Legal Commentary

When The Health Care Reform Battle Was Lost: The Baucus Stall

By Big Tent Democrat

The moment is easy to spot - when Democrats allowed Max Baucus to delay delivery of the Finance Committee proposal in July.

Prior to that, President Obama had said earlier in July:

President Obama: Well, here's what I've said. We cannot delay any longer. [. . .] I think it was telling that some of you may have seen. A Republican Senator saying this weekend saying. "we're just going to delay and delay because if we can stop Obama on this, this is going to be his Waterloo. We'll break him." [. . ]. We are working as hard as we can and I've told Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi that it is critical that we see serious forward motion before people leave [for August recess.]

When Democrats allowed the Baucus stall, they effectively took reconciliation off the table, even though Obama said in July:

President Obama: Keep in mind that the way we had structured the reconciliation issue several months ago, we moved forward on the basis of the assumption that we can get a bill through the regular order and the regular process by October. If I think that that is not possible, then we are going to look at all of our options, including reconciliation. [. . .] And I remain confident that we can pass a bill in the absence of reconciliation. But I do think that the bottom line for me is give the American people a serious reform package that lowers costs, increases choices, covers Americans, improves quality, changes our delivery system in a way that's rational and makes our healthcare system a lot smarter and efficient than it is right now. And I think that's achievable and I continue to believe that there are enough people of good faith who want to see that happen that we're going to get it done through the regular process.

(Emphasis supplied.) Of course, at the same time, the Village Blogs were selling the idea that there was no need to worry what came out of the Senate because it would be "fixed" in conference:

[T]his is the clearest indication we've gotten that the White House sees conference committee as the focal point for its efforts. But that's the message. The audience for this call -- which I was not originally invited to, but was able to listen in on -- was mainly progressive bloggers, and so the underlying argument was that liberals should have some faith that a disappointing draft out of the Senate Finance Committee is not the end of the process, and they should not lose heart.

Most of us scoffed at that, and unfortunately, have been proven right. In hindsight, it is easy to see where the battle was lost - the day Democrats agreed to Baucus' delay in July. Any hope of getting a good bill through regular order evaporated once reconciliation was de facto taken off the table. And the reason why is the White House wanted a bill by Christmas - so that it could be trumpeted in the January 2010 State of the Union Address.

Once the July date slipped, the leverage was gone. Because getting a bill through reconciliation in time for the State of the Union was not possible after that date.

Was this done with the approbation and direction of the White House? We'll never know and it does not really matter. What is clear is that the Obama Administration and the Democrats in the Congress have failed on health care reform. Not because of the numbers. Because of a failure, intentional or not, to use the proper strategy for getting a good bill.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 15, 2009 (boomark / email).