Ezra humor for the day (and here is Marcy Wheeler laughing with me):

The health-care bill that looks likely to clear the Senate this week [. . .] is very close to the health-care bill that Barack Obama promised. [. . .] [T]here are, to be sure, some differences. The public option did not survive the Senate. The individual mandate, which Obama campaigned against, was added [. . .] Drug reimportation was defeated, and a vague effort to have government pick up some catastrophic costs was never really mentioned.

But other than that, EXACTLY the same. From the guy who spent the summer attacking Howard Dean for supposed "flip-flopping," this is damned funny. Look, the Senate bill will stand and fall on it own merits. And campaign promises are not worth the paper they are written on (NAFTA renegotiation anyone?) But this type of silly stuff does no one any good - not Obama, not Ezra, and not anyone else.

Speaking for me only

You beat him down in every war, you twisted every treaty, you bellied with his wife, you played mock the Monk . . . and then you made him love you for it. --The Lion In Winter

Some may think of my title as pejorative. I do not intend it to be because I think of politics and governing as the end result of societal bargaining. In essence, we make a deal on how we are governed. The deal making comes in many forms - but in a democracy, the key step is elections. The function of a politician and a statesman is to get elected by persuading enough voters that what they will do will be superior to the other choices presented (this leaves aside the entire question of what form of political structures are most efficacious.)

So what was the bargain that has been struck in the health bill? And what politicians delivered? We have spilled tens of thousands of words on the issues, but I think it can be summarized relatively concisely. I'll try to do so on the flip side:

Can't say I didn't warn you about Martha Coakley. The latest: a Bait and switch. During her campaign to replace Sen. Ted Kennedy, she said she wouldn't support a bill with restrictions on abortion.

Today, she announced her support for the health care bill with its restrictions on abortion funding.

Coakley then:

Coakley’s stand was a major point of debate during the campaign; several of her opponents criticized her for being willing to sink the overall health care bill over a single issue, but she insisted that there were some things on which she would not compromise.

[More...]

It seems Kevin Drum is not selling the "first step"/"starter house" line on the health bill:

I think everyone will be surprised at just how fast healthcare reform fades from the public discourse once it's passed.

Well, I do not know how many folks will be surprised, but I DO know a lot of folks are selling "the starter house" bit. The only way to make sure real health care reform remains on the political radar is to keep the one bargaining chip that will bring the insurance industry to the table - mandates - in play. Sunsetting the mandate is the most plausible way to do this.

Speaking for me only

This Steve Benen post is a wonderful example of how bad some Democrats are at the political game:

Jacob Hacker, the intellectual popularizer of the "public option" idea, argues that he "believes" in the Senate health bill as a step towards reform, yet argues:

If it does not deliver--if the new options offered through the exchange do not attract broad enrollment, if insurers continue to undermine health security with impunity--then the worst fears of progressives will come true. [. . .] And Americans will become increasingly disillusioned with the promise of reform.

[MORE . . .]

While Ed Kilgore has done a great job highlighting the fault lines on policy between Democrats and progressives on the health issue, there is another fault line in the discussion - those who think it is important that President Obama and the Democrats get to take a victory lap on the issue and others who think that holding a parade is counterproductive to better policy outcomes in the future. After all, if you have already "solved the problem," what else would you need to do? I think that a confluence of events has actually made this a false choice. It seems to me Tom Harkin has his the sweet spot with his "starter home" formulation. Nate Silver writes:

Paul Krugman:

[T]he Senate bill tries a wide variety of approaches to cost containment — in fact, just about everything that has been suggested. We don’t know which of these approaches will work or how well, but that’s more than anyone has managed to achieve ever before.

(Emphasis supplied.) Actually we know the approach that has worked historically in the United States to control health care costs, the public insurance option, was stripped from the bill. The bill does some good, but it does nothing meaningful in terms of cost containment. Weak stuff from Krugman.

Speaking for me only

Via John Cole, here comes Stupak:

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to a Senate compromise on the place of abortion in health care legislation this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, the Conference Catholic Bishops, and other anti-abortion groups, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO. The emails show that Stupak — who has so far remained silent on language accepted by Senator Ben Nelson (D. Neb.) and faces intense pressure from the White House to accept it — is already working behind the scenes to oppose the compromise.

While John goes apoplectic, I am not surprised. In a sense, Stupak is being principled. He wants to ban abortions being offered in the Exchanges. Nelson's "compromise" does not do that. We'll see what happens.

speaking for me only

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