Braveheart!  The Obama Final Push on Health Reform

This is a momentous week for health reform.  The President’s proposals this morning do not appear to be game changing.  Rather, by making the bill more expensive and proposing direct federal regulation of health insurance premiums, he seems to have tacked to the left to  shore up his own base. If the goal was to rebrand “health reform”, this morning’s package doesn’t get it done.  It is a pastiche of cautious tweaks, with one modest populist call-out to a frustrated Democratic left wing still pining for a “public option”.

On Friday, the Newsweek poll  found that crucial independent voters OPPOSED “Obama’s health reform proposals” 62% to 29% in favor.  Nothing in the President’s plan seems likely to strengthen independent voter support for the process, or make it easier for the “running scared” Democratic moderates to vote for the bill.  Health reform is still an incomprehensible, wonkish mess only a mother could love.

At the same time as he is preparing a “summit” with Republicans, his political operatives appear to be preparing to ram a modified bill through the Senate under a parliamentary maneuver requiring only 51 votes.  I think the Republicans are being set up- trolled for a You Tube-worthy gaffe that the White House can use to blame the collapse of this process on Republicans. (Remember what Edward I did to the Scottish partisans he lured to a peace meeting?)

This isn’t about Republican obstructionism.  It is divisions inside the Democratic party that will doom health reform, unless Obama can rally his frightened troops.   Nobody can fault the President for his courage. It is a dangerous game he is playing.   We’ll see how many of his colleagues are ready to die on the hill of health reform.  . .