Reid Tells Max Baucus to Hurry Up
Harry Reid's getting impatient (official photo)
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has been searching far and wide for some Republican support for a health reform initiative. That’s involved big-picture structural ideas like dropping a public option from the bill, and also small stuff like throwing reproductive rights under the bus. That would be frustrating if it was working, but at least if it was working you could say it was working. But thus far, there are no Republicans singing Baucus’ praises. And Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) with whom Baucus typically prefers to work has said things like “I take pride with being an obstructionist” in terms of killing a public option while offering no constructive ideas.
And now Roll Call reports that Harry Reid (D-NV) is telling Baucus to wrap it up:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday strongly urged Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill. [...] According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.
This strikes me as a major vindication of Chris Bowers’ “progressive block” theory. By building a critical mass of progressive legislators who are prepared to walk away from a deal that doesn’t include a public option, the leadership either needs to find a big block of Republican support for a more moderate measure, or else include the public option.
24 Responses to “Reid Tells Max Baucus to Hurry Up”
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July 8th, 2009 at 9:19 am
I think Republicans might accept a compromise in which everything stayed the same, except Medicaid was reduced. We might have to throw in give-aways to insurance and pharmaceutical companies … and issue a public apology for the 2008 election results.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:23 am
There is no Republican support for any bill. Any bill that passes would be Obama and a Democratic congress taking action, which is bad for Republicans. Any bill that doesn’t pass would be Obama and a Democratic congress failing to act, which is good for Republicans. That’s the only analysis that matters to Republicans.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Seriously, this is the best news I’ve heard in weeks.
There might even be a certain wisdom to the way this has been played. Let the moderates exhaust themselves trying to put together a bipartisan compromise. Don’t fight it. Then, after they’ve failed, tell them to pack it in and vote for cloture.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:33 am
That’s involved big-picture structural ideas like dropping a public option from the bill, and also small stuff like throwing reproductive rights under the bus.
I’m amused, but unsurprised, by the fact that pretty much no supporters of a government-run healthcare program seem to have thought through the fact that one of the consequences of such a program would be that women’s reproductive rights are going to be made subject to the whims of the half-dozen or so most reactionary U.S. Senators. To paraphrase Dubya, “Heckuva’ job, Dems!”
July 8th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Republicans would be ready to accept a $1 trillion health care bill if it was all subventions to the insurance companies, and allowed guns in hospitals.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:45 am
pretty much no supporters of a government-run healthcare program seem to have thought through the fact–
Uh, no. That’s been talked about plenty. Thanks for dropping by, Dropping By.
I mean, it’s not as if the current state of affairs doesn’t make women’s reproductive rights subject to some of the dumbest reactionary turds in the US, i.e. GOP state legislators and governors.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Dirty Max doesn’t care about bipartisanship. Baucus cares about his high dollar, for-profit health care donors. Many firms have no, as in zero facilities in Montana.
Dirty Harry knows this and offers a diversion of the underlying perversion.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:53 am
It’s unfortunate that taxing health benefits is a deal-breaker for some Dems. It’s a giveaway to the rich, and encourages people to get expensive plans, rather than take compensation in cash, pushing up healthcare spending.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Uh, no. That’s been talked about plenty.
Really? Until the NARAL post yesterday, I hadn’t seen one word about it.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I wouldn’t agree Bowers has ownership of this strategy, but yes, the Republicans’ kneejerk opposition actually strengthens the hand of the “progressives” in Congress. And now with Franken in the Senate and the progressives feeling their oats, it could get interesting.
It’s unfortunate that taxing health benefits is a deal-breaker for some Dems. It’s a giveaway to the rich, and encourages people to get expensive plans, rather than take compensation in cash, pushing up healthcare spending.
It is a union thing, of course. And a cynic might suggest encouraging compensation in the form of benefits and not cash just happens to help unions (as organizations, versus helping their members).
The good news is that this is one of those things that should be easier to revisit once a robust public option is in place.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Really? Until the NARAL post yesterday, I hadn’t seen one word about it.
Well, given that it’s the status quo, how much talk would you expect? It really isn’t a new issue or unique to the proposed health care reform at all.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I would say the problem with Bowers theory remains the same; it might be true that a Progressive Bloc can block passage of legislation that doesn’t include things they want, but it also remains true that it can’t force less progressive members to support bills with those things in them. If progressive Senators block one version of a bill, and a gorup of 4 or 5 conservative Democrats block the progressive version of the bill, then you’ve simply got an impasse, and the side that’s going to win will be the side that is more willing to see the status quo prevail. I’ve yet to see Bowers explain, for example, how this idea would work on something like cap and trade, where even a relatively robustly progressive bill that got through the House would never be able to get through the Senate, progressive bloc or not. And that’s fine, because Bowers is an activist masquerading as a commentator, so he’s going to going to be about as intellectually honest as a campaign spokesperson on cable television, but there’s no reason everyone else should pretend the world is that rosy color as well.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:36 am
A progressive block? Didn’t know we had one.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Brien Jackson,
You are right this strategy won’t work on cap-and-trade, where no bill at all would at least be an acceptable outcome for too many congressional Democrats. But it does work on health care, where the congressional Democrats collectively have way too much to gain from getting a bill passed (and too much to lose if they fail) for no bill at all to be acceptable.
Incidentally, the White House can actually influence which of these categories bills fall into. Specifically, if the White House stakes enough of its reputation on getting a bill done, it makes it more likely the congressional Democrats will conclude that no bill at all isn’t an acceptable outcome. Again, even that won’t work for something as dicey as cap-and-trade, and it wasn’t really necessary in the case of health care reform, but it could have an affect on other future cases.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Really? Until the NARAL post yesterday, I hadn’t seen one word about it.
You’ve been looking in the wrong place: there’s been plenty of discussion about how it was only a matter of time before the GOP started grandstanding on abortion in relation to healthcare reform. That’s a given: the GOP could grandstand on abortion for a bill concerned with soy subsidies.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:47 am
[...] to be clear, I don’t think this is some arbitrary change of heart on Reid’s part. Like Yglesias, I think this is what the Senate looks like when a real Progressive Bloc stands firm and threatens [...]
July 8th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Maybe some committee chairs will be shaken up, since a lot of them seem to be obstacles to party agenda.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:27 am
“You are right this strategy won’t work on cap-and-trade, where no bill at all would at least be an acceptable outcome for too many congressional Democrats. But it does work on health care, where the congressional Democrats collectively have way too much to gain from getting a bill passed (and too much to lose if they fail) for no bill at all to be acceptable.”
I don’t think that quite works either. Namely, a Progressive Bloc would presumably be subject to the sae pressures of getting a bill passed, so the question in a hypothetical impasse isn’t so much whether or not one side wants the status quo to prevail so much as it is which side is more willing to let it prevail if they don’t get what they want. More specifically, if you get a showdown between a progressiv bloc and Mary Landrieu/Ben Nelson, the side that’s going to win is going to be the side who is more willing to see no bill pass at all, because they’re going to have less incentive to blink in the name of getting something passed.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Brien Jackson,
I don’t think that Chickenesque scenario is how the game is going to played among repeat players who are members of the same political party. Rather, I think the more likely resolution to this conflict is that the Democrats will end up striking what they view as a reasonable compromise among themselves.
But that, of course, is a huge relative victory for “progressives”. They won’t get exactly what they want (nor should they, from a neutral perspective, since they don’t have the numbers to pass legislation by themselves). But they will be compromising with marginal Democrats, as opposed to the marginal Democrats compromising with Republicans, and the difference in outcomes is likely to be quite significant.
July 8th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I love that there’s an official photo of Harry Reid getting impatient.
July 8th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Brien, the Progressive Block strategy as outlined by Chris Bowers presumes that the legislation is considered must-pass by the President and the Congressional leadership. Maybe it’s must-pass because the alternative is a government shutdown or a break in the military supply chain; maybe it’s must-pass because failure would severely diminish the President and doom the remainder of his agenda. Either way, the strategy presumes the bill is “too big to fail.”
In this case, the contest between progressives and conservatives is not over who can live more comfortably with the status quo. It’s over who gets targeted by the leadership and the President for the whip operation, which will continue as long and hard as necessary until the needed votes are in place.
Another element of the strategy is that there must be a clearly defined benchmark to which progressives can publically commit. The commitment (hopefully) innoculates the member against the whip operation — “Sorry, I’d love to give you my vote, but I’ve made a public commitment to vote no on anything without a robust public option.”
The idea is to get the leadership and the President to whip the hell out of the conservadems instead of the progressives. If the conservadems are fewer in number than the progressives, and/or they can’t point to any public commitment to vote a particular way and hence can only defend crossing the leadership and the President as a matter of personal preference, then (the theory goes) it’s progressives who’ll get concessions and conservadems who’ll get whipped in increasingly uncomfortable ways.
July 8th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
[...] Reid Tells Max Baucus to Hurry Up – Matt Yglesias [...]
July 8th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Re: one of the consequences of such a program would be that women’s reproductive rights are going to be made subject to the whims of the half-dozen or so most reactionary U.S. Senators.
Even the worst case scenario there leaves Roe vs Wade completely intact, and women free to have abortions as long as they pay out of pocket. Which most do anyway already. Abortion is, in most instaces, an elective procedure, like lipo or nose jobs. Most insurance doesn’t cover that sort of thing. (For the record I’m OK with leaving elective abortions out of the public plan, but not with regulations preventing private insurers from paying for it if they choose to)
July 9th, 2009 at 11:11 am
[...] that the Senate offers a senior Senator like Baucus. This is Reid’s test. Talk isn’t working. If Reid fails, I cannot see how he has much credibility left as Majority [...]