{"id":262082,"date":"2010-02-01T14:02:05","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T19:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.35123"},"modified":"2010-02-01T22:11:55","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T03:11:55","slug":"health-care-git-er-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/262082","title":{"rendered":"Health Care: Git ‘Er Done!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, Jonathan Chait<\/a> responded to me, arguing that Democrats have already taken all the political hit they’re going to from passing health care, since each house voted for a bill. Of course, if Chait is right, then Democrats should probably do it–at least, if you think that democracy should put zero weight on the actual opinions of those slack-jawed rubes in the electorate.  But this logic seems highly questionable to me.<\/p>\n

Who are you more likely to leave:  the spouse who makes a pass at
\nanother woman, and then thinks the better of it, or the spouse who goes
\nthrough with it?  Maybe you’ll leave them either way.  But it does not
\nfollow that they are better off going through with it.  I don’t think it
\n is actually true that trying to pass a bill people hate, and then
\nthinking the better of it because it turns out the electorate hates it,
\nis no different from trying to pass a bill people hate, finding out that
\n they really, really hate it, and then ignoring them and pushing it
\nthrough anyway. <\/p>\n

Moreover, I am sort of amazed that anyone does
\nthink this.  The Republicans suffered a crushing electoral defeat after
\nfailing to pass Social Security reform.  But raise your hand if you
\nthink that their electoral prospects would have been better in 2006 had
\nthey managed to ram through a bill that was polling in the mid
\nthirties?  Okay, Karl, put your hand down.  The rest of us realize that
\nno matter how bad 2006 was, it could have been worse<\/i>.  And would
\nhave been, had the AARP been stalking the GOP with murder in its heart. <\/p>\n

This
\n applies equally to Clinton’s reversal in 1994.  Yes, he lost a bunch of
\n seats.  He could have lost more.  I find little evidence that the
\npublic prefers parties who do things they actively oppose, to parties
\nthat “can’t get anything done.”<\/p>\n

I am similarly underwhelmed by
\nthe notion that once we’ve passed the bill, it will somehow be easier to
\n sell “what’s in it.”  There is lots of information about what is in the
\n House and Senate bills, but the public has clearly not consumed that
\ninformation.  Why are they going to magically become more wonkish after
\nit passes?<\/p>\n

I find it easier to make the counterargument–that in
\ndistricts where the thing polls moderately well, it’s easier to make up
\npleasant characteristics for a bill that never passed, and then complain
\n that Republican obstructionism prevented us from realizing the dream. 
\nWhatever emerged from a Senate + reconciliation strategy will almost
\ncertainly be uglier than either the House or the Senate bills on their
\nown. <\/p>\n

Indulge me for a moment, and say the bill passes, and that
\nit polls where it is, or slightly worse, by next fall. That’s hardly a
\ncrazy supposition, considering the further deals that will have to be
\ncut to make it pass, and the fact that Republicans will happily make
\nprocedural hay about using reconciliation.<\/p>\n

Are Democratic
\ncandidates going to be out there campaigning on their awesome new health
\n care bill?  Hardly.  In most districts, their opponents are going to be
\n campaigning against it, and Democrats will defensively be saying that,
\nwell, you know, it’s not really that bad.  At least if it doesn’t pass,
\nthey can claim that they were actually voting to advance towards some
\nnever-never bill that was going to emerge from conference.<\/p>\n

There
\nis nothing good you can say about an actual bill that you couldn’t say
\nabout a bill that you voted for, but didn’t pass.  It’s true that this
\nis going to make campaigns hard next fall.  But at least now Democrats
\ncan say that they thought the better of it.  What’s their excuse if they
\n pass it?<\/p>\n

It’s true that if it fails, it will be subject to
\n“lengthy, painful postmortem coverage detailing its flaws and
\nmistakes.”  But you know who reads such coverage?  Me and Jonathan
\nChait, and we already have pretty strong opinions. If it passes, it will
\n also be subject to lengthy, painful postmortem coverage in the nation’s
\n “Your Money” columns.  As a veteran of reading those columns, I am
\npretty sure they are going to focus heavily on the fact that starting in
\n 2014, you will be required to buy health insurance, or pay a hefty fine
\n to the IRS.  It will also mention the subsidies, and so forth.  But the
\n very unpopular mandate is going to loom large, because that is, for the
\n sort of people who read “Your Money” columns, one of the most crucial
\npieces of information.  <\/p>\n

Finally, as they say in grief
\ncounseling, “Time is the great healer.”  Passing HCR at this point would
\n take place in what, March?  Moving it three months closer in peoples’
\nangry memories.  And meanwhile, taking up legislative time and energy
\nfrom the kinds of popular things that legislators like to pass in
\nelection years in order to sweeten their prospects.  <\/p>\n

I’m just
\nnot seeing it.  Of course, a pundit’s opinion about this tends to
\ncoincide pretty neatly with their opinion about the proposed reform
\nbills, so take that for what it’s worth.<\/p>\n



\n

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\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Jonathan Chait responded to me, arguing that Democrats have already taken all the political hit they’re going to from passing health care, since each house voted for a bill. Of course, if Chait is right, then Democrats should probably do it–at least, if you think that democracy should put zero weight on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}