Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate
All day yesterday, I heard Democrats throwing in the towel. I heard Republicans saying the Democrats should “listen to the American people” and abandon their entire agenda. Well, the American people have given the Democrats an 18-seat majority in the Senate, and a huge majority in the House as well. How about the Republicans listen to the American people themselves?
Of course, I don’t expect that. The Republicans will continue to do what they’ve been doing, and I don’t blame them. They’re doing it because the Democrats are letting it work. They are the ones giving the Republicans the “majority” in the Senate. Everyone in this country, apparently even the Democrats themselves, have forgotten that the Dems still have an unprecedented majority. Well, if they don’t take advantage of that majority in the next nine months, they will no longer have it.
It is possible to accomplish things with fewer than 60 votes. After all, the Republicans did it constantly. When the Democrats filibustered bills George Bush supported, he made it a national issue. In fact, we ended up debating the right to filibuster more than the bill itself. If the Democrats want to get anywhere, it’s time for them to make Republican obstruction the issue. Stop capitulating, stop sacrificing your agenda. Get a spine and use your massive majorities and Obama’s bully pulpit and demand that Republicans do some actual work for a change.
Republicans should renew their call for the straight up-or-down vote.
Amen. I’m betting that the tyranny of a vocal minority holding the Senate hostage is looking so bad to the Republicans right now.
http://www.minnpost.com/ericblack/2010/01/21/15175/the_filibuster_and_rendering_america_ungovernable
The public installs a Democrat majority with a mandate for change. The new Republican minority prevents the change, gloats about the ineffectiveness of the Democrats, and whips up anger against the them. The public reinstalls a Republican majority on a platform of change. The new majority return to the ways that were rejected in the first place and the cycle starts over. As Klein points out, the filibuster is the culprit.
I hate to say it but passing this bill by whatever means necessary is looking better to me all the time. Pass the bad bill that is better than no bill at all. If we lose by doing that, whats the difference. We will pay later anyway if we don’t.
Anticipated response from some: Go ahead and do that, I am sure it will help you in 2010.
I’m not nearly as eloquent as Ezra:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/some_comments_on_staying_home.html
“We all agree that there is some point at which the base should abandon the party, at least for a single election cycle. If Democrats voted to abolish Medicare, say. The question is whether collapse on this issue represents a betrayal of that magnitude. I’d say it’s pretty close: Refusing to enact the entitlement health program that will cover those younger than age 65 isn’t as shocking as rolling back Medicare, but it is as cruel, and as needless.”
How is not doing something you already aren’t doing cruel and needless? That doesn’t make any sense but he has a right to feel betrayed. If you want to look on the bright side, even with the 60th vote the bill would have been nothing but political payoffs, bribery and extortion anyway. You can blame whoever you want for that but you still had 60 dems for it and every republican against. That’s a lot of pressure with so much public opinion against you.
I agree with Ezra in priniciple, about not supporting the spineless dems, but in practice I could never vote for a republican (at least not the extreme rightwingers of recent years) and it would be hard for me to just sit out an election. I didn’t think too hard about this however, as I am stuck with Klein for the forseeable future and a vote in a senate race is a few years away. I will vote for Obama again, even if he remains reluctant to be a fighter, because I just like the guy. I sure hope Obama’s presidency doesn’t tank so badly that he faces a serious primary challenge.
You are right Lloyd that this is a bad bill. A good bill would have been based on a public plan with a private option. A step down would have been the proposed private plan with a public option. Neither happened because the political environment in Washington remains highly polarized and dysfunctional.
The primary utility in passing this bill is that it assures change. The pressure would ramain to reduce cost because this bill would not do that. Alec doesn’t want to kick the can down the road, DTM favors incrementalism. Passing this bill addresses both. It would begin the process of reform in earnest.
The alternative is to start over but there is no reason to believe that the outcome would be any different at this point. By the way, the 60/40 split has to do with politics not policy. Progressive Democrats don’t support this bill, they support passage of this bill. They are as unhappy with it as the rest of us are.
If they can’t get it right when they are writing it, what makes you think they’ll get it right when they’re fixing it?
The current healthcare bill is better than none. Optimistically think of it as a glass half full; don’t dump it out. In general, in any situation, getting it right the first time eliminates all hope of progress.
They got it right. Republicans obstructed every proper aspect of the bill.
Yup, unlike the Democrats, it looks like they were trying to represent their constituents.
Kathy asks a very fair question. By all accounts the house and senate bills were written behind closed doors so is this a failure of progressive leadership or are Pelosi and Reid not progressives.
Another camp that never released a plan was the Obama administration itself. Obama promised that his plan would have many things but never actually delivered more than a speach. Does he get some of the blame for this not passing yet?
Lloyd,
Obama isn’t dysfunctional, congress is. Some feel he could have been a better cheerleader. I think that he needed to stay out of the Boehner, McConnell, Reid and Pelosi fray. They should be accountable for their own work. We pay them well enough and they have great benefits. They need to get some real work done or we need to replace them with people who can.
Obama isn’t dysfunctional, congress is
I agree. In my mind, Obama still has an opportunity to deliver on a different kind of governing — transparent, refreshing, driven by citizens. The problem so far is that Pelosi and Reid have mistook his historic election with a mandate for a lefty agenda. Obama ain’t the problem here.
With that said, I think the TeaBagger movement is more about anti-incumbent than it is about anti-incumbent than anti-Democrat. That could cut both ways come Nov.
What are you guys smoking? Yes, the public sentiment is about a dysfunctional Congress. It is also about a President who sold himself as something he wasn’t. It’s Pelosi and Reid. It’s Holder. It’s Bush. Always just an innocent bystander. Wrong!
C Man,
I am ashamed to say I smoke an occasional Camel Light.
Obama didn’t sell himself as something he isn’t. He sold himself as exactly who he is. When Hillary supporters were crying out for Obama to attack, he didn’t take the bait and because of that he won. When people lied about the most basic facts of his life he shrugged it off, didn’t attack back, moved on and won. When he was pressured to propose his own health care reform bill he forced Congress to do their job. They did it poorly and with heavy casualties on both sides but Obama is still standing and his goals are unchanged. He will win this battle too.
He isn’t doing the Democrats work as some Republicans say or the Republicans work as some Democrats say, he is doing the peoples work, as he said he would.
Whatever Ron. I guess I’ll just say, “stay tuned”!
I’ll see how he comes down on todays Supreme Court ruling. That will be an unambiguous indicator of whose side he is on.
Kathy,
They will get it right when they go to fix it because both parties will eventually come to the conclusion that the public is expecting them to get something done. The anger that is growing out there, while it may have originally been seen by some as a force to be exploited for political gain, is developing into a force that needs to be listened to no matter what party you belong to. I think the message is clear, do the right thing, get something done.
DTM put it this way yesterday:
“First party to get this wins: Elect bright, talented leaders, capable of getting the public on board with a moderate and persistent agenda that gradually improves peoples’ lives. Create policy that is so common-sensical that politicians of all stripes look bad to their constituents for not supporting it.”
I do believe this is where we are headed.
Interpreting Scott Brown’s election, or the broader anger nationwide, as a message “to get something done” strikes me as either a wishful stretch or woeful tone deafness.
Americans aren’t as dumb as Democrats think they are, and a healthcare bill that makes huge promises but does nothing to reform the fundamental perversion of economic incentives that have been built into our healthcare system by the state simply won’t work and people know it. They know it because it’s a point of view that’s rooted in common sense that is as plain as day to anybody who doesn’t hold it as an article of faith that the government can somehow magically control costs and expand coverage, all without lifting a finger to truly threaten the (state mandated) cartel that controls the industry.
Then let’s start over and not put in place those fabled 100+ new bureaucracies, programs, departments, etc., letting them establish themselves and their mischief while we wait for Congress to discover the better angels of its nature.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I agree with Ezra Klein. If the Democrats will not have the spine to pass health care, when they are so very close, it will be time to abandon them. There is no objective reason why progressives should give their support to any party that so spectacularly abandons our premier domestic issue.
As for conservatives, this question has been posed before, but let me do it again: if we “start over” what does health care reform look like, and what does it accomplish? In your answer, please be mindful that there is no serious economist that believes our current health care trends are sustainable.
We need to start paying cash for stuff NorthernMNer. That means we need to start cutting out the middle man for stuff that we should be able to do for ourselves.
I think we need to expand peoples ability to contribute to hsa and I think HSA’s should be expanded to include SSA’s (Security Savings Accounts). These roll over every year and you manage it from the time you are born. I would continue the payroll tax but direct the employers half of the burden to fund social security, the employee would be able to put their half into their SHSA but also contribute to it the way they can with IRA’s and 401ks. The employers contribution of the pay roll tax is completely deductible as are any matching payments.
Until you are 65 or Unemployed you can only ever access your SHSA for healthcare costs. This SHSA is managed by the banker of your choice. The rest I all wrote back in July. http://www.truthvmachine.com/?p=11337
I don’t even know where to begin:
“You manage it from the time you are born” — WTF?
“Cut out the middle man” — Which is who? Doctors, Insurance, Hospitals, Pharma?
And of course, I assume you have an idea of either which taxes to raise or which programs to cut, as your ideas would inflate the deficit by lowering tax revenue. Of course.
And as health care costs are rising at almost 3 times the cost of wages, how exactly do we “pay cash” for any serious care?
You phase out the illusory social security trust fund by grandfathering everyone within 10 years of retirement age will get all of their benefits and everyone within 20 years can take a buyout.
Obviously your family would manage your ssha for you you until you are of legal age or emancipated but the point is, the savings plan would follow you from job to job.
Obviously there will be a need for insurance beyond just paying cash out of your SHSA but that’s why I favor a high deductible plan for catastrophic. The plan that I linked had both a public and private component and I would see the management of the SHSA as a good vehicle for a public option. Screw the idea of a healthcare exchange, that’s just bureacratic overhead.
If we adjust people’s expectations of government and give them the tools to dig themselves out of whatever financial holes they find themselves in, the economy will rebound and we can grow our way out of the whole we are in. We don’t need higher taxes we need more tax revenue so make everyone pay in a flat percentage of their income. That percentage should be viewed as the operating budget of the federal government. We don’t necessarily even have to cut current spending. Simply by freezing all spending and renogiating entitlement programs like Social Security our debt should start to look like a good investment again.
Remember, we only have a defecit because we spend more than we take in.
Again, read through that and the other posts I did on Healthcare. Some of it you might agree with because none of it favors big corporations.
I can vouch that your plan to cut out the middle man (insurance companies) for routine health expenses works fine for healthy individuals. We’ve paid much less for doctor’s visits for my kids than it would cost us for comprehensive insurance. It seems like there would be a major problem though, if they had health issues that required frequent, expensive care. If our costs were reasonable (much less than $850/month), I would gladly pay into a system that helps cover the costs for people who require higher levels of health care.
About SS. This program is meant to ensure (insure) that everyone has an adequte income for basic living expenses during their senior years. Your plan puts the $ (and people’s security) at risk of bad investment or stock market crashes. IRA’s or other types of personal requirement accounts allow people to invest and plan for more luxuriant golden years.
Some of this will echo Lloyd, but I think we have to evaluate any potential reform against its effect on fundamental incentives in health care.
When a Medicare patient walks in to a clinic or hospital to get an MRI, their only motivation is to get the test done and move on with whatever treatment they may need. They have no reason to care what the test costs, and probably wouldn’t be able to get a straight answer even if they took the time to ask. Is there an incentive to control cost? No. None.
The clinic has every motivation to charge as much as they possibly can for the MRI because that’s how they make money. So even if the machine is decades old and paid for and the total actual cost is marginal they put a hefty price tag on the procedure which the federal government dutifully pays. Is there an incentive to maximize price? Yes.
No reasonably intelligent person can look at this scenario, bearing in mind that Medicare and Medicaid constitute almost 50% of what gets spent on healthcare in this country, and come away confused as to why we have cost issues.
Flat screen TV’s that cost thousands of dollars 5 years ago can be had for 600 bucks at Best Buy today. Don’t tell me the market doesn’t work…
For more details go read John Mackey, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html
Ron. I have to thank you for one of the most reasoned and enlightening debates that I’ve had in a long time. It isn’t an exageration to say that you are very good at representing your point of view. So thanks.
I will just say that law is binding. We need to have a greater respect for law than to make bad law in the hopes of someday making it better. People need to be able to respect the law and there would be no reason to respect this as reform.
I doubt we’ll ever agree on this. A high deductible plan for catastrophic illness or accident is a gateway to bankruptcy. And as I mentioned before, the inflation rate in health care is almost three times that of wages. No amount of savings is going to keep up with that kind of expansive rate of inflation.
Lloyd,
I understand your argument and I do believe that once something is enshrined in law it is difficult to change. I also understand Kathy’s point which is essentially the same. Howard Dean took this position a while back as did many of the folks on the opposite side of the political spectrum from the two of you.
Most of us would want to return to the drawing board but the objective of the Democrats is not to pass the bill but to pass a threshhold of change. A failure to pass this bill would weaken our resolve and postpone inevitable reform for many years. Passing a bill however, especially a crappy one, will force the reform effort to continue and give us a project that we already know will engender bipartisan agreement on the need for improvement. It would not be the end of reform but the earliest beginnings of it.
The reason both sides hate this bill is that it wasn’t crafted by either group. It is the product of special interest lobbying which has corrupted both parties and the legislative process. This is the object of political polarization. Whip up the radicals on both sides, drive the moderates and independents out of the process and while the warring parties are distracted grab what you can. The warring parties are catching on.
Failure to pass this legislation may NOT weaken our resolve. It depends on what the people who have caught on do now. How they stay involved. How they hold those representational feet to the fire.
Way, way back in the comment sections, I believe you will find conservative contributors in favor of targeted measures to make obtaining coverage possible for all who wish to have it. In favor of targeted measures to reduce costs (see Rothbard). We think that improving the system is necessary and possible.
I want to observe the incremental process and understand at all phases exactly what new legislation will mean for each of us.
What you view as the threshold of change…pass it, then fix it…I still see as a header over the edge of the abyss. Reversing the drop will be impossible.
And knowing that many are pushing for the drop so they can have what they believe will be the soft landing onto a government-run health-care system makes me even more determined to do what I can to kill the bill.
I say pass a very milquetoast version of the Senate bill (end recision, end pre-existing condition nullification, etc) then cram Sanders’ single payer bill through by reconciliation.
Lojasmo,
I think that in the end, due to fiscal necessity, we will have universal coverage and either a single payor system or one that limits the profitability of insurance companies and imposes efficiency in a way that comes close to mimiking single payor. Either way, I agree with you that passing this bill is a necessary first step.
Good stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4aQCiRjvZY