The coming (Democratic) victory on health-care reform

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I think TNR's Jon Chait, like his colleague Jon Cohn, has done some fantastic work writing on the health-care reform issue, and one of his latest posts at The Plank is worth quoting in full:

The biggest story in health care reform this year has not been the town hall meetings, or President Obama's big speech on health care. It's that the Senate Democrats have decided they're going to pass a bill. You just haven't heard much about this story because it’s mostly taken place behind closed doors.

Yesterday's Roll Call has some details. Here's what I think is the key passage:

As a fallback, Senate Democratic leaders have stepped up their pressure on centrists to stick with the party on procedural votes. At a minimum, leaders have asked all 60 Democrats to allow them to bring a health care bill to the floor in order to make sure Republicans cannot filibuster it.

Democratic Senate aides familiar with the thinking of Conference moderates said centrists want to vote for a health care reform bill -- even one that is politically problematic -- because it appeals emotionally to their inner Democrat.

A month ago I wrote that it's nearly impossible to see health care reform failing because it would entail a Democrat voting to filibuster the central progressive goal of the last sixty years. That proposition was looking shaky for a while because there were some Democratic Senators who acted as if they actually wanted to kill health care reform. (Hi, Senator Conrad.) But they're all now pretty clearly acting like they really want to pass something.

It's very strange. We've had months of sturm and drang, and massive attention focused on the question, Whither health care reform? It's just quietly turned into a fait accompli.

I hope he's right -- and I think he is. Though I worry about the remaining holdouts -- Nelson, Lincoln, Landrieu, etc. -- I do think Democrats will ultimately pull together to overcome a Republican filibuster, meaning that there will be a vote on the floor on a reform package likely with a public option component (given that Reid seems to be committed to it now).

And I think a lot of this shift has to do with Obama's re-entry into the fray with his address to Congress, as well as, and even more significantly, with his campaigning behind the scenes. Some centrist Democrats may think that coming out against reform benefits them politically, given that they represent heavily red states and need to prove their conservative bona fides to win re-election, but I actually think the reverse is true. Swing voters in their states won't vote against them if they oppose reform, they'll vote against them if Democrats fail, and if Obama fails, that is, if they fail to get things done, notably with respect to health care and the economy. What good would it do for them to campaign essentially on a record of voting against Obama and their own party? Would their constituents actually reward them for that? Unlikely. Much better, it seems to me, to side with Obama and their party, and to hope -- and it's a reasonable hope -- that the economy continues to stabilize (and perhaps begins to show signs of improvement) and that health-care reform (with a public option) proves to be as popular as the polls suggest it might very well be (once people get past the Republican lies and actually understand what's in it for them, and for the country).

What I wonder is how much Obama's huge political machine, the one he built so successfully during the campaign last year, plays into this. Surely these holdouts know that a vote against Obama could be a vote against their very political survival. After all, in return for their support, Obama could unleash his machine in support of them in their re-election efforts. But if they were to vote against the sort of robust reform package Obama seems to want, and that the overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats are pushing for, including the leadership? Do they really want to sacrifice Obama's support, and everything his machine can bring them, just to try to win over some of their Republican-leaning constituents?

But let's not get ahead of ourselves -- or, rather, let's tone down our expectations. Democrats may "want to pass something," but it's not entirely clear what they a) want to pass, and b) will be able to pass. All we have to go on, as of right now, is a lot of talk, a lot of internal party division, and reform proposals, like Baucus's, that are hardly all that desirable.

So while I think Chait is right, and while my optimism is going strong, I still have my nagging doubts. There is still so much to be done, and the opposition is fierce.