Five lessons from the healthcare fight
How the White House and Democrats in Congress can build on the momentum they've got now
By Mike Madden
Salon.com
WASHINGTON -- OK, so healthcare reform is done. What's next?
Looking at the push for President Obama's top domestic policy priority yields some clues for how Democrats and the White House will deal with legislation between now and the November elections. The healthcare bill was pronounced dead over and over again, as passage slipped to more than a year after the White House first gathered lawmakers, lobbyists and activists to talk about reform that everyone said had to happen quickly. But each time, it staggered back to life. Could the same thing happen with financial reforms, stalled climate change legislation, or an immigration reform bill that pressure is mounting to pass? Here are five lessons the healthcare debate might teach about how to move forward with difficult policies in an election year.
1) Forget bipartisanship. The initial plan with healthcare was to put together a grand coalition; industry would join with advocacy groups, Democrats would join with Republicans, and everyone would live happily ever after. That all started to fall apart after last August, as angry rhetoric at congressional town hall meetings freaked out Democrats and left no doubt that the GOP would stick to "no."
In the end, no Republicans in either the House or Senate voted for the healthcare bill that ultimately passed (and only one House Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, ever voted for it). Senate Democrats spent months trying to pick off a GOP vote or two, the way they had done on last year's stimulus bill, perhaps forgetting that they'd already spirited one of those GOP votes into their own caucus. Republicans have already made it clear that they're not that interested in handing Obama any victories; just this week, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., lamented his party's failure to work with the Democrats on financial reforms. If there's no way to get Republican votes, don't expect Democrats to try too hard for them. And after it turned out the budget reconciliation process worked just fine for healthcare, don't expect Democrats to worry too much about procedural arguments in the future, either.
(More here.)
By Mike Madden
Salon.com
WASHINGTON -- OK, so healthcare reform is done. What's next?
Looking at the push for President Obama's top domestic policy priority yields some clues for how Democrats and the White House will deal with legislation between now and the November elections. The healthcare bill was pronounced dead over and over again, as passage slipped to more than a year after the White House first gathered lawmakers, lobbyists and activists to talk about reform that everyone said had to happen quickly. But each time, it staggered back to life. Could the same thing happen with financial reforms, stalled climate change legislation, or an immigration reform bill that pressure is mounting to pass? Here are five lessons the healthcare debate might teach about how to move forward with difficult policies in an election year.
1) Forget bipartisanship. The initial plan with healthcare was to put together a grand coalition; industry would join with advocacy groups, Democrats would join with Republicans, and everyone would live happily ever after. That all started to fall apart after last August, as angry rhetoric at congressional town hall meetings freaked out Democrats and left no doubt that the GOP would stick to "no."
In the end, no Republicans in either the House or Senate voted for the healthcare bill that ultimately passed (and only one House Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, ever voted for it). Senate Democrats spent months trying to pick off a GOP vote or two, the way they had done on last year's stimulus bill, perhaps forgetting that they'd already spirited one of those GOP votes into their own caucus. Republicans have already made it clear that they're not that interested in handing Obama any victories; just this week, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., lamented his party's failure to work with the Democrats on financial reforms. If there's no way to get Republican votes, don't expect Democrats to try too hard for them. And after it turned out the budget reconciliation process worked just fine for healthcare, don't expect Democrats to worry too much about procedural arguments in the future, either.
(More here.)
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