Why HCR failed, and what Obama can learn.

[metapunditedgy]

The health care bill is a political failure. Why? Because there's nothing good that can be said about it. All the good parts were hacked away, and now it's little but a political monument.

Here's the lesson.

If you produce a bunch of self-serving crap that doesn't help common people, then common people won't vote for you.

Simple.

And here's the worst part.

If your self-serving crap doesn't help common people, then the right-wingers can criticize it all day and there's nothing you can do about it.

Try telling a right-wing crazy worried about "death panels" that "On the bright side, we'll end recission... in 2060... if we have a Democratic Congress from now until then..."

Compromise and failure leads to more failure.

On the other hand, if you help the common people, even the crazies will see that you are helping them.

[Ken Burch]

1. You're right.

This proves once again that the only way to win is to fight. This proves once again that "bipartisanship" is over forever.
But there are those here who will never admit that. Why can't they face reality?

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[metapunditedgy]

14. Uh-oh, I've been insulted on the internet!

Whatever. I was very excited by the Obama campaign. I hear very little excitement from *anyone* about the failed state of HCR. If you think is is a path to success, then good luck.

[tinrobot]

21. Eeyore, is that you?

[FrenchieCat]

27. You haven't been insulted, just pegged correctly......

As for HCR, it was always going to be difficult to pass,
and there were always going to be some, especially those with computers,
who weren't going to see what was in it for them.

What some fail to realize is that this HRC Bill that will pass
will be way better than what some actually understand about it now.
That's why Bernie Sanders supports it, even if he understands that it ain't
all that it could be. The media was allowed to born out the Town Hallers/Teabaggers,
and we just sat on the sideline, laughing at them, and continueously arguing
amongs ourselves.

Bottomline is welcome to the real world of sausage making and compromise to deal
with the big tent price tag.

If life was easy, and politics was a piece of cake,
more would be doing it, and we'd have a better society.
As it is, is the way that it is. Work with that,
and progress will be made. Hold out for the perceived perfect,
and you end up with jack shit. Them de facts!

[metapunditedgy]

32. Of course "something" is better than "nothing."

And don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the good that this bill will do. But the end results are too feeble to even be heard over the crazies.

And as for sausage-making, well those of us regular people don't get to see what happens behind closed doors, but I don't remember hearing much squealing from the pigs on the right. What did the Republicans lose in this whole process? Show me, blow-by-blow, how they were staggering backwards and forced to compromise with the power generated from a wave of Democratic enthusiasm and victories.

[gravity]

3. The healthcare bill helps me

and millions of other people who lack good coverage. Your energy would be spent better focusing on the good about the bill instead of helping the republicans out.

[Tim01]

37. Could you elaborat?

Honest question.

[Gman]

4. The GOP smiles real big when people help them like this

they need all the help they can get right now. Fortunately for them, they don't need to look any further than DU for that help.

[metapunditedgy]

36. After a parade of abandoned goals, comprimise, and surrender

by Congress, you're suggesting that the right wing is benefiting from posters on DU?

[TwilightGardener]

5. It failed?

[dkf]

11. It failed politically.

It still can fail literally.

[TwilightGardener]

24. I don't think it did fail politically--yet. Has to be implemented first.

[dkf]

34. Well you'll be waiting a long time because most provisions kick in 2013.

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. Fundamental flaw in the argument:

If you help the common people, even the crazies will see that you are helping them.


The common people are the crazies. The crazies are the common people.

The salient fact in American politics is that there are always enough people who would volunteer to live with their family in a cardboard box under a railroad bridge, and toast sparrows on an old curtain rod over an open fire, if only you guarantee them that the people in the next box over -- black, gay, foreign, liberal, different -- don't even get the sparrow. Enough to kill any bill.

Build a health care plan premised on the idea that people are basically shits, and you have a fighting chance.

[timeforpeace]

20. Somehow I don't think that philosophy will sell in Peoria.

[Davis_X_Machina]

25. Peoria's the problem.

We think we have an economy, but what we really want, and have, is a morality play. It's burnt into the pseudo-Calvininst American mythos. Our thirst for entertainment is limitless -- so you win when you can turn the issue into entertainment. Our thirst for entertainment is greater than our sense of self-interest.

If people are presented with a choice between a satisfying narrative arc, in which the good guys win and the bad guys get punished, and an actual, functioning social provision, they'll take the coherent story over the boring social provision every time.

They're getting that story from the GOP.

[NJmaverick]

7. If the bill is such a failure why did Bernie Sanders vote for it?

[FrenchieCat]

13. Because Bernie Sanders knows something that poster doesn't.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

17. I suspect that's a mighty long list....

Of things that Bernie knows but the OP doesn't.

[dkf]

8. I think Lieberman deliberately sabotaged the bill because he wants to become a republican.

Yet doesn't want to be in the minority. He's worse than a Benedict Arnold. He is a mole.

[leftstreet]

9. Since when have politicians been interested in 'the common people?'

...beyond the campaign trail that is

[mdmc]

10. r

[Aramchek]

12. what a waste of bold lettering!

[DFLforever]

15. Failure is what you call passing both houses?

I think you you need to brush up on civics.

[metapunditedgy]

19. "Success" is what you call passing both houses?

Show me how the current (or the likely end-product) plan is exciting voters.

[DFLforever]

35. I must be out ot it.

I thought the bill was intended to extend basic health care to 30 million uninsured, enable the government to increase control over costs, ( imo, the fundamental impetus of the bill)open thousands of community health centers, substantially increase funding for primary care education, plus impose regulations on insurance providers - and many other provisions.

Granted like most Americans I already have health care (Medicare plus Medigap insurance to pay for what medicare doesn't)so I won't benefit directly or immediately from it.

But excited? I don't see why I need to be excited.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mari333]

23. calling DUers 'republicans' is against the rules.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

31. Lots of things are against the rules...

Apparently "Bashing a Democratic President" isn't one of them.

I can call Obama a Corporate Shill.

I can call Obama a Warmonger.

Meh. Not a problem. Not on a Democratic Website, anyway.

[Mari333]

18. Rahm was using his playbook to rush it through

big mistake.

[metapunditedgy]

22. I do wonder if it could have moved more slowly, but applying more leverage

at each stage. What leverage was applied to protect any of the good stuff that got ripped out? Precious little, that I could see.

The Republicans should have taken hits every time they opposed something that helped voters and that voters supported.

[yowzayowzayowza]

26. Inattentional blindness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inattentional_blindness

Because there's nothing good that can be said about it. All the good parts were hacked away...

Exaggerate much?

[tinrobot]

28. The bill isn't even finished and it's already "failed?"

Oh, wait, getting HCR this far is not technically a real failure, just a "political failure."

The Republicans are the ones who seem to politicize everything, and "political failure" sounds like something Rush Limbaugh would say.

Get a life.

[spanone]

29. hello? it hasn't been voted on yet....

a wasted click of my mouse

[hfojvt]

30. you have that completely backwards

First, the bill failed because the common people are not very well informed. The RWNM has spent years telling people that
1. The government never does anything right
2. the US has the best healthcare system in the world
3. the Canadian, British, Swedish, Swiss, French, Australian, etc. systems all suck

If you try to help the common people, the rich and powerful will spend lots of time and money convincing the common people that you are not helping the common people. "The Democrats are gonna raise your taxes!!" "The Democrats are gonna kill your grampa!"

Progressives, including DU, have done a very, very poor job of telling the common people the truth, of fighting against rightwing talking points. In fact, we simply loved to advance many rightwing talking points.
1. Democrats are liars
2. Democrats don't care about you
3. liberal elitists think they are better than you

Quick, go find yourself a mirror and introduce yourself to the enemy.

[metapunditedgy]

33. And how well are the talking points *promoting* the current HCR going over?

Don't you think it would be easier to impress voters if HCR had more tangible benefits?