Extreme elements of the GOP - and that's not even counting the teabaggers and birthers - had predicted that health care reform would be Barack Obama's Waterloo and that no bill would pass the House of Representatives. Last night proved that prediction wrong and now rational, thinking Republicans (what few remain in the party) are focusing on how the Party can regain its standing in the aftermath. Talk of repealing the the new healthcare act is probably untethered from reaility. Does any politician want to campaign on a platform that they brought back pre-exiating condition restrictions and cause individuals- including children - to lose coverage? David Frum, who is anything but a flaming liberal seems to understand the magnitude of the GOP defeat. Indeed, other than blowhard talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, he sees no conservative winners. Here are highlights from his column at CNN: *
What the hell do we Republicans do now? In the very short run, our course is obvious enough: There will be more votes on health care in the Senate, and we will vote nay again. But this is anti-climax territory. The decisive vote occurred Sunday night.
*
The "what next?" question pertains to the days further ahead, after President Obama signs the merged House-Senate legislation and "Obamacare" becomes the law of the land. Some Republicans talk of repealing the whole bill. That's not very realistic. Even supposing that Republicans miraculously capture both houses of Congress in November, repeal will require a presidential signature.
*
More relevantly: Do Republicans write a one-sentence bill declaring that the whole thing is repealed? Will they vote to reopen the "doughnut" hole for prescription drugs for seniors? To allow health insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions? To kick millions of people off Medicaid? It's unimaginable, impossible.
*
We should quit defending employment-based health care. The leading Republican spokesman in the House on these issues, Rep. Paul Ryan, repeatedly complained during floor debate that the Obama plan would "dump" people out of employer-provided care into the exchanges. He said that as if it were a bad thing.
*
Yet free-market economists from Milton Friedman onward have identified employer-provided care as the original sin of American health care. Employers choose different policies for employees than those employees would choose for themselves. The cost is concealed.
*
Wages are depressed without employees understanding why. The day when every employee in America gets his or her insurance through an exchange will be a good day for market economics. It's true that the exchanges are subsidized. So is employer-provided care, to the tune of almost $200 billion a year.
*
I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes, it mobilizes supporters -- but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.
*
Now the overheated talk is about to get worse. Over the past 48 hours, I've heard conservatives compare the House bill to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 -- a decisive step on the path to the Civil War. Conservatives have whipped themselves into spasms of outrage and despair that block all strategic thinking.
*
Or almost all. The vitriolic talking heads on conservative talk radio and shock TV have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests.
*
So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it's mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, however, the "Waterloo" threatened by GOP Sen. Jim DeMint last year regarding Obama and health care has finally arrived all right: Only it turns out to be our own.
*
It will be interesting to see if any Republicans follow Frum's pragmatic ideas or whether instead they follow the teabaggers and loons off the cliff and become irrelevant. My guess will be that the latter course is selected.
What the hell do we Republicans do now? In the very short run, our course is obvious enough: There will be more votes on health care in the Senate, and we will vote nay again. But this is anti-climax territory. The decisive vote occurred Sunday night.
*
The "what next?" question pertains to the days further ahead, after President Obama signs the merged House-Senate legislation and "Obamacare" becomes the law of the land. Some Republicans talk of repealing the whole bill. That's not very realistic. Even supposing that Republicans miraculously capture both houses of Congress in November, repeal will require a presidential signature.
*
More relevantly: Do Republicans write a one-sentence bill declaring that the whole thing is repealed? Will they vote to reopen the "doughnut" hole for prescription drugs for seniors? To allow health insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions? To kick millions of people off Medicaid? It's unimaginable, impossible.
*
We should quit defending employment-based health care. The leading Republican spokesman in the House on these issues, Rep. Paul Ryan, repeatedly complained during floor debate that the Obama plan would "dump" people out of employer-provided care into the exchanges. He said that as if it were a bad thing.
*
Yet free-market economists from Milton Friedman onward have identified employer-provided care as the original sin of American health care. Employers choose different policies for employees than those employees would choose for themselves. The cost is concealed.
*
Wages are depressed without employees understanding why. The day when every employee in America gets his or her insurance through an exchange will be a good day for market economics. It's true that the exchanges are subsidized. So is employer-provided care, to the tune of almost $200 billion a year.
*
I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes, it mobilizes supporters -- but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.
*
Now the overheated talk is about to get worse. Over the past 48 hours, I've heard conservatives compare the House bill to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 -- a decisive step on the path to the Civil War. Conservatives have whipped themselves into spasms of outrage and despair that block all strategic thinking.
*
Or almost all. The vitriolic talking heads on conservative talk radio and shock TV have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests.
*
So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it's mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, however, the "Waterloo" threatened by GOP Sen. Jim DeMint last year regarding Obama and health care has finally arrived all right: Only it turns out to be our own.
*
It will be interesting to see if any Republicans follow Frum's pragmatic ideas or whether instead they follow the teabaggers and loons off the cliff and become irrelevant. My guess will be that the latter course is selected.
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