Obama and fighting the last war on health care

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Fighting the last war. Everyone knows it's wrong, yet everyone does it.

Had Obama done exactly what Clinton did it would probably have worked.

Obama should have presented a fait acompli plan, demonized the insurance industry and led with a veto threat if his whole plan wasn't adopted.

Obama had a real mandate. He captured the public imagination in ways Clinton did not, was elected to do something big in ways Clinton was not and governing an electorate far better prepared for something to protect them from the insurance industry.

On the other hand, had Clinton teased Congress into doing whatever they felt up to it might have resulted in some half-a-loaf measures that would have made life a tad less hellish for a few folks in the intervening 17 years.

In a game with such a multiplicity of variables, if we assume that there are more ways to screw something up then there are to get it right then avoiding the conventional wisdom view of the last guys' mistakes (which is usually wrong anyway) is probably a way to find a new way to lose rather than finding the one way to win.

(Yes, there will be a HCR bill, and yes it may be better than the worst we can imagine. But only Dr. Pangloss could think it will be the best possible bill that we could have had under the circumstances.)

[ProSense]

1. Some people must be smelling defeat. Anyway, Clinton disagrees with you

Clinton: On the Defeat of His Own Health-Care Plan

Clinton said he pleaded with Congress to write a bill, but they refused

It's a good thing Obama didn't follow the media's advice on how to pass health care reform