Back From the Death Panel
How the public option, helped by a congressman looking for an issue and a shrewdly silent White House, returned from the brink.
By John Heilemann
New York Magazine
Published Oct 11, 2009
On the night last week when much of Washington was joyously weeping over the seal of approval bestowed on the Baucus health-care bill by the Congressional Budget Office, Anthony Weiner was in his quarters in the Rayburn Building, merrily pissing all over the legislation instead. “It’s just too weak,” he told me. “It doesn’t do enough. It doesn’t achieve real cost savings. There’s no real competition. It’s pretty much a wish list for the insurance companies.” And those were merely Weiner’s substantive criticisms of the bill. His political assessment was even harsher: “It’s effectively dead,” he said.
Not a droplet of Weiner’s dismissal of the Baucus plan came as any sort of shock; he’s been trashing the Senate Finance Committee’s efforts for weeks. What’s surprising is that anyone gives a fig what Weiner has to say about the topic in the first place. Until six months ago, after all, the congressman was known more for his yearning to acquire the keys to Gracie Mansion than his mastery of the arcana of Medicare reimbursement rates. In fact, as Weiner would be the first to admit, his interest in, knowledge of, and record on health-care reform were perilously close to nonexistent.
And yet, since May, when he concluded that taking on Mike Bloomberg was a challenge that went beyond the Sisyphean into the realm of the just plain silly, Weiner has emerged as one of the few real stars in the marathon health-care debate: the clearest and savviest (and, as always, loudest and noodgiest) voice in favor of the public option. And though it’s plain that whatever bill eventually lands on Barack Obama’s desk—and, yes, I think the odds are now close to overwhelming that a big pile of health-care paper will wind up there—won’t be anything close to Weiner’s single-payer dream, his role in framing the terms of the discussion has been more than salutary. In some non-obvious ways, you could argue that it’s been essential.
I should confess at the outset that I have a long-standing soft spot for Weiner, whom I first met more than twenty years ago, when he was a budding Chuck Schumer protégé and we played on the same Capitol Hill softball team. Weiner then was strikingly similar to Weiner now: amped-up, ambitious, wicked smart, forever gauging all the angles, unafraid of being (actually, proud of being) a royal pain in the tuchis. All the qualities, in other words, that have served him so well in the wrangle over health care.
(More here.)
By John Heilemann
New York Magazine
Published Oct 11, 2009
On the night last week when much of Washington was joyously weeping over the seal of approval bestowed on the Baucus health-care bill by the Congressional Budget Office, Anthony Weiner was in his quarters in the Rayburn Building, merrily pissing all over the legislation instead. “It’s just too weak,” he told me. “It doesn’t do enough. It doesn’t achieve real cost savings. There’s no real competition. It’s pretty much a wish list for the insurance companies.” And those were merely Weiner’s substantive criticisms of the bill. His political assessment was even harsher: “It’s effectively dead,” he said.
Not a droplet of Weiner’s dismissal of the Baucus plan came as any sort of shock; he’s been trashing the Senate Finance Committee’s efforts for weeks. What’s surprising is that anyone gives a fig what Weiner has to say about the topic in the first place. Until six months ago, after all, the congressman was known more for his yearning to acquire the keys to Gracie Mansion than his mastery of the arcana of Medicare reimbursement rates. In fact, as Weiner would be the first to admit, his interest in, knowledge of, and record on health-care reform were perilously close to nonexistent.
And yet, since May, when he concluded that taking on Mike Bloomberg was a challenge that went beyond the Sisyphean into the realm of the just plain silly, Weiner has emerged as one of the few real stars in the marathon health-care debate: the clearest and savviest (and, as always, loudest and noodgiest) voice in favor of the public option. And though it’s plain that whatever bill eventually lands on Barack Obama’s desk—and, yes, I think the odds are now close to overwhelming that a big pile of health-care paper will wind up there—won’t be anything close to Weiner’s single-payer dream, his role in framing the terms of the discussion has been more than salutary. In some non-obvious ways, you could argue that it’s been essential.
I should confess at the outset that I have a long-standing soft spot for Weiner, whom I first met more than twenty years ago, when he was a budding Chuck Schumer protégé and we played on the same Capitol Hill softball team. Weiner then was strikingly similar to Weiner now: amped-up, ambitious, wicked smart, forever gauging all the angles, unafraid of being (actually, proud of being) a royal pain in the tuchis. All the qualities, in other words, that have served him so well in the wrangle over health care.
(More here.)
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