John Neffinger KNP Communications
Posted: December 15, 2009 06:53 AM
Why We Lost Healthcare(snip)
From the very outset of the healthcare debate, the administration told progressives to forget about expanding Medicare to cover all Americans: that was not going to happen, the administration said, and what's more, the administration did not want them making a fuss about it. Instead, the President pledged that he would only sign a bill that included the option to buy into a Medicare-like plan - the "public option"- which might lead to a Medicare-for-all policy someday. The administration invited progressives to support its position, but the administration always wanted to run the show.
By honoring that request, progressives created exactly the political conditions that would doom the public option. By abandoning Medicare-for-all approach at the outset and instead strongly advocating the public option compromise, progressives made the public option appear to be a radical left position, instead of the moderate market-based approach it actually was. Predictably, the public option was ridiculed by conservative polemicists throughout the debate as a socialist big-government takeover. And in the end, conservative Democratic Senators (as well as Senator Lieberman) did not support the public option exactly because progressives had so noisily supported it. Conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson felt it was important politically for their relatively conservative constituents to see that they did not support the liberal position.(snip)
It is worth noting that this game is still not quite over. Progressives could still fight their way out of the impasse created by making the public option the progressive option. Some progressive Senator or other could still learn game theory - or at least how to play chicken - and stand firm for the public option, forcing the administration to work around Senators Nelson and Lieberman and company. That would probably require dragging this into next year and splitting the bill, passing the controversial parts with the reconciliation procedure and leaving the popular planks, prohibiting insurers from rejecting people based on pre-existing conditions and the like, to pass separately afterwards. But that strategy takes time and involves risk the administration does not want to take, and it is looking less likely by the hour.
(snip)
p.s. Reading the comments, it's clear how raw this all is. Let me just be clear: I am not saying progressives did not put forth enough effort - not at all. I am saying progressives made a strategic mistake at the outset in trusting in the administration's political strategy and abandoning Medicare-for-all in favor of the public option. In no way am I letting the administration off the hook here. Given the administration's tepid support for the public option this fall (also duly noted in the comments), it is legitimate to ask whether they meant to trade away the public option all along. If so, perhaps their strategy could be said to have worked in a way, but they tragically underestimated the appetite for real reform. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-neffinger/how-we-lost-healthcare_b_392275.html
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