What would the Democrats electoral prospects look like right now if no health care bill had passed?

[bluestateguy]

Put on your hypothetical hat for a moment and imagine what the Democrats 2010 electoral prospects would look like if they had come up empty, as the Clintons did in 1994, with no health care bill. Not a different bill (I think we all would have preferred a better bill), but no bill at all after months of trying.

Holding all other variables equal to the current time and events continuum, where do you think the Democrats would stand right now if they had tried and failed to pass a health care bill at all?

Would they be better off, worse off, or about the same?

[dkf]

1. Better off if they had abandoned health care for jobs.

[BzaDem]

5. What the heck does that even mean? Why would Republicans agree to pass another stimulus?

[dkf]

12. If we had moved to jobs instead of sticking with a bad healthcare bill we would have been better off...

But it is too late now.

[BzaDem]

13. You completely ignored my question. What does "moving to jobs" even mean? Why would Republicans

allow another stimulus to be passed?

[dkf]

18. Back when we did healthcare we didnt need Republicans.

How soon we forget.

[BzaDem]

24. We didn't need Republicans to pass a bill to cut the deficit by 1.2 trillion over 20 years. What

makes you think that we could have had 60 votes to do ANOTHER deficit-financed stimulus, after we already passed a 787 billion dollar one?

[dkf]

26. It was becoming obvious to me by that time that the first amount wasn't enough.

And the numbers on healthcare savings are being revised downward as we speak. The lack of cost controls in the hcr bill is a fatal flaw.

[BzaDem]

31. It was obvious from the beginning. That doesn't change anything. And the numbers on healthcare

are still 1.2 trillion saved over 20 years. That's the CBO's estimate and they have not revised that.

[dkf]

41. Oh sorry...total healthcare spending will not be reduced by the bill.

So if the Government isn't paying for that increase, then we are.

mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=656369&f=26

[Vinca]

2. Assuming they might have focused on jobs, probably better off.

The health care bill is so bad, it's like an anchor around their necks. Imagine if they'd passed single-payer, enacted it immediately, and voters suddenly saw their $12,000+ premiums disappear. There would be no squawking about taxes on the very wealthy after the health access card arrived. And they would be thanking Democrats at the polls.

[sendero]

3. The way the health care bill..

.... inflicts the pain early and provides the benefits much later (all the way to 2014 for some features) is going to make it less and less popular as time goes on.

[BzaDem]

4. That is actually a complete myth.

Benefits don't come until 2014, but costs don't either. The Medicare advantage cuts/Cadillac tax take into effect around when benefits do.

[customerserviceguy]

9. Maybe you haven't gotten your bill for the coming year's health insurance yet

In the next month or two, my company will be rolling out the options for next year, I'm sure that premiums will be plenty jacked up to pay for the stuff that the health ins. cos. now have to cover that they were able to exclude.

[BzaDem]

11. That is a bullshit Republican argument. Premiums were going up as much as 60%/year BEFORE the bill

passed.

[customerserviceguy]

16. Ah, you're the kind

who always says "Republican talking points" whenever you read something that doesn't fit your preconceived notion of the way things are. In that case, there's zero sense in discussing anything with you.

[BzaDem]

17. No, that is really a Republican talking point. It is aired on Fox News, conservative blogs,

conservative periodicals, and the rest of the conservative media.

It also happens to be false, as premiums were going up as much as 60% before the bill passed.

[sendero]

19. In anticipation..

.. of the bill's passage. Nothing else has changed, so how to YOU explain the sudden rise in premiums. This I gotta hear.

[BzaDem]

23. Wrong again. These premium hikes were announced after Scott Brown won and everyone thought HCR was

dead.

In fact, Obama used the premium hikes to gin up enough support to get the HCR legislative train moving again. They came BEFORE it was resurrected and after everyone thought it was dead.

And this isn't new to this year. Premiums have been going up by double digit percentages EVERY year. This was especially true in the last 2 years due to the recession, when healthy people canceling insurance meant the risk pool was much sicker overall (requiring more premiums).

I'd like you to explain how premiums after HCR was considered dead (and before Obama even won election, let alone started talking about HCR) are somehow connected to the HCR bill. This I gotta hear.

[sendero]

25. I'm not talking about "double digits"...

.... I've read several reports of 35% and in that area. The 10$-15% is normal, 30% is not.

[BzaDem]

29. 2/14/2010 (post-Scott-Brown): HHS' Sebelius to Anthem Blue Cross: Justify 39% rate hike

This was when everyone thought Healthcare was dead.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/insurance/2010-02-08-anthem-rates_N.htm

"Anthem notified customers that rates would go up beginning March 1 and might increase more frequently going forward than the usual annual increase. The increases ranged from 30% to 39%.

The company has declined to provide details on the rate increases such as how many people would be affected or how much the new rates would be. It's also not clear whether customers in other states are being affected. In a statement last week the company blamed the increases on rising costs of medical care.

"We understand and strongly share our members' concerns over the rising cost of health care services and the corresponding adverse impact on insurance premiums," the statement said. "Unfortunately, the individual market premiums are merely the symptoms of a larger underlying problem in California's individual market — rising health care costs."

[customerserviceguy]

42. OK, I'll try logic again

Just to see how it works.

Let's just suppose that my assertation is 100% genuine 'Republican talking points', without any basis in reality. Do you think more business owners and hiring managers listed to Republican talking points, or Democratic talking points? My guess would be the former, and they're slow to hire because of that.

To me, that means the unemployment rate is higher because of what those with the power to hire believe. And going back to the original post, this strange HCR that has been adopted has convinced more of those people to be cautious, rather than adventurous when making decisions to add staff. So, I feel that HCR as it exists has hurt our election prospects this year.

Does it make more sense when I put it that way?

[sendero]

20. You are essentially correct...

.. and I retract my comment. The main pain features of the bill come into play about the same time as the benefits.

Nonetheless, in researching this to verify your claim I find that the bill suffers from extreme overcomplexity, and the more complexity the more possibility for workarounds and unintended consequences.

I just don't see this bill being popular as you cannot explain what is does in less than an hour.

[BzaDem]

37. I'm not claiming the bill itself is popular in a head to head poll question.

My claims are that

a) The bill is the biggest progressive social welfare achievement in 40 years, so it is a good thing as a matter of policy
b) 80%+ of Democrats approve of the bill. If it did not pass, and we had little to show for 2 years of holding Congress, the base would be much less enthusiastic about voting than they are now.

[sendero]

39. We disagree..

.... you apparently think the net effect of this bill, a byzantine network of all kinds of mandates and programs, will be a net positive for the average American.

I don't. I believe the insurance companies will find a way to work around many of the provisions they don't like. I believe that all of the reporting requirements of the bill will be easily and handily circumvented as almost everything in accounting is open to interpretation contrary to popular belief.

This bill, like the financial reform bill in its wake, does all the little things but in failing to do the one big thing will ultimately fail.

[derby378]

46. +100 (n/t)

[bluestateguy]

10. If anything, it's the other way around

The individual mandate is unpopular, and will go into effect in January 2014.

The insurance reforms like pre-existing condition protection (well, for children, anyway), bans on yearly and lifetime caps, the high-risk pool and the gradual closing of the donut hole for Medicare Part D all go into effect this year and next. They are far more popular reforms that people will not want to let go of once enacted.

[sendero]

21. You are correct...

... and I apologize for the error. I obtained the my misinformation from an unreliable source, it didn't take much investigation to see I was wrong.

[customerserviceguy]

6. Better off if this had failed

It's created a climate of business uncertainty about what the costs will be, and that's keeping hiring down. It really did almost nothing for anybody so far.

[BzaDem]

8. It's funny that you are citing a Republican argument. The costs are all laid out in the bill.

No progressive economists take this "uncertainty" crap all that seriously.

[customerserviceguy]

14. No, that's the bill's big problem

Costs are NOT restricted in any way. We have no idea how much insurance is going to cost through the exchanges, and small businesses have no idea what premiums are going to be jacked up to, only that they will be required to provide insurance for their employees, no matter what it will cost. If we had some cost containment provisions, then it would have been true reform.

Healthcare CEOs will still be free to take multi-million dollar salaries, malpractice costs will still go on unchecked.

[BzaDem]

15. None of that is any different than the status quo. So how does it add more "uncertainty" than not

passing any bill?

(There were actually many cost containment provisions, but I'll assume for the sake of argument that there were none. Your argument still doesn't make any sense.)

[customerserviceguy]

43. When you have a requirement

to make an expenditure where the cost is uncertain, you have more uncertainty about what your costs of hiring an employee are going to be. When you don't have that obligation, then the uncertainty of health care costs is not a significant factor.

[Yupster]

44. Jeepers

It's getting to the point where anyone who disagrees with anything is accused of spewing Republican talking points.

[KharmaTrain]

7. About The Same...

Very few, if any races will be determined by the HIR vote. The economy is front and center and the successes and/or failure of this administration will be viewed through that filter. If you are doing financially better then HIR means nothing or may even be a positive, but if you're facing tough times that's what will be the biggest affect on one's vote...obscuring a HIR bill that has had little affect on most (especially the 99'ers). This election is all about the economy...

[Raspberry]

22. Much, much better

The HCR that was passed was always hugely unpopular. The polls reflected this. Scott Brown's election reflected this. The bribes that had to be made to wavering congresspeople reflected this. And yet, it was passed through sleazy backroom deals. I don't believe reconciliation had ever been used to force such massive social legislation through. There is no doubt that passage of HCR stirred up the GOP base, and they will turn out in droves, in a kind of paybacks-a-bitch wave election.

Reform had to happen. Just not THIS particular reform, and not in this way.

[w8liftinglady]

27. I think if they would have stayed with HR 676,instead of compromising

As I showed you yesterday-the Insurance companies have taken no cuts.The ceos are making 10's of millions of dollars a year in salary.Average working people like me realize that.And is you get sick-Many people have family members who need surgery,etc and realize how little they have been helped.

[BzaDem]

32. HR676 wouldn't even have gotten a double-digit number of votes in the Senate. n/t

[bluestateguy]

36. That bill had no chance of passage

It would not have gotten 100 votes in the House; maybe with fierce presidential lobbying it would have gotten 130 votes in the House, but not even close for passage.

[w8liftinglady]

I swear I only pushed once

.

[w8liftinglady]

28. ...

three posts at once...sorry

[Warren Stupidity]

30. about the same, plus 'loser can't get nuttin done'.

It is the cluster-fucked economy driving the polls, plus the coordinated rnc mediocorp assault.

[treestar]

33. IMO, things would be the same. It's the economy, and specifically

the unemployment rate, plus the idiocy of Americans not getting that the Republicans caused the problem, so why give them more power - how would they fix it?

[vi5]

34. Probably slightly better....

It would be one thing if the bill were actually really good for all people and if it went into effect immediately. But it's benefits are fairly specific and most don't kick into effect later. So the right and the media is able to frame the debate as "Your premiums are rising because of this." Which true or not, our wonderful cowardly leaders haven't fought against that or pushed back against it.

Add in the fact that the other perception is that they focused too much on healthcare and not on "jobs" (whatever the fuck that means) and it's a double whammy.

[leveymg]

35. Sure as hell would be a lot better if the Public Option were part of HCR.

Without it and with no effective cost controls, such as Prescription Drug Importation, HCR turned into an insurance industry bail-out bill. A disaster for the Democrats.

[zipplewrath]

38. About the same

It's probably a ridiculous premise because if they had "lost" that battle, they may have been hindered in passing anything else, and may have seen attempts to reverse portions of the stimulus.

[bluestateguy]

40. Quite possibly true

There would have been A LOT of fallout after investing so much into health care and then to see it fail would have set off fierce rounds of recriminations within the party, finger pointing b/w the WH and the Democrats in Congress and months of doom and gloom stories from the corporate media. I think the enthusiasm gap we see in the polls would be even worse.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

45. I can see that there are a lot of opinions here

I'm of the opinion, however, that we'd be faring worse- failing to pass HCR AGAIN would've been looked at as another "failure" and yet another example of the Democrats being unable to come together to start to fix the problems in the system, and it would be incessantly portrayed by the corporate mediawhores as a "victory" for the Republicans/Tea Party and Obama's "Waterloo". Of course, the corporate mediawhores are STILL trying to make it seem like it's a failure and that people don't want the Democratic HCR but nobody, not even the Republicans, expect it to be able to be repealed and some of the people whom are unhappy with it want it to go further- not scaled back. I'm not going to say that the process was pretty nor was the final product perfect but it DID start to lay the groundwork IMHO for future reforms and will, once fully implemented, help more people obtain health coverage. The Democratic Party and, more importantly, the public are/will be better off with its passage in at least the long term than not IMHO.

That's just my $0.02