Matt Green on health care reform, over at Catholic University’s Institute for Policy research blog:
bq. To be fair, adding a less-than-popular provision to a bill can make sense – provided there already exists a near majority of votes in favor of it. Doing so can build momentum, put remaining would-be opponents into the position of having to say no to their own leaders, and create a bargaining chip to win votes (i.e. drop the unwanted provision in exchange for votes on the remainder of the bill). This is a time-honored leadership tactic in Congress. It may also be one reason for why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently announced that the Senate’s health care bill would have a public option – even as he, Baucus, and others have previously declared that there weren’t the votes for it.
And this:
bq. Take, for instance, the approval of Medicare in the House in 1965, which passed by a wide margin (313-115). Sixty-five Republicans voted for it, while 73 did not – but neither group suffered much at the polls for their vote: 97% of G.O.P. bill opponents who ran for reelection in 1966 won, as did 98% of bill supporters. (Notable members of the former group included Gerald Ford, Robert Dole, Robert Michael, and young Illinois congressman named Don Rumsfeld. None of their careers seemed to suffer from their “no” votes.) If that vote had little apparent impact on Republicans’ electoral fate, why would today’s G.O.P. believe any differently about the current health care reform initiative?