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Out of context: Reply #8758
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Somehow, though, health reform is not dead. Despite all of the setbacks and all of the missed opportunities--despite this train wreck of a month--the situation remains remarkably similar to what it was before the recess. Significant health care legislation is likely to pass, particularly if Obama manages to give a good speech on Wednesday night. And while the possibilities for what that legislation might accomplish have certainly diminished, mostly for worse, it’s not clear how much they have diminished--and to what extent progressives may yet have the power to change that fact.
Here is where the debate stands, based on interviews with about a dozen key players spanning the administration, Congress, and broader reform community:
Things certainly weren't looking this promising as recently as ten days ago, when the status of legislation remained precisely what it was before the recess. Four congressional committees had passed health reform bills, but the fifth and perhaps most crucial one--the Senate Finance Committee--remained stuck. Chairman Max Baucus hadn’t been able to forge a consensus within the “Gang of Six,” the bipartisan group he’d convened to hammer out a bill that could claim at least some Republican support. This was said to be crucial because Democrats needed a few Republicans in order to get the 60 votes necessary for breaking the inevitable filibuster. Trying to use the reconciliation process, in which filibusters can’t block a simple majority from passing bills, was said to be impractical and too divisive.
But then the reality about the Gang of Six started to set in, particularly at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Mike Enzi and Charles Grassley, two of the three Republicans, made clear through statements and actions they wanted no part of reform--that their goal was to stop Obama's proposal from becoming law. That prompted terse dismissals from the White House, which focused all of its energies on the third Republican, Maine’s Olympia Snowe. As my colleague Suzy Khimm has reported, Snowe has been negotiating about health care in good faith. By all accounts, she wants a bill and she wants a good bill. And if her notions of a good bill don’t always gibe with those of liberals, they’re closer than those of some Democrats, including some of her colleagues on Finance.
The White House made clear that it saw Snowe as a partner--and that it was willing to write a bill with her, even if it had to do so itself. At the same time, White House allies started talking about the reconciliation process--not to dismiss it, as they had before but to suggest it might work after all. Key players inside the administration and on Capitol Hill began suggesting in background conversations that reconciliation, although not ideal, could produce meaningful legislation. (One knoweldgeable source challenged the prevailing wisdom that the parliamentarian would knock out provisions to create insurance exchanges, a crucial piece of reform.) Nobody was talking about it as a first choice option. But the change in tone was unmistakable and, I assume, not at all accidental.
Most of these developments took place last week, culminating in perhaps the most intriguing news of all: Baucus was finally offering legislative framework to the Gang of Six. He distributed that framework over the weekend with a request for feedback before Obama's speech on Wednesday--a clear indication that he realizes his window for action is closing.