Democrats -- and, in particular, the 100 or so liberal Democrats who have threatened to oppose a bill that doesn't include a public option -- are the main target of the president's persuasion tonight. Why? Legislative math.
As Ron Brownstein points out, in 12 years of governing, Republicans never had more than 235 House seats. Democrats have 257 today. Some of them are way out in the hinterlands, forcing the occupants to vote "no" on virtually every major initiative that's tagged as Democratic. There are about 25 of these seats -- lost causes, from the point of view of the White House. Looking back at the cap-and-trade vote, Nancy Pelosi lost 64 Democrats and picked up 8 Republicans.
With the possible exception of Rep. Joseph Cao, the White House doesn't expect to get any Republican House votes on health care (though they will try to pick off a few). So they can safely lose about 50 conservative Democrats... providing that every liberal Democrat votes yes.
And though the White House took House liberals for granted in August, they now believe that getting these liberals to stop talking about the necessity of a public plan - to stop equating a public plan with insurance reform - is as major an obstacle to getting a good bill done as the 60 vote threshold in the Senate.
Realistically, will a speech by the president of the United States change Olympia Snowe's mind on health care? Or Chuck Grassley's? No. Snowe will look at the final language, and Grassley will weigh his political philosophy and party unity against the accomplishment of providing health care for all. Outreach to these Republicans is best conducted privately, and the President has no illusions about being able to sway public option significantly enough to cross-pressure Senate Republicans.
So, the case the President will make tonight will be basic, and by default, progressive. We're almost there, he'll say. Major new subsidies for those who can't afford insurance. Restrictions on the industry that progressives have been wanting for years, like an end to community rating and guaranteed issue and no dropping of coverage. The promise of fulfilling a generational promise - Ted Kennedy's vision. To keep insurance companies accountable, he'll talk about the need for some sort of competitive mechanism. He say that he'd strongly prefer that it'd be a public option, and that the final bill must set the foundation for more competition in an industry that has largely been immune from it. I suspect that Obama will discuss the subsidies in detail. And you can bet that he will challenge opponents of reform to support what's been broadly agreed to or stop demagoguing health care for political reasons. (Democrats will like when Obama challenges Republicans.)
Right now, Gallup has the number of Americans who say they'd instruct their member of Congress to vote "yes" at 36% and the number of people who say they'd instruct their member of Congress to vote "no" at 37%. The rest are undecided --- even after the bruising month of August, where the bill was defined largely in terms unfavorable to Democrats. Constituents of these liberals overwhelmingly support the bill.
He'll still try to smoke out some Republicans... by talking about tort reform and cost containment. The intended audience here is less the people in the room than the people watching at home.
Hopefully the progressive caucus will hold strong.
If Obama threw his support behind a public option without qualification, it would go a long way towards regaining and retaining progressive support.
BTW, the fact that you even name check Grassley as a persuadable in this piece is ridiculous. He will never, ever vote for anything that could legitimately be called healthcare reform.
Grassley's not gettable under any circumstances. He never was.
Exactly. Apparently everybody knows that but Ambinder and Max Baucus.
This is an emotional issue and we all should support covering individuals through private health insurance. To conquer these serious changes, doesn’t it seem right to advocate for greater transparency in both quality and price information, for it overlaps with many other issues? http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/issues/index.cfm?ID=300
Passing any sort of wholesale restructuring of the US health care system with a bare partisan majority (i.e., no Republicans and only leftist Democrats) will cause open revolt in the streets.
Since Obama's already so noncommittal about what he wants in a bill — in fact, he seems to just want a "bill" — why not restart the entire process and pass some incremental legislation that could be supported by most Democrats and most Republicans? And accepted by most of the country?
Nah... that would be too reasonable.
And Medicare is caused lots of riots after it passed.
That's because Medicare didn't nationalize 17% of the US economy. Obama is still proposing massive government command and control of insurance companies (to the degree such a thing will continue to exist), individual service providers (e.g., doctors who are already in short supply), large so-called "non-profit" conglomerates (who will enjoy even less competition and greater benefits from a too-cozy relationship with regulators), and the pharmaceutical industry (who, sadly, will trade the predictability of smaller profits for the riskier — but much greater — upside from large investments in speculative R&D). And he's creating a huge new unfunded entitlement program when US national debt is already destroying our standard of living.
And, yes, people have protested in the streets when they perceived their health security was under attack — those protesters were senior citizens upset with proposed Medicare funding cuts. So-called "progressives" (really neo-communists) have no idea how out-of-touch they are.
You know, circleglider, I was almost about to post a reply detailing how egregiously wrong you were about what's actually being proposed -- not out of any hope to persuade you, but just out of concern that someone might take you seriously...
...but then I got to the part where you got to the ridiculous redbaiting "communist!" crap that the right has fallen back on in recent weeks in leiu of any connection to reality, and I realized that "taking you seriously" was something no one was actually likely to do.
So you saved me some typing time, there. Thanks.
What about that definition doesn't fit the national Democratic Party (i.e., the current US government)?