Salon.com

Friday, Mar 26, 2010 04:01 EDT

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Five lessons from the healthcare fight

WASHINGTON -- OK, so healthcare reform is done. What's next?

Looking at the push for President Obama's top domestic policy priority yields some clues for how Democrats and the White House will deal with legislation between now and the November elections. The healthcare bill was pronounced dead over and over again, as passage slipped to more than a year after the White House first gathered lawmakers, lobbyists and activists to talk about reform that everyone said had to happen quickly. But each time, it staggered back to life. Could the same thing happen with financial reforms, stalled climate change legislation, or an immigration reform bill that pressure is mounting to pass? Here are five lessons the healthcare debate might teach about how to move forward with difficult policies in an election year.

1) Forget bipartisanship. [snip]
2) Use the bully pulpit. [snip]
3) Don't play defense. [snip]
4) The House and Senate shouldn't be enemies. [snip]
5) Take the long view. [snip]

But the cable news pundits turned out to be wrong. And suddenly, now that the bill has become law, it's getting more popular. The lesson here is one of perseverance. Democrats still have big majorities in both houses of Congress (at least until November). If they want to keep them, they can't give up on their priorities when they run into trouble. Instead of getting sucked into the chatter of the 24-hour news cycle, focusing on the endgame can help bring it about.

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I disagree with 1, 2.  3 should not apply if they truly play bipartisan on BOTH sides.  I agree with 4 and 5.

It would be very wrong for Dems to learn the wrong lessons from the HCR bill's passage - the number of uncovered was way too big and was growing way too fast; people were loosing coverage willy nilly and too rapidly. People were having to make extremely difficult decisions on dropping coverage, etc.  There were MANY forces at work that enabled them to pass the bill not all of which apply to their other proposals... say crap & trade. No way!

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 26th of March 2010 06:47:12 PM