I agree with Ezra Klein in every particular. But, most of all, winning should feel better than this. I think it is important politically that the House win some progressive concessions on this bill in their negotiations with the Senate. I truly hope the White House understands this. Now that the Senate has passed its version of this legislation, for the first time since the HELP Committee completed its work in July (while Kennedy was still alive), the leverage has shifted to the left. Every day since July this bill has grown weaker. It is now time to make it stronger. The base demands it, and the base needs a shot in the arm after witnessing this sausage-making process. Yes, move on to working on job creation, but make this victory a bit more savory. The outcome of the midterms will depend on it.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
As a recent open heart surgery patient (covered by my health insurance), I can assure you that “winning” will feel better for those whose lives will be saved once this legislation kicks in, imperfect as it is.
Same here. I’m not a heart patient (although given the family history that could be down the road) but I am diabetic, and that’s going to be affecting everything that happens to me health-wise for the rest of my life. I’ll sleep much better knowing that I can get insurance and not be turned down for pre-existing conditions — and when you have diabetes, pretty much everything is a pre-existing condition — so I can afford the medications that are keeping my blood from tearing me up from the inside out.
Me too. I’m unemployed and going through a divorce and I have pre-existing conditions. Doesn’t everyone over 35 or so? Some strange mole looked at? A hospitalization or two?
I swear if I had known that seeking treatment for things like depression and asthma would handicap me for the rest of my life I might have just toughed it out. It’s a shame the system operates that way and hopefully whatever health care bill finally gets signed by the president will fix that.
The base demands it, and the base needs a shot in the arm after witnessing this sausage-making process. Yes, move on to working on job creation, but make this victory a bit more savory. The outcome of the midterms will depend on it.
And who in the White House will point this out? Axelrod? I’m not so confident of that.
I’m not really confident of anything, but I’m generally taking what I hope is at least a somewhat reasonable long view of things.
The bill is nowhere near what I’d like, and Booman’s right that we should get some concessions in Conference.
But I think this bill is going to do a lot of good. We all get wrapped up — rightly, to a great extent — in fights about things like the public option, taking the whole of the package into account in some good ways. But not in others. And I think sometimes we take it to much as being something that we must get exactly right in the here and now and forget that, regardless of what this bill looks like, the average person and family without insurance really needs help and needs it now.
They don’t care how it gets done, just that it does get done. I think Obama could’ve done a lot better here, but in the end I think it remains the case that on the whole we won the ideological fight against the conservatives. It could’ve been almost infinitely better, but it also could’ve been a helluva lot worse.
And that average guy is finally going to get some help. Down the road, we may look at it as the beginning of one of the greatest achievements in American history.
Lotta work to be done, though.
Perhaps the main function of the “public option” was to give moderates something to grandstand about – fighting state encroachment of the private sector – whilst at the same time voting for a bill which represents substantial progress for those who need it most – even if it doesn’t address the fundamental dysfunctionality of a profit centred patient “healthcare” system.
Perhaps so. I haven’t the slightest idea of whose position is what in reality in all of this. But if I, or anyone, did, it would make negoatiations problematic.
Again, it’s not a good bill (depending, I guess, on how we define “good” in the sausage-making process). But I think it’ll be workable.
I think it is important politically that the House win some progressive concessions on this bill in their negotiations with the Senate.
A few improvements will make a few(!) progressives happy. But, more importantly, the House needs to push back against the 60th Senator dictating the bill for its own sake. Otherwise it will only be going through the motions of legislating, without really affecting the outcome. I was glad to see the President’s answer about the filibuster in the NPR/PBS interview.
And I’d like to point out this from Ian Welsh:
http://openleft.com/diary/16709/with-friends-like-democratic-congresspeople
Kinda sums it up really
We finally got enough money to afford that trip to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse (60 vote Senate) and when we get there the only thong on the menu is tofu products (insurance reform) instead of the world-class steak (health care reform) that we were expecting. It may be healthy and maybe even good for us, but no matter how much you season it it’s still tofu and we have been longing for steak.
Disappointment and disillousionment are inevitible…
Thing, not thong…
.
I’ll tell you what has resonated over the last 48 hours: Harkin’s notion that the so-called public option might be revisited next year and passed through reconciliation. In all the parsing of the options on the table, I don’t think I ever saw anyone spell out this one: get what you can through regular order now, however weak, and then come back later to nail down, through reconciliation, the harder parts. It makes sense. Booman, would appreciate your assessment of how this plays politically.