Ever since President Obama announced in his State of the Union address that he was interested in receiving good ideas from Republicans on health care reform, Democrats have wondered exactly what he meant. The House and Senate had, of course, already passed comprehensive health care reform bills (and had sought, even if not received, Republican input in both cases). Was the President calling for Congress to scrap those bills and start over? Did he favor passing a modified version of one of the two bills with more Republican ideas incorporated? Something else?
President Obama hinted a bit more about his preferred path forward at a townhall meeting late last week where he said:
The next step is what I announced at the State of the Union, which is to call on our Republican friends to present their ideas. What I'd like to do is have a meeting whereby I'm sitting with the Republicans, sitting with the Democrats, sitting with health-care experts, and let's just go through these bills -- their ideas, our ideas -- let's walk through them in a methodical way so that the American people can see and compare what makes the most sense.
Today, President Obama broke the news in an interview with Katie Couric that the meeting with Republicans actually will take place- on February 25- and will be broadcast on C-Span.
Politically, this feels like a good move for the White House. The televised conference will give President Obama yet another platform to make the case that the bills passed by Congress are overall good bills. Republicans will find it far more difficult to raise clearly false arguments against the health care bill (death panels, government control of patient choices, etc.) with the President in the room ready to rebut their claims. This effectively gives Republicans two courses to follow: 1) raise clearly false claims against the bills anyways (in an attempt to look strong, play to their base, and hope Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders stumble in their rebuttal); or 2) raise only legitimate concerns, negotiate to improve the bills, and try to appear reasonable.
Both paths are perilous for Republicans.
Politically, Republicans may be better off with option 1- raising largely false accusations against the Democrats and pushing for the process to start over. That plays well with their base, and an energized base is a donating (and voting) base. Many people won't pay attention to the media reports of Republican obstructionism anyways, so perhaps they can get away with it (and perhaps the Democrats will stumble in the meeting). That said, President Obama has already shown he is more than capable of responding forcefully and articulately to false Republican claims and making Republicans look silly in the process (Republicans are still licking their wounds from the House Republican Q&A session with President Obama from a few weeks ago). If Obama pulls off a similar performance, Republicans could come across as uninformed petty obstructionists- a media narrative hardly helpful to their cause. If Republicans do take this path, I expect Obama will shortly thereafter endorse the sidecar option, explaining Republicans have given him no plausible alternative. He may win that narrative, and if he does, Democrats could find the political will to push the sidecar option (some are reluctant right now because they think the public will view reconciliation as gamesmanship).
Functionally, Republicans may be better off with option 2- negotiating improvements to the bills. If Republicans raise only legitimate concerns, Obama will be forced to acknowledge the legitimacy of their concerns and push Democrats to modify the bill accordingly. Such a process could actually give greater legitimacy to the bill itself and a bill which may pass anyways without Republican support would then have Republican ideas incorporated (a functional improvement over the alternative). Sadly, I don't believe Republicans are interested in improving the bill. I think they only want to kill the bill (which they think, probably correctly, will improve their political prospects in the short term). Consequently, engaging Democrats on the bill could actually be harmful to Republicans in the short term. Republicans also must realize that some Republican Senators (such as Snowe or Collins) would have a hard time voting against a bill if some additional Republican measures were incorporated. Knowing all of this, I expect Republicans will not risk going down this road (how broken is the system when honest debate is viewed as unfavorable to one political party or the other). If Republicans follow this path it will either result in the bill passing with some Republican support (Snowe or Collins) or the Republican bloc will hold, no Republican Senators will support passage of the health care bill, and Obama could still push the sidecar option to circumvent Republican obstructionism.
Were I a betting man, I would guess Republicans go with option 1 (style over substance), but given the meeting is for half a day with the podium controlled by the President, they may be playing right into the White House's hands. Forcing the opposition to engage you on the merits is almost always a good idea when you are the majority party. The minority party rarely has any incentive to offer ideas on anything, which is why so often the minority party is labeled as the "Party of No." If you offer ideas, the public may not like them, or may just prefer the majority's ideas. If you don't offer ideas, but instead show why the majority's ideas are bad, you can become the preferred party by default. Governing is always harder than obstructing.
Of course, one Republican leader has offered an idea on health care reform- Congressman Paul Ryan (he is the ranking Republican on the House Committee on the Budget). Unfortunately for Republicans, Ryan's plan, while bold, would be politically disastrous for Republicans (which is why Boehner is distancing himself from the plan). The White House may go out of its way to invite Rep. Ryan to attend the forum which would have the effect of splitting Republican opinion on the best path forward (Ryan would certainly choose to engage on the merits and not on outrageous claims about the health care bills) and making the Democrats' proposals seem very reasonable in comparison.
February 25 will be a big day for both parties (and for those who really need health care reform). The analysis above is largely focused on political calculations (perhaps cynically viewing them as the driving consideration yet to be resolved), but hopefully the parties recognize that there are very real and important issues that need to be resolved in health care. People are quite literally dying because they can't afford life-saving treatments and insurance won't cover them.
President Obama has made this forum the next battleground in health care reform. Hopefully, it won't prove to be his Waterloo.
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