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Adaptation

• Noam Scheiber

  

  Noam Scheiber

  Senior Editor

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  • Adaptation
  • Greek Tragedy
• March 22, 2010 | 9:27 pm

Earlier this month, in a profile of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, I identified two tactical mistakes the president had made while trying to pass health care reform. The first was his extensive efforts to reach a bipartisan deal—in particular, allowing Montana Senator Max Baucus to negotiate with Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee through most of the summer before weighing in. The second was Obama’s decision to attack insurance companies late last July after months of trying to co-opt them and other powerful groups. "At the same time the administration was bashing insurers, it sought to preserve deals with drugmakers and hospitals," I wrote. "The new attacks sent mixed signals not just to the interest groups, but also to the public at large."

Now that a comprehensive health care reform bill is on a glide path to enactment, it’s worth asking if these criticisms still hold up. The answer, I think, is mostly yes, but with some important qualifications.

Start with bipartisanship. In retrospect, it appears that Baucus's Republican interlocutors--first Chuck Grassley, then Olympia Snowe--either were never really serious about cutting a deal or, more likely, came under so much pressure from their GOP colleagues that they couldn't cut one even if they wanted to. Whatever the case, the effort to court them was, as Emanuel's friend Paul Begala put it to me, akin to hunting unicorns beyond a certain point. In fairness, it was extremely difficult to discern Grassley's and Snowe's true intentions at the time--they certainly seemed sincere to people involved in the negotiations.(That's why I suspect the real obstacle was Republican pressure, not their own preferences.) Still, allowing the negotiations to continue through September rather than intervening in July, as Emanuel would have liked, exacted a real cost. It's entirely possible that reform could have passed well before the special election in Massachusetts if not for this frustrating interlude. Which would have avoided the subsequent near-death experience and enabled the administration to move on to other business. For that matter, it might have even denied Scott Brown the oxygen for his upset victory (by taking the focus off process and allowing Democrats to defend the bill on the merits).

Having said that, I don't want to imply that bipartisanship per se was a bad idea, or even counterproductive in practice. The journalistic accounts of health care's resurrection--like this one in The New York Times and this one in Politico--seize on the president's bipartisan health care summit as a turning point, and I agree with them. But the summit entailed a very different strain of bipartisanship than the one Obama embraced last summer. Rather than try to reach an actual compromise with Republicans, who'd long since demonstrated their intransigence, Obama deftly used the event to show that his openness to Republican ideas wasn't being reciprocated. This was a final straw in convincing wavering Democrats they'd have to go it alone if they wanted a bill, and it gave them a rationale for doing so in the eyes of voters. (My colleague John Judis and The American Prospect's  Mark Schmitt have made variations of this point.)

As Emanuel himself told The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza last year, "The public wants bipartisanship. We just have to try. We don't have to succeed." For much of the year, Obama focused too much on the "succeeding" part. The summit was only about being seen as “trying.”

The attack on the insurers is a bit more complicated. As both the Times and Politico stories make clear, another key turning point in the health care fight was the news that Anthem Blue Cross, a California insurer, planned to raise premiums by over 30 percent this year--a fact the administration used to great effect in making its closing argument. The proposed premium hikes nicely distilled the Obama indictment of the current health care system. But the data point would have been unavailable had the White House resisted attacking the insurers, something Emanuel advised in internal discussions.

Still, the timing here is critical. [snip]

[SNIP]

[snip] The beauty of the Anthem news is that it came during the home stretch of the second push for health care. Had the administration waited until the home stretch of the first push before turning on the insurers--say, November rather than July--it might not have needed a second push. (Emphasis added)

Fortunately, one of the real virtues of this White House is its ability to adapt--the Obama high command rarely makes the same mistake twice. Round two of health care reform proved that it learned the lesson of its misguided bipartisanship, and that it had developed a much keener sense of timing. If the last two months are any indication, health care reform may only be the beginning of a string of big accomplishments. (Emphasis added)

Noam Scheiber is a senior editor of The New Republic.

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Continues @ TNR.com


You and I know, I am no fan of Pres.Obama.  I have no personal animosity against Pres.Obama.. and am always willing to give him credit if he does good.

I have to admit that the President has managed to salvage the situation since January. 

When I saw the news on Anthem Blue Cross notice to CA increasing insurance cost by 39% and later Secy. Kathleen Sebelius article quoting similar increases in many other states including as high as 50%+ in Michigan, I knew they had the levers needed to push the right buttons and make the case... they used it quite well... but the timing of all of that was quite important to their adaptation to the circumstances they found themselves in after January.  The rate increases came just in time for the final push they needed.

They did adapt..  and perhaps they will adapt more. There is always some hope of that.

Now, if they adopt MORE of Hillary Clinton's platform (as they have been forced to with respect to Iran) in other things as well, perhaps this WH may do ok.   Never forget, the country is mostly Centrist.  The Clintonite Median voter and bell curve of the nation DOES HOLD in the long-run. Always go on the side of sharing more information - it will come out sooner or later... definitely will come out BEFORE the election.  Democracy has a way of winning; I have full faith in that, because on the average, most people have good brain and good heart.

I hold big hopes for BIG accomplishments... but dont give me any CRAP & Trade, Please!  There are other ways to achieve energy independence and save the environment goals than creating another fake "asset."  I dont mind "clean coal" initiative that comes with solutions - I read one recently in NY Times - a new invention of turning carbon emission into bricks - that would be good.  Solutions are needed - listen to Hillary's approach and you might do ok.

-- Edited by Sanders on Tuesday 23rd of March 2010 01:35:51 PM