For alternative takes on the general subject discussed below, check here.
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Mr. Emanuel, as quoted in an article on the front page of today’s NYT, New York edition:
“The Republican leadership … has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day.”
I fear he’s right. Elrod posted a response, concluding:
There are some issues in politics where bipartisan consensus simply does not exist. This August has only driven that point home. It’s time for Democrats to use the majority that the American people put in place last November.
And this is my problem with the Republican Party leadership … make that, problems, plural, with the Republican Party leadership.
First, they buried what I and others would consider legitimate concerns about some of the reform proposals in a thick layer of hysterical, fear-mongering garbage; the now infamous “death panel” representing what is perhaps the most egregious example of said garbage.
Second, in the face of potential compromise, GOP leaders have apparently decided not to compromise: at all. And that just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for the assumed majority of Americans who believe protections like these are critically needed. And it doesn’t work if you claim your office is less about politics and more about public service and sound policy.
If GOP leaders were primarily concerned about public service and sound policy, they would not only acknowledge the writing on the wall — i.e., that some type of reform will be passed — they would respond to that writing on the wall by developing and embracing a type of reform that offers the “most good” with the “least bad,” as they define those terms.
Healthcare co-ops are probably that type of reform; they are likely the best compromise the GOP can muster in the current situation. But now, high on the fumes of the stink they’ve managed to raise over the last several weeks, Republican Party leaders seem poised to look this gift horse of a compromise in the mouth and walk away, leaving the Dems (after making paper-thin compromises to mollify the Blue Dogs) free to pass legislation that codifies their much-ballyhooed public option.
If that’s what happens, and if the public option proves as disastrous as GOP leaders have predicted it will be, then the GOP leaders will have nobody — repeat: nobody — to blame but themselves.
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Post Script: For the public-plan proponents who have doubted the strategy of the Obama team — who have questioned the President’s strength and commitment to progressive principles — I hope you will (should the public option become law) acknowledge the gigantic egg on your faces. Intentional or not, the Administration’s decision to lean hard to the co-ops idea might very well be characterized by historians, years from now, as “pure brilliance.” Think about it: Obama and his HHS Secretary send strong signals that co-ops are firmly on the table, just long enough for GOP leaders to say “hell, no,” prove their craven obstinance, and give the Dem majority all the cover they need to pass the law they wanted to pass all along.
Granted, if accurate, this scenario might suggest to some that the D leaders are no different than the R leaders; that both place a greater value on politics than they do on public service and sound policy. Perhaps. Or maybe the D leaders are simply better, this time around, at playing politics in order to implement their vision of public service and sound policy. Either way, they win.