Friday, July 31, 2009

Health Care Bracketology

At this point I'm having a lot of trouble understanding how the various players in the health care negotiations regard the deals they're making -- for example, the Gang of Six deal in Senate Finance, and the Waxman-Blue Dog deal in House Energy and Commerce that was subsequently renegotiated with progressives.

All these agreements are subject to multiple stages of future modification and renegotiation. People are just trying to get bills out of the last committees right now, and they'll have to be blended with bills from other committees of their chambers before they pass the House and Senate. And then there'll be amendments on the floor. And then, after things pass both chambers, there'll be conference committee the House and Senate bills are reconciled. That's when Obama plans to make his big play and push the legislation in the direction he wants. There's a huge question of whom the negotiators in conference will be. The bill that emerges from conference will end up being the final product.

So if you're a Progressive renegotiating deals with the Blue Dogs, or Mike Enzi making a deal with Max Baucus, what do you expect to come of it? Do you have any confidence that anything you've agreed to will be in the final product? Are you just hoping to push the final bill a smidgen in the direction you prefer? To politically position yourself in some way or other? To make yourself seem like more of a significant legislative player who can't be left out of future reindeer games? I'm sure it's some mix of this stuff, but I have very little sense what the proportions are.

3 comments:

Mary said...

Meanwhile, I have a friend who recently broke her ankle in two places. She was counting on a trip to China to teach English to pay her rent this month (the trip would have been paid for by the college at which she was to teach), but of course she didn't go because of the accident. Fortunately, a doctor has agreed to do her surgery for free, but she doesn't know how she's going to pay her emergency room fee. She is not eligible for Medicaid because she made 20,000 dollars last year. I am really, truly starting to hate these people and their gamesmanship.

Petey said...

"So if you're a Progressive renegotiating deals with the Blue Dogs, or Mike Enzi making a deal with Max Baucus, what do you expect to come of it? Do you have any confidence that anything you've agreed to will be in the final product? Are you just hoping to push the final bill a smidgen in the direction you prefer? To politically position yourself in some way or other? To make yourself seem like more of a significant legislative player who can't be left out of future reindeer games? I'm sure it's some mix of this stuff, but I have very little sense what the proportions are."

You do whatever the WH tells you to do. You are a soldier, not a general.

That's where all the roads of this particular reindeer game lead...

Neil Sinhababu said...

Sorry to hear, Mary. I imagine it's little comfort to your friend, but you know what they say about laws and sausage. And what you have to blame here isn't so much the individual people, but our horrendously bottlenecky system for passing legislation. No modern democracy requires legislation to pass two houses (one with a 60% requirement), a series of committees, and a president who can block stuff with a veto. That's why we can't set up a good national health care system like other countries do. For all the greatness of the Founding Fathers, the thing they designed makes it really hard to do things that meet the needs of a changing society.

Petey, I'm sure that's what some of the players are doing -- the Progressive Caucus, perhaps. But obviously, not all. (For example, not Mike Enzi.)