Legal Commentary

On The Health Bill, The Truth Will Out

By Big Tent Democrat

And it has regarding the division between proponents of the Senate bill and Senate bill skeptics. Scott Lemieux writes:

I think Nate Silver's decimation of the reconciliation dodge is definitive. Granted, I roughly share his ideological priorities [. . .]

(Emphasis supplied.) Of course, having established himself as a proponent of the regulatory reform framework, there is little reason to read any more of Lemeiux's post. It ends up being a confession, much like President Obama's yesterday, that he did not really care one way or the other about the public option. Silver's "decimation" is really just an argument for the "regulatory reform framework" over the public insurance reform framework:

I think that the Senate's bill is quite a lot better than the status quo, and quite a lot worse than the ideal. I also think that the inclusion of a weak public option -- which is really all that was on the table -- would have made very little difference. A robust public option would have made more impact, but is still a long ways from the optimum policy. [. . .] If your lone objective were to end up with something that you could call a public option, then yes -- reconciliation offers some possibility of that. But I don't see how you're likely, on balance, to wind up with a better bill -- losing the guaranteed issue provision alone would probably outweigh the inclusion of a public option.

Silver, as usual, is disingenuous in his framing of the issue. But then so have been most all of the participants in the debate. Of course a public option was not "the lone objective," but it was a central and essential part of the main objective of many - to set in motion public insurance reform.

For proponents of the regulatory reform framework, the public option mattered not at all. As someone who believe the regulatory reform framework is doomed to failure, losing the regulatory reforms is as meaningless to me as losing the public option is to them.

In the end, the truth will out - as President Obama and the supporters of the "historic" Senate bill have been smoked out - they never cared about the public option - they were not against it, but they did not care if it was included or not. And vice versa for the public option supporters, they were not against the regulatory reform on offer - but they did not care if it was included or not.

There is of course one aspect of the Senate bill both sides agree on - expansion of Medicaid eligibility. Interestingly enough, this is a public insurance reform and it is the easily the most proven and cost effective reform measure in the entire bill and would be even if a public option were included.

One clear advantage for reconciliation would have been the ability to have an even larger expansion of Medicaid eligibility. The only advantage that following regular order presented was the ability to enact regulatory reforms. If you value them and do not value public insurance, then this Senate bill was definitely for you. If you did not value them and wanted a further expansion of public insurance, then reconciliation was the way to go.

And this was always true. Which leads to my ultimate objection to the regulatory reform supporters -- they were never honest about the fact that they did not care about the public option. Now with President Obama's public repudiation of the public option, the truth will out - neither Obama nor his cheerleaders in the Village blogs ever cared about a public option. Well, they got the bill and the reform they wanted. For them, this is a historic bill. If it fails, they will have no excuses. Of course, 10 years from now, no one will remember these arguments, but the Democrats will pay the price politically, both now and in the future, if it fails. Let's hope the Village bloggers are right this time.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).