"Reform Often Withers In August".
Reform often withers in August
By Chuck Raasch
WASHINGTON — Now comes August, the black hole of American lawmaking.
President Barack Obama tried to push through health care legislation before Congress' traditional August recess for a reason. With members leaving town for vacations and town hall meetings, he could lose votes and momentum.
Other reforms have wilted in the August heat.
Cane-wielding senior citizens, angry over a new catastrophic care and prescription drug law, chased then-House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski down a Chicago street in August 1988. Congress repealed the law a few months later.
Four years ago, then-President George W. Bush took an August vacation from pushing Social Security private accounts. Opponents, including some now allied with Obama on health care, used the hiatus to batter Bush's idea, and he lost any momentum he'd built in the previous six months.
So it's no wonder Obama saw August as a deadline.
“Moving it forward as fast as you can is usually a good idea,” said William Galston, a domestic policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton during the health care fights of the 1990s. “It is just axiomatic that in our system, that doing nothing is a lot easier than doing something.”
Obama and Democrats in Congress claim they have made significant progress toward a final reform package. But opposition from Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats has pushed work to the fall, giving opponents time to marshal their forces.
Pollsters Celinda Lake, a Democrat, and Ed Goeas, a Republican, released a joint poll Wednesday that shows the public still has more confidence in Democrats than Republicans when it comes to improving the health care system. But the poll also showed rising concerns over Democrats' spending, and split verdicts on what reforms are necessary and who should pay for them.
A key point where Lake and Goeas agreed: Democrats haven't been clear enough on what's in the health reform plan for middle class and insured Americans.
The Obama administration, Lake said, “came out of the box too much talking about the uninsured and not enough about what the insured are going to get, and I think they are going to try to turn that ship around.”
Indeed, Obama traveled to Raleigh, N.C., and rural Bristol, Va., on Wednesday to talk, in part, about what his plan would do for those who have insurance.
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“Eighty percent of every voter group (is) satisfied with the quality of their health care,” Goeas said, although they're worried they're going to lose it.
He said Americans “have moved from a gracious ‘we'd like everyone covered on health care' position to one of ‘if you would bring down the cost of my health care …' maybe more of these people that don't have health care could afford it.”
August could look like a rip-roaring political campaign over care health reform, especially in rural areas where conservative Democrats have won elections and where federal reimbursement for Medicare and access to health care are big reform sticking points.
The battle is also likely to take place in congressional districts with lots of small business owners, who worry that any tax to pay for health reform could fall disproportionately on them.
Groups allied with Obama already are gearing up to run targeted radio, TV and Internet campaigns pressuring moderate Republicans, like Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, and conservative Democrats, like Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, to support reform. One group pressuring Snowe, Americans United for Change, is running ads comparing doubting Republicans to snails.
Groups that oppose Obama's plan as too costly and too heavy on government will weigh in on the other side.
The Republican National Committee already has run Web and TV ads attacking Obama's plan as a “grand experiment” that would put a sixth of the American economy at risk.
Some think Obama has a better legislative team than Clinton did when his administration tried unsuccessfully to reform health care, and has a stronger pro-reform movement rooted in his campaign's Internet following.
But some argue that it's inherently easier for opponents to energize their backers than it is for proponents to get theirs out, and that a national movement can be effectively trumped by targeted, intense opposition over the next month.
It may come down to which side can pack town hall meetings and flood wavering members of Congress with phone calls,e-mails and petitions over the month of August.
Chuck Raasch covers politics for Gannett News Service. His e-mail address is craasch@gannett.com.
By Chuck Raasch
WASHINGTON — Now comes August, the black hole of American lawmaking.
President Barack Obama tried to push through health care legislation before Congress' traditional August recess for a reason. With members leaving town for vacations and town hall meetings, he could lose votes and momentum.
Other reforms have wilted in the August heat.
Cane-wielding senior citizens, angry over a new catastrophic care and prescription drug law, chased then-House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski down a Chicago street in August 1988. Congress repealed the law a few months later.
Four years ago, then-President George W. Bush took an August vacation from pushing Social Security private accounts. Opponents, including some now allied with Obama on health care, used the hiatus to batter Bush's idea, and he lost any momentum he'd built in the previous six months.
So it's no wonder Obama saw August as a deadline.
“Moving it forward as fast as you can is usually a good idea,” said William Galston, a domestic policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton during the health care fights of the 1990s. “It is just axiomatic that in our system, that doing nothing is a lot easier than doing something.”
Obama and Democrats in Congress claim they have made significant progress toward a final reform package. But opposition from Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats has pushed work to the fall, giving opponents time to marshal their forces.
Pollsters Celinda Lake, a Democrat, and Ed Goeas, a Republican, released a joint poll Wednesday that shows the public still has more confidence in Democrats than Republicans when it comes to improving the health care system. But the poll also showed rising concerns over Democrats' spending, and split verdicts on what reforms are necessary and who should pay for them.
A key point where Lake and Goeas agreed: Democrats haven't been clear enough on what's in the health reform plan for middle class and insured Americans.
The Obama administration, Lake said, “came out of the box too much talking about the uninsured and not enough about what the insured are going to get, and I think they are going to try to turn that ship around.”
Indeed, Obama traveled to Raleigh, N.C., and rural Bristol, Va., on Wednesday to talk, in part, about what his plan would do for those who have insurance.
Advertisement
“Eighty percent of every voter group (is) satisfied with the quality of their health care,” Goeas said, although they're worried they're going to lose it.
He said Americans “have moved from a gracious ‘we'd like everyone covered on health care' position to one of ‘if you would bring down the cost of my health care …' maybe more of these people that don't have health care could afford it.”
August could look like a rip-roaring political campaign over care health reform, especially in rural areas where conservative Democrats have won elections and where federal reimbursement for Medicare and access to health care are big reform sticking points.
The battle is also likely to take place in congressional districts with lots of small business owners, who worry that any tax to pay for health reform could fall disproportionately on them.
Groups allied with Obama already are gearing up to run targeted radio, TV and Internet campaigns pressuring moderate Republicans, like Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, and conservative Democrats, like Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, to support reform. One group pressuring Snowe, Americans United for Change, is running ads comparing doubting Republicans to snails.
Groups that oppose Obama's plan as too costly and too heavy on government will weigh in on the other side.
The Republican National Committee already has run Web and TV ads attacking Obama's plan as a “grand experiment” that would put a sixth of the American economy at risk.
Some think Obama has a better legislative team than Clinton did when his administration tried unsuccessfully to reform health care, and has a stronger pro-reform movement rooted in his campaign's Internet following.
But some argue that it's inherently easier for opponents to energize their backers than it is for proponents to get theirs out, and that a national movement can be effectively trumped by targeted, intense opposition over the next month.
It may come down to which side can pack town hall meetings and flood wavering members of Congress with phone calls,e-mails and petitions over the month of August.
Chuck Raasch covers politics for Gannett News Service. His e-mail address is craasch@gannett.com.
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