Bloomberg, via Greg Sargent:
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met last night at the U.S. Capitol with Senate Democrats and told them Obama is "open to alternatives" to a new government insurance program in order to get legislation overhauling the health-care system to his desk, said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota.
"His message was, it's critical that you do this," Conrad said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana said Emanuel urged the senators to seek Republican support and didn’t discourage them from pursuing the use of non-profit cooperatives, an idea Conrad has proposed.
"That last line is key: The White House may be signaling that getting a public option is less important than winning bipartisan support," Sargent writes. "This would undercut Dems who want to bypass the GOP, arguing that bipartisanship as an end in itself isn't as important as a public option."
For fuck's sake, who cares about bipartisanship? Is there some belief that everyone's going to be happy to deal with crappy law if it's bipartisan? Newsflash: the only people who give a damn about bipartisanship are ideologues who want to look less partisan. No one's going to look at the same damned insurance rates and the same damned refusal of care and think, "Well, at least it was all bipartisan."
If Republicans and Blue Dogs don't want a public option, make them fight it. They may win, but with 72% of Americans supporting a public option, they may find that victory hard to defend come election time.
For myself, I'd rather wait for good legislation than deal with lousy legislation. It's harder to fix bad law after the fact than it is to write a new law. Make them fight it, then make them defend fighting it, then take their seats in re-election fights when they can't defend fighting it. Lather, rinse, and repeat until you've got enough votes to pull off good law.
Because a "compromise" is an arrangement in which both parties agree to be equally unhappy. People are already unhappy enough and have been for long enough -- it's the Republicans and the insurance companies' turn.
2 comments:
Obama cares about bipartisanship. Personally, watching from this distance, I think he's doing a terrific job on the domestic front.
Getting Republican support for any kind of change is a major triumph. From the GOP's point of view, the safest policy would be kneejerk opposition to any outcome, whether change or not. What Obama is doing here is calling their bluff: the GOP made their "contributions" to the "debate" on the assumption that Obama would shoot them down, so they could bitch about his radical partisanship, and sell their services to whoever loses out from "his" socialist policies. But instead he's making a lot of noise about accepting them and welcoming them on board, which is absolutely where they don't want to be. It's going to make it harder for them to stand on a platform of being Against All Things Obama.
(There'll still be lots of kneejerk opposition. Habits are hard to break. But after four yeras of this, I think - and I think Obama thinks - the country will be a more peaceful and better-run place.)
As for the health system as an end in itself: all countries bitch about their healthcare systems. Whatever you end up with, ten years from now, the press will be full of horror stories, because horror stories are what people buy. It follows that whatever happens, it'll attract more blame than praise.
"White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met last night at the U.S. Capitol with Senate Democrats and told them...look you fucking fucked fucks, shut the fuck up, and talk this shit out! You've got til' the end of August, so your goddamned fucking Meatballs summer just got revoked!"
"Baucus, you fucking worm. You little health insurance company bitch, How's your mother...?" Good. That's good. Now don't make me come back here or I'll put your lilly-white nuts in a vice, fucko."
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