Speaker Nancy Pelosi on ABC's This Week once again repeated the usual Democratic talking points; I don't want to be repetitious in my posts on the issue of health care. If I hear one more time how the Democrats, who have repeatedly called the GOP obstructionists, the "Party of No", no ideas, etc., now claim that it is illogical for Republicans not to vote for the bill because it's full of Republican ideas: no, it's not a Republican bill. The Republican bills do not add a trillion dollars to the national debt and don't leave federal bureaucrats second-guessing state insurance regulators, micromanaging the health care industry, expanding Medicaid (including a related unfunded cost share on states, essentially shifting costs), and adding to a minimum basket of required health care insurance provisions by administrative fiat--not to mention over 2000 pages of poorly understood details that offend the very concept of the rule of law.
But Nancy Pelosi wants to give us a civics lesson as well in terms of discussing the nuclear option, i.e., budget reconciliation process, a frequent critic of the Senate's filibuster rule, essentially calling it anti-democratic. Let's remember the purpose of the filibuster:
So the filibuster has it constitutional origins in the ability of each house of Congress to set its own rules. It has its origins in the framers in that they saw the Senate as a place where extended debate and discussion would have a cooling effect on the actions of the more "heated" House. And it has its origins in the concept ingrained in our political system that the rights of the minority must be protected from the force of the majority.In fact, there are other specific circumstances in the Constitution which require a Congressional supermajoirty, including overriding a Presidential veto, approving a treaty, removing a President from office, and initiating Constitutional changes.
The difference between Democrats and Republicans lies more in the nature of what has been done, which border on an abuse of process. The Democrats initiated the current adversarial nature of Supreme Court nominee confirmations by attacking a distinguished jurist, Robert Bork, going far behind the traditional criterion that a President was entitled to his choice of a properly-qualified jurist; the end result is that nominees now obfuscate their philosophy and refuse to discuss any legal question of substance which might come before the court. The Democrats later tried to make advise and consent a de facto supermajoritarian event in the Bush Administration, blocking highly qualified jurists from floor votes.The filibuster was intended to protect minority rights on matters of policy and force the majority to negotiate in good faith with the minority. Now we have the case of a budget reconciliation process, which was a Byrd-modified exception to make easier, e.g., politically unpopular spending cuts, being used to enact major policy. This is manifestly a perversion of Senate rules; if you set up a precedent to move major policy in this case through reconciliation, you've essentially done away with minority protections in Senate rules.
The Republicans have a problem with the concept of a trillion-dollar bill with taxes and mandates, potentially impacting popular private-sector health care coverage, during a weak economic recovery and the nation already drowning in debt. We don't see any real attempt of the Democrats to compromise with the GOP on more narrowly focused issues and solutions, e.g., strengthen and expand existing state/regional high risk pools to provide affordable coverage on a state cost share basis; provide catastrophic insurance for extraordinary medical conditions; extend reinsurance to insurers in exchange for waiving benefit caps; etc.
Now a month after Scott Brown was elected as US Senator #41 against the corrupt Senate health care bill and numerous national polls showing the existing reform legislation does not have majority support--not narrowly but by landslide proportions, the Democratic leadership is in a state of denial: they insist they won't negotiate and aren't going to spend another year working out a bipartisan measure (even if we are talking about a trillion dollars). It's not that the Democrats were unaware of how difficult the process of achieving health care reform can be, but they deliberately fashioned a partisan bill.
Nancy Pelosi is telling her Democratic colleagues to vote for the bill as a matter of conscience, even if they represent a red district or state. There are rumors that Obama may be retooling the package, maybe lowering the price tag and throwing in tort reform and allowing interstate marketing of health insurance policies. But here's what we know for sure from the existing state of affairs: (1) Obama is pushing for a vote, even if it becomes an issue in this fall's election; (2) the short time frame of that vote shows there's no serious consideration of bipartisan compromise, beyond Obama's directed modifications; (3) Obama has refused to rule out reconciliation, and the only reason you would work it through reconciliation is because you know you can't get the 60 Senate votes, even with Obama's modifications.
A Note From Last Week's Hannity Post-Summit Show
Frank Luntz often does voter panel work for Fox News. Last Thursday's Hannity show included a voter panel of 13 McCain supporters and 11 Obama supporters from 2008. There's no need to rephrase what's in the clip except to note that the Republicans did not come across to the group as unreasonable and seemed to be there in good faith, the Democrats came across as dismissive of Republican inputs and more concerned with scoring political points, less than a third came away with a positive view of Obama's performance during the summit, and less than a handful of participants were supportive of any effort by the Democrats to try to ram the health care bill through reconciliation. But if the point of the summit was to expose the GOP as right-wing obstructionist bogeymen and to gain public support and momentum for ramming the same plan through on a reconciliation basis, it failed.
I don't want to overgeneralize from such anecdotal evidence. But one thing Obama seems to be overlooking was that many, especially independents, thought he would be a unifying force, not a divisive one. His dismissive attitude during the summit gave voters a rare inside look at what the Republicans have been dealing with all along. I think Republicans still have to make a case they have learned their lessons since losing power in the 2006 elections, but the Democratic attempts to shove this bill through reconciliation is a political death wish.
Quote of the Day
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford
Political Cartoon
Nate Beeler shows what happens when the government runs health care (legislation). The death panel is the American voter.
Musical Interlude: Rain Songs
Neil Sedaka, "Laughter in the Rain"
Johnny Rivers, "Summer Rain"
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?"
