POLLS SUGGEST AMERICANS FINE WITH RECONCILIATION
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The Republicans are predicting a doomsday scenario for Democrats should they attempt to pass health care legislation using the procedure known as reconciliation. My first thought, upon hearing this, was that means just the opposite, since you cannot believe anything a Republican says. The very idea that the majority of Americans really don’t want comprehensive health care is hard to entertain, despite the Republican spin, which paints the bill as something out of a Stephen King horror novel. As usual, of course, the G.O.P. has been caught up by the most recent poll which clearly indicates the American people not only want health care reform but they don’t care how it comes about, and that includes reconciliation.
Here’s some more fodder for the reconciliation argument: A new batch of polls by the nonpartisan Research 2000 indicates that in key states, majorities are okay with the use of reconciliation:
The polls — sent over by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, DFA and Credo, which sponsored them — ask the question this way:
If the Senate passes a health care reform bill that you consider to be beneficial to your family, would you object to the Senate’s use of “reconciliation” rules to pass that bill with a majority vote, or not?
In Nevada, 55% wouldn’t object; in Illinois, 67% wouldn’t object; in Washington state, 65% wouldn’t object; in Missouri, 58% wouldn’t object; in Virginia, 60% wouldn’t object; in Iowa, 66% wouldn’t object; and in North Dakota, 53% wouldn’t object.
The key here, obviously, is that the question casts the legislation as “beneficial to your family,” which of course makes it more likely that people will be okay with using reconciliation to pass it.
But that’s actually an illuminating point: It suggests that public opposition to reconciliation noted in other polls — such as yesterday’s widely cited Gallup survey — might be rooted more in opposition to the legislation than in opposition to the tactic itself.
The point is that public sentiment about reconciliation itself might not be anything Dems need to worry about. If the public opposes the use of reconciliation, it may be just be rooted in their opposition to the current, tainted legislation.
Bottom line: Congressional Dems who are skittish about using reconciliation have already voted for the legislation. So they may not have much to fear from also using reconciliation to ensure that the provisions in that legislation (which are going to be repackaged in any case) actually becomes law.
Cable news, however, has raced to draw a false comparison between this well-established process and a strongarm tactic known as “nuclear option” which progressives opposed in 2005. Once again, the MSM twists the facts to suit their thirst for sensationalism…..Michael J. Scott
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I remember that Michael Moore film ‘Sicko’ that filmed people without money being sent in a taxi regardless of how sick they were from their hospital bed to another hospital that would treat them anyway.
One old lady was dumped by the taxi and found wandering the street outside the other hospital in her nightdress.
I bet you would like a better health system!!
Everyone has put forth some reasoned yet passionate arguments, but I still firmly believe that we need to pass something now. There will be time in the future to think about adding a public option and etc. as long as have the numbers. However, if we fail to pass anything at all, the Republicans will have won, the elections will be disastrous for the Dems and health care will be dead in the water for years and years.
Very interesting, Osori. I had not thought of it that way, but it sure makes some sense of Obama’s frustrating behavior. He’s not a dumb guy, or a poor politican. I don’t know that I totally agree, but I’ll be thinking about your points.
Will,
I’m not familiar with Dr. Emanuel. I do know the CinC switched from Austan (AIG deserves the Nobel Prize for evil)Goolsbee to the comedy team of Summers and Geithner so it wouldn’t surprise me.
The smartest guy in the country on this topic is Dr. Ezekial Emanuel. Obama actually had him on as an advisor for a while. Unfortunately, based on this turkey of a bill the President has just put forward, it was advice that was clearly ignored.
Truth and Mike,
My gut feeling is the entire HCR process is Kabuki.
I know Obama is smart,one doesn’t make Harvard Law Review by being a dummy. I don’t buy the political naivete his supporters claim either. One can’t grow up black,attend Columbia and Harvard, direct a community organizers group, work as a civil rights attorney and become a US senator while believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Doesn’t add up.
The only thing to me that makes sense is his policy regarding HCR is deliberate. To use a PO strictly as a negotiating tool and delivering an insurance industry-friendly plan while looking to his legacy.
To believe otherwise would be to believe he continually makes the same mistake over and over again, attempting to compromise with what was an irrelevant opposition and never clearly enunciating his plans to the voting public. One would have to believe he truly doesn’t understand the necessity of a PO to HCR and the widespread support for it in the general public. The only entities opposing it are the Republicans and teabaggers who are irrelevant;the other opposition is the insurance industry.
So IMO that leaves two choices-either Obama is actually a stupid individual who bungled HCR, or he’s a smart MF who is doing exactly what the lobbyists paid him to do.
The danger Holte, is that Democrats are looking like a bunch of inneffectual pansies due to republican obstructionism.
The party in control always loses seats in midterm. We’ll lose far more when the base and independents decide to vote for a third party or stay home because they’re disappointed.
We need leadership from the White House and good followership from House and Senate Democrats. If a few butts need to be kicked that’s the way it is. If it costs us Ben Nelson’s vote or Blanhe lincolns, big deal. They’re not with us anyway. They took advantage of the party apparatus to get elected. If they don’t want to stay with us when votes aren’t an easy sell back home, screw em.
TRUTH – The months between now November are a political eternity, anything could happen, good or bad. Waiting till January 2011 to push on for a better end, is a gamble. OSO seems to think he never wanted the PO anyway. We are living in Guessland in the heart of Wishville right now. Obama is supposed to announce the way forward sometime next week. There has to be a way and it has to be forward.
President Obama and the Dems (and I mean that literally) have managed to screw this entire project up and let a few Republicans push then around for more than a year. November will prove that nice guys finish last.
Ditto Truth! I agree, we need to *update or backdate* the HCR bill… to what Pelosi’s folks had and add the public option or expand medicare / medicade. It’s just barbaric that we don’t take care of our People.
I think the majority of the country would like to see this. Don’t you? Do you really think folks are happy to allow the Republicans to succeed in trashing the best HCR bill we could propose? Teabaggers and rightwingnutters are very vocal but really marginal.
It has become very depressing. With this and the economy and job losses / no rehiring going on and damn little new business… the country is down, morally. )I keep wrapping it in white Light before I go to sleep… 🙂 )
We may agree or not here Mike. I for one am sick of these jive turkey republicans dictating what we do. If we have to wait till January 1st to have the senate stop the fillibuster rule so be it. A victory when the first prize is a turd is no victory. If Democratic legislators decide to quit because we didn’t win a turd then they need to be replaced.
The Democrats have given and given. The republicans are classic bullies. They won’t stop taking until they’re made to stop.
TRUTH – The big danger in waiting until January so as to change the Senate filibuster rule, is the mid-terms could change everything. The Republicans are getting what they want with 41 Senators, hate to give them an even greater edge, like a real majority.
Holte you are absolutely right. I was actually in a similar situation. I was once in a job I hated and I wanted out, not the job, but the place. Unfortunately I stayed because of the insurance and ended up retiring from that damn place. The American system is fatally flawed and I don’t see any real hope on the horizon.
Truth in principle I don’t disagree but in real time if we scrap the bill now there will never be another one. The Republicans will not vote for anything proposed by this administration and I guarantee neither they, nor the Blue Dogs, will ever vote for a public option. As to single payer, I don’t see that ever happening in America. Too much greed.
My big argument for years has been, the trap that is set by employers by offering health and vacation benefits. You can’t quit because you lose benefits, that is blackmail of the highest order. Your employer should not have anything to do with you or your doctor. Four entities are involved with a doctor visit: You, your doctor, your employer, your insurance. Your employer shouldn’t be in the equation. Of all the industrialized (G8) nations, the American working people are the most shafted on health care and vacation time.
Just a thought MadMike. The republcans are saying the Nation wants this health care bill scrapped and reform started over. They’re correct. This bill is a pander to big insurance companies with no competition to keep them from continuing to gouge us. Let’s start over with either a real public option or as I would far more prefer, a single payer system.