Obama's Health Care Speech
So I think Obama's speech last night put the health care debate back on track. Further, Republicans made an embarrassment of themselves, and that is going to cost them a lot of traction.
The speech itself did what it needed to do: talked about specifics, and addressed the bevy of accusations being levied by the opposition. It clearly established the issue of Health Care as both a critical moral issue, and a critical issue of our nation's finances. It wasn't perfect-- I thought redressing concerns about Medicare could have been done more clearly-- but it was good.
Further, the Republicans last night shot themselves in the foot. There was the obvious faux pas of Congressmen Wilson shouting at the President last night. There was Eric Cantor typing away on his Blackberry. There was House Republicans waving about their 'alternatives' which were clearly just props (seriously, if there was a major alternative, Republicans have had months to frame it and talk about it substantially. Those packets might as well have been blank, for all they carried any significant meaning.) Finally, there was the weak official response by the party, which was just the same old talking points. It was obviously put forward in a perfunctory manner, a formality that no serious thought was put to. The contrast was stunning.
Overall, Congressional Republicans came off as petulant adolescents, in contrast to Obama's highly presidential, adult bearing. I think they played directly into the hands of the White House; I can only imagine that Rahm Emanuel must have gotten back to his office and did a little dance. The speech was designed to do one thing, which was to turn the tide of media criticism and coverage, to make the debate about policy instead of rhetoric. The White House couldn't have asked for a better framing than the petulance of the Republicans, and it's going to cost them, especially with Congressmen Wilson crossing the line.
To be blunt: Republican anger is an old story now. Throughout the recess, it was the big story-- more town hall protests, more defiant speech, more lies, etc. The media rode the story, but now it's old and tired. Now, I think the story will gravitate in the reverse; there's a great media story to be covered about the resurgence of the President against his critics, and perhaps ultimately about his triumph over them. That is one potentially for the history books, and it's a story that plays well in the media. America loves a comeback story, and last night, with the aid of adolescent behavior on the part of Republicans, Obama has effectively been positioned as the underdog, fighting the good fight against ill-intentioned cronyism and obstructionism.
One thing that is different about American politics than anywhere else in the world: when it comes to statecraft, at this moment I can't name a country whose rituals of state and etiquette of behavior carry more weighty decorum. Around the world, we see parliaments that get into fist fights, cynical maneuvers of Prime Ministers, but by and large the United States Congress, Supreme Court, and our President operate with a decorum that surpasses those of other states. Perhaps the only other body I can think of with as serious a tradition as that developed in the United States is Great Britain, which is undercut by the raucous cantankerousness of the British Parliment. Certainly if a British Prime Minister were to give such a weighty speech as Obama did last night to such a disparate Parliament, behavior such as the Republicans displayed last night would have been to be expected. But we're not the Brits, and the decorum which is expected of our lawmakers and elected officials is of a higher standard.
Last night, the Republicans threw that decorum aside to continue their obstructionist antics, and that's important. It will have an effect on the public debate about the matter. Throughout the entirety of the Bush years, the worst Democrats ever gave the President was mild booing. The behavior the Republican Party demonstrated last night showed complete disrespect for the seriousness of the charge of their offices. Even if Obama's speech had been lackluster, their behavior last night alone would have reopened the debate.
The speech wasn't lackluster, though, and it telegraphs some important things about how end game on this reform will likely play out.
The President has now come out clearly for some sort of public option. This is important for a couple reasons.
First, it will be difficult to accuse the administration of not doing so; effectively, this allows Democrats to circle their wagons with the progressives who were pulling away from the Party when it looked like the President wasn't going to fight for the public option. But he didn't commit to a specific plan, which means that there's room for negotiation. There will be a public option, but it might be a weaker public option than hard-line progressives might wish for. He clearly laid out the case for working with what we have, instead of a more radical shift. That will make it very difficult for hard-line progressives to buck the Party for not getting everything they want.
Second, it signals a lot about what the Baucus plan will look like when it is passed out of the Finance committee next week, and it telegraphs a lot of what Olympia Snowe talked about with the White House. While it wouldn't be total political suicide for the White House to commit to a public option, it would be very damaging. The White House team is too skilled to do such a thing, which means that they got Snowe to sign on to some form of public option and further got the Democrats on the Finance comitee in line. It means the Gang of Six is more like a gang of 4, given previous statements, but 4 is enough to pass the bill out of the Finance committee. There's a reason Obama confidently predicted last night that the Finance Committee version of the bill would emerge next week, and it's because having talked to the parties, he knows it will. He knows that bill will contain a public option.
Likely, that in turn means that Team Reform should be winning the media cycle through next week, and further maybe early into October. A Baucus plan with a public option cannot be taken as anything but a major victory for team Reform. That will make it easy to mop progressive support up given that the reason it strayed was weak support on the part of moderates for the public option. That in turn means that Obama's approval numbers will likely bump up, as a lot of his losses have been with progressives who were disappointed in what seemed to be the President's willingness to see the public option die.
Which all points to last night being the precise moment Obama should have inserted himself into the debate. There has been a lot of criticism that the administration was not involved as it should be, but a rebound in support at this critical moment may prove to be a political master-stroke. Clearly, the Obama administration has paid close attention to the Clinton administration's attempt to pass health care reform-- Clinton came out early and swinging, but that meant he'd spent all his ammo when the Republicans came back swinging with everything they had. This time around, the White House waited for the opposition to throw everything it had and the kitchen sink, and then stepped in. Now, Republican opposition is old news, while Democrats rejoining the fight is new news. Clinton took early ownership of his bill, and that set him in an adversarial position even against Congressional Democrats of his own party; by letting Congress frame the debate to this point, Obama now appears to be taking up the reigns to finish the job Congress started but couldn't finish, and that puts him in a much stronger negotiating position.
There's still a lot of work to be done.
A key thing about the Baucus plan will be the Congressional Budget Office's review of the bill. The problem with the legislation that is currently public is that the CBO disagrees with the White House's financial estimates for costs and such. If the CBO numbers come back better for the Baucus plan, that will take a lot of wind out of Republican sails. Good news: this is the Finance committee, and their staffs are better prepared for budgetary concerns, and more in the know about how the CBO does it's estimates. The Baucus plan is likely to score better with the CBO than the House Plan.
After the Baucus plan is released, then the bill goes to the Senate floor, and there will be a great number of Republican amendments proffered. The trick there will be to determine which amendments are actually good, and which are designed to weaken Reform. Passing a few Republican amendments is a good thing, but they have to be substantive contributions, not watering the reform down for promises of votes that will never materialize, and not pork up the bill either. That will be a laborious process in the Senate, and if the Republicans can drag it out long enough, it will look like the bill is losing momentum. The goal will be to get a few Republican amendments to pepper the bill with to make it more bi-partisan, and then to pass it expeditiously.
Once the bill passes, it will go to reconciliation with the House version of the Bill, and that will be very tricky, as it's looking like the Senate version will be very different. Likely reconciliation will move the ball to the left, which will then bring into question which if any Republican votes will be lost over the reconciliation changes.
The big question here is going to be the Blue Dogs. I think last night's speech positioned the President very much as a centrist, and laid out a centrist argument for the public option. It is clear that the President's focus will be on moderates like the Blue Dogs, and last night's speech very definitively placed the President as a player in the field. The Obama administration after last night has to take the ball to the endzone, and it will play rough with Blue Dogs that pose themselves as impediments to that goal. More, however, the President deflated a lot of reason for concern by the Blue Dogs. The main concern of the Blue Dogs was and continues to be ensuring that costs are actually reduced. Obama's made a clear case for why moderates should support the plan he laid out, and that will make it easy for Blue Dogs who want to get on the wagon with the President to do so. Further, Blue Dogs are going to want to get the hell away from the nasty churlishness on current display in the Republican Party. Finally, the Baucus plan is likely to be very centrist, and it will be difficult for Blue Dogs to position themselves against it without going over and standing with the outright obstructionists. That will open them up hardcore to primary challenges, and so they will have been manuevered quite handily into at least not oppossing the Baucus plan, if not actively supporting it.
All in all, things are looking really up for Health Care Reform.