GOP Painted Itself Into a Corner on Healthcare Reform

Two interesting takes on a bit from a New York Times piece on Democrats and healthcare reform. First, the bit:

Liberals have been emboldened by two factors. One is the failure of Senator Max Baucus of Montana, a more conservative Democrat who heads the Finance Committee, to get any Republicans to support his draft legislation, after months of trying. That doomed President Obama's goal of bipartisan backing for a health care overhaul, and now leaves party liberals arguing for a distinctly Democratic health plan.

"One of the strongest arguments against a public option has been that the Republicans will never go for it," [Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)] said. "Well, the Baucus bill doesn't have a public option, and they're still not for it in any way, with the possible exception of Olympia Snowe," a moderate Republican senator from Maine, who has not ruled out supporting the overhaul that Mr. Obama is seeking.

In other words, Baucus' failure frees Democrats from trying to please Republicans. They tried and tried, Baucus went to absurd extremes, while the Republicans he was working with showed bad faith by trying to undermine the very effort they were supposedly engaged in. Max's time-wasting bipartisan snipe hunt proves that Republicans can't be brought into bipartisan negotiations, because they have no interest in it.

Greg Sargent comes to a similar conclusion. "Schumer has been admirably lucid about this process throughout, and this gets at, I think, an interesting paradox about the current impasse," he writes at Plum Line. "The GOP’s refusal to back even the dramatically watered down version of reform that’s emerged from the Senate Finance Committee makes it more likely that the final product will look a good deal more like what many Dems originally wanted."

Ditto for Washington Monthly's Steve Benen. "Like Greg Sargent, I found that Schumer quote of particular interest," he says. "Max Baucus bent over backwards to offer Republicans an insurance-industry-friendly bill, filled with concessions and ideas that Republicans had already embraced. Every single GOP senator balked anyway. I'd hoped it was obvious beforehand, but this apparently sent quite a signal to the Democratic caucus -- there's no point in watering down the bill to get bipartisan support if the minority is going to slap their hand away anyway."

The GOP has overplayed their obstructionist hand. The question is whether Democrats will realize this and deal them out.