( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
Dan Froomkin, in his inaugural post at HufPo nails the end game for health care reform. Froomkin, as some may recall, was terminated as the author of the WaPo's White House Watch Blog, a great spot for progressives to keep up on the Bushies:
...The Real Obama?
Eventually, however, a White-House brokered deal will emerge from the back rooms. And one of two things will happen.
One possibility is that Obama, to everyone's surprise, will come out with a strong bill much like the one he promised his supporters during the campaign. It is conceivable, after all, that the reason Obama hasn't publicly issued ultimatums and twisted arms and busted heads is that he believes it's best to do those things in private -- and only when the time is truly ripe. In this scenario, which I call the Obama-as-community-organizer scenario, the community's needs are finally met, but in a way such that even those who had thwarted the people's will are allowed to save face.
The other possibility -- well, I call that one the Obama-as-pushover scenario. In this one, Obama will come out of it having given away the store -- having neither significantly improved the health-care system nor lowered its costs, but rather having created a new entitlement that primarily benefits the health insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industries.
As we wind down our 2 year+ dalliance with health care reform here at LitW (I say that with tongue-in-cheek), I think that a good debate about the likely scenario I have been postulating will come true: this whole process will end up being decided behind closed doors in a conference committee in Congress. And that has been guiding Obama's strategy all along. But of course, anything is possible. Or it all may vanish in a big cloud of "poof."
So let's quit throwing the slime at each other, and reading each others' minds, and look at Obama's strategy of putting the whole success of his presidency, or his ability to sell a lack of success as something more than it is, on a conference committee full of corrupt politicians and lobbyists and 1/6 of the GDP (and climbing), and millions of people's lives on the line.
From vulnerable republicans' worries that they'll be pinned as being responsible for the demise of the bill if it gets killed, to democrats who will be vilified for having passed a weak bill, what does this process say about a country haven fallen in a "Quiet Coup" to crony capitalism and that true reform may no longer be possible -- indeed democracy itself is threatened?
Have away! |
