ObamaCare: Night of the Living Dead Bill

posted at 3:30 pm on January 26, 2010 by Karl
printer-friendly

As in any B-grade horror flick, the creature never dies the first time:

The prospects of passing a comprehensive bill are perhaps lower than at any time in the year-long fight over reform. And yet despite those odds, Democratic leaders in both the House and the Senate are well aware that passing a comprehensive bill remains both a substantive and political imperative. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the options before them are both uncertain and complicated.

***

Hill sources tell TPMDC that leaders will continue to work toward a grand bargain: House and Senate leaders will huddle today at 4 p.m., House Democratic leadership will meet at 5 p.m. and then House leadership will hold a caucus meeting with rank-and-file members at 7 p.m.

***

A House leadership aide tells TPMDC that members will be presented with “three ways forward and that’s it. And none of them are really that good.”

The two-bill “sidecar” strategy is likely the most viable of these options (and the one getting support from SEIU and the Sorosphere). The problems with that strategy — and there are more than a few — are mostly political, including the practical the problem of keeping 218 Representatives and 50 Senators in lock-step, despite their mutual distrust.

Perhaps the larger problem for the Democrats at this juncture is that the reconciliation-based “sidecar” strategy has a very bad look in the current political environment. Vulnerable Senators like Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh can oppose using reconciliation to pass ObamaCare, because their votes would no longer be required. Such Senators will still have to fight the “voted for it before voting against it” charge. And more broadly, all of these Democrats will be fighting the image of a party now resorting to extraordinary measures to ram through a bill the public does not want. Indeed, complaining Dems like Lincoln and Bayh help cement that image. The debate — should it occur — will play out in an environment where 70% of the public thinks it is a good thing that the Dems lost their super-majority, Pres. Obama has lost the argument that heathcare reform will reduce the deficit, and expanding health insurance coverage is not in the public’s top ten priorities.

The “sidecar” strategy is a bad look. In politics, perception is often the reality.

—

Update: CNN’s Dana Bash reports: “Harry Reid just said there is ‘no rush’ on health care.Translation: we don’t know how to pass it yet.” Looks like the undead bill will continue to stumble aimlessly around the countryside for a while longer.

Blowback