Republicans will have either the numbers or the political courage to do that. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
So what is your policy-based objection to the heath care reform bill?
Chinoga: :-P
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