There has been a lively debate for the past few days about whether or not progressives should work to block the passage of the current 'compromise' health care bill. The most visible spokesman for the 'kill-the-bill' camp has been Howard Dean, who argued in yesterday's Washington Post that 'the bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.'
Proponents of supporting the current compromise have based their arguments on Dean's contention, explaining the various ways in which it is better than the status quo. Their argument boils down to this: the current proposal will save lives and cut costs when compared with doing nothing, it will be improved in the years to come, and besides, it is the best bill we can get. Some variation of this argument has been made by Paul Krugman, David Axelrod, Bill Clinton, Kevin Drum, Steve Benen, Nate Silver and others.
They frame the options at this point as being between passing the compromise as it currently stands and passing nothing whatsoever. This is a false choice.
The question I'd like any of those folks to answer is this: If enough votes are lost on the left in the next few days to stall the process further, do you think the Obama administration will give up and let the bill die? If you are willing to concede that there is no way the administration would let the bill die like that, then framing the choice as 'current compromise or nothing' is disingenuous.
This dynamic is partially fueled by the way much of the media frames the debate. For example, when Senator Sanders insists on a provision being included or excluded Andrea Mitchell asks him if it is worth killing the bill for that one provision. But when Joe Lieberman insists on changes to the bill, using blatant falsehoods to make his case, Mitchell doesn't use the same line of questioning. Senate leadership plays this game as well, piling on sweeteners to attract the votes of 'moderates' like Landrieu, Snowe or Lieberman, while not doing the same for progressives who are reluctant to support the bill.
Regardless of all of that, my sense is that there is absolutely zero chance the White House would let the centerpiece of their domestic agenda fall by the wayside without more of a fight. If they lose enough votes from the left in either the Senate or the House, they will be forced to try a different strategy. Here are a few they might try:
- Apply pressure to 'moderates' to support a compromise that includes a public option or medicare buy-in provision.
- Send a pared-down insurance industry reform package (no discrimination for pre-existing conditions, no discrimination based on gender/disability, no lifetime caps on coverage, 90% medical loss ratio, etc.) to the hill, and follow that up by advancing a public option or medicare buy-in provision through reconciliation next year.
- A third possibility is that Obama would steer the bill to the right, in an attempt to pick up Republican votes to offset lost votes on the left. I think this approach would be highly unlikely, as it would probably trigger a significant backlash among mainstream Democrats, rendering it counterproductive.
One thing that is not among the possibilities is the Obama administration shrugging it's shoulders and giving up on passing a health care reform bill.
The real reason progressives should go on the record in opposition to the current compromise is to make the bill better. That is the choice liberal members of Congress actually face: 'accept the current compromise or use the only leverage you have to make the bill better by withdrawing your support.'
So again, at this late stage in the game, the White House is primarily interested in taking the path of least resistance. On their way to 60 votes they are glad to roll whoever it is they think will roll the easiest. Historically, this has been liberals and progressives. This is due to the fact that, traditionally, conservative proponents of the status quo have had all of the leverage. After all, it is really no skin off the back of a Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson if we don't pass a health care reform bill. Liberals in Congress, on the other hand, actually want the bill to pass.
Changing that precedent by having a small group of progressive members of Congress oppose this compromise from the left not only offers our only chance to pass a stronger bill in the near-term, but it dramatically alters the political dynamic for the foreseeable future. The White House's inability to take no bill as an answer provides progressives the leverage they need to pull this off.
Update: Polling just released by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee shows that the public opposes the current compromise 56%-33% and still supports the public option 59%-31%.
"This poll confirms that voters get it," Jim Dean, the head of DFA and the brother of Howard "kill the bill" Dean, emails. "The Senate bill doesn’t actually ‘provide’ 30 million Americans with coverage — instead it makes them criminals if they don’t buy insurance from the same companies that got us into this mess."
It is crunch time. Now is not the time to give up the fight for real reform.