...with a center-right friend of mine.
He recently asked me, after a diatribe about "paliamentary games", this question:
"So why the hell are the democrats bound and determined to avoid compromise?"
Here's my answer. I think I nailed it.
"(W)hy the hell are the democrats bound and determined to avoid compromise?", you ask.
Perhaps it's because they already have compromised away the core of what they want and already given the Republicans what they SAY they want.
To wit:
(1) Single-payer (the wet dream of the left) was taken off the table immediately, as no Republican would go near it.
(2) The public option, despite being popular with the American people, was met with howls of "socialized medicine" from the right, and "we can't afford it" from more conservative Democrats. A watered-down version passed the House, but wouldn't fly in the Senate. So THAT went bye-bye.
So now we're down to a totally private-market based solution - anathema to the left, and they're screaming bloody murder.
(3) Republicans want their ideas included - never mind they had 12 years to do something about this and never lifted a finger.
Their website (and a video from John Boehner) lays out 4 things:
(i)"let families and businesses buy health insurance across state
lines."
(ii)"allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to
pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the
same way large corporations and labor unions do."
(iii)"give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that
lower health care costs."
(iv)"end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by
increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians
sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but
because they are afraid of being sued."
Done. All 4. (i) is covered in Section 1333, which allows the formation of interstate compacts. (ii) is covered. This is the very purpose of the exchanges, as defined in Section 1312. Insurers are required to pool the risk of all the small businesses and individuals in the new markets rather than treating them as small, single units. That gives the newly pooled consumers bargaining power akin to that of a massive corporation or labor union, just as conservatives want. It also gives insurers reason to compete aggressively for their business, which is key to the conservative vision. (iii) is covered directly and explicitly by Section 1302 of the Senate bill.
As to (iv), the Senate bill proposes to deal with this in Section 6801, which encourages states to develop new malpractice systems and suggests that Congress fund the most promising experiments. This compromise makes a lot of sense given the GOP's already-expressed preference for letting states "create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs," but since what the Republicans actually want is a national system capping damages, I can see how this compromise might not be to their liking.
What Republicans want isn't a bill that incorporates their ideas. They've already got that. What they want is no bill at all, as evidenced by their dozen years of inaction.
Just how in hell are Democrats SUPPOSED to compromise with that?
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