Prior to the outbreak of Tea Partiers in August 2009, the Senate Banking Committee had completed their version of the health care bill, and it included a public option. The same was true of the the three House committees with jurisdiction over the bill. All that remained was for the Senate Finance Committee to complete their end of the deal. But, as the administration had known from the winter, there were Democratic holdouts on the Finance Committee and absolutely no Republicans to make up for them. Basically, there were Democrats who would not vote for a bill that had no Republican support. That’s why so much effort was made to court committee members Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
The problem? They not only opposed the public option, they opposed the entire bill. In Grassley’s case, he wasn’t fighting on any principle, but because he didn’t want to stick his neck out.
Just before [Grassley] returned to Iowa, he met with [Nancy] DeParle for another strategy session.
“If we do everything and resolve all the policy issues the way you want, with no public plan, do you think you’ll be able to support the bill?”
Grassley looked away. “I don’t know.”
Grassley went to the Oval Office for a similar conversation with the president and his fellow Republican and Democratic negotiators. He asked Obama to say publicly that he would sign a bill without a public option of a government-run plan. Grassley believed this would be a reasonable, minimal demonstration of Obama’s desire for a bipartisan deal. But the president declined to confront his own party base so explicitly. Obama asked Grassley the same question DeParle had posed: With every concession he wanted, could he support the bill?
“Probably not.”
“Why not?” asked an exasperated Obama.
“Because I’d have to have a number of Republicans,” said Grassley. “I’m not going to be the third of three Republicans. I’ve defined a bipartisan bill as broad-based support.”
So, we had a handful of Democrats who wouldn’t stick their necks out to support a public option without significant Republican support, and a handful of Republicans who wouldn’t support any bill at all without significant Republican support. That’s what the president faced in the lead-up to the August recess. And, remember, the president did not have 60 votes until late September (and that only lasted until January).
That’s what the Party of No Strategy was able to accomplish. Then Grassley went home to Iowa and covered himself in glory.
Americans should be scared of provisions in a health care bill currently in the U.S. House because it will allow the government to have a say in end-of-life decisions, Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 Wednesday morning.
“In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life,” Grassley said. “You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma”
The conspiracy theory of the government deciding who lives and dies has been making the rounds of late, gaining momentum after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a message on her Facebook saying President Obama’s health care plan might kill her child who was born with Down Syndrome.
The portion of the House health care bill in question was written by Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia. It would require Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling sessions, which would be voluntary. Isakson told The Washington Post that it is “nuts” that anyone would look at the language of the bill and conclude it promotes euthanasia.
His punishment? He was reelected with 65% of the vote. Six More Years!
Again, why were those dems on the finance committee allowed to threaten to filibuster their own president? That still seems to be the mystery of the whole health care debate. Procedural votes aren’t substantive votes. If GOP senators can fall in line, why can’t our side?
What keeps me up at night and really worries me about Obama is those anecdotes that leaked of Obama pleading with Lieberman and the other conservative democratic to not filibuster HCR BASED ON THE MERITS of the bills- if those accounts are true, he’s incredibly naive and has a tenuous grasp on the political environment.
That is like saying that he has SOME GRASP on the politics.
You have no evidence of that. Obama is really one of the worst I have ever seen about actual deals.
The party of no strategy only worked because Lieberman, Bayh, Baucus and the other conservative dems enabled it to work. From the accounts I’ve read, Obama was cool with the conservative dems threatening to filibuster him- I guess having people in your own party betray you is part of “the world as he finds it.” Of course, Republicans get to make the world we live in through practicing politics, but Obama’s better than that, he’s “post-politics” because Will.I.Am wrote a song about him.
They won’t get elected in their red states by being pro President Obama. They don’t need him to fundraise for them. Bayh (not on finance but still a filibuster threat) wasn’t even planning on continuing his senate career.
The mistake progressives have made since the 2008 election is assuming there is a strong Democrat majority. There wasn’t and there has never been. There has been a week coalition with every Democratic senator having veto power.
Obama can threaten and threaten and people like Baucus and especially Bayh can just ignore it. Every reach out for bi-partisianship was in my opinion the President trying to negotiate with the hold outs in his own party.
that’s weird- I didn’t know that these guys had absolutely no need for anything whatsoever from the executive branch (which Obama and his cabinet are in charge of) or any favor or request that could be granted by Obama or Reid.
Step 1. Find out what the conservative senator’s top ask is.
Step 2. Give it to him/her on the condition he never breathe the words “health care” and “filibuster” in the same sentence ever again.
But that also meant things like the Cornhusker kickback and no public option and progressives howled long and hard about both of those.
Obama should have bought the conservadems off in August and the progressives should have realized that was the price for getting healthcare legislation through.
I should have modified my first statement and said they didn’t have enough leverage over them to get what the blogosphere wanted – the public option. They had enough leverage to get a decent bill through faster.
Now on the current tax cut debate I don’t think there is enough leverage to get Bayh to do what we want him to do.
i agree with that. the key is to do this stuff quietly and quickly if you are going to do it all. and again, all that speaks to Obama’s failures as a politician. its not about “being too involved” or “not involved enough” in the legislative process- its about acting decisively, its about being a leader. Sure Obama would have pissed off progressives by bargaining away the public option, but guess what, you can make it up to us! Recess appoint Elizabeth Warren, push for repeal of DADT, fight for EFCA, make Booman Ambassador to France- that’s politics, all of this stuff is fungible and you hold all the cards.
And Obama, as head of the party, can commit to building party infrastructure, such as the 50 state strategy, that helps prevent future Ben Nelson’s. The fact that you have to deal with the “world as you find it” is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m reminded of what Bobby Kennedy said: “some people see the world and ask why? and others see the world and ask why not?”