With some form of health care reform poised to be enacted following the passage of a trillion-dollar, pork-filled boondoggle in the U.S. Senate on Christmas Eve, reflection on the course of this policy debate and its broader implication for the trajectory of the Obama administration seem warranted. Whatever results in the coming months on the issue of bringing reform to health care insurance and distribution, there is much about which to be frustrated in the process as undertaken by both the Obama administration and its allies in Congress.

There can be little doubt that the health reform “debate” which lacked too many voices not already committed to a particular set of statist reform ideas. Indeed, the partisan, government-growing approach embraced by the U.S. House led one member of Congress, Parker Griffiths of Alabama, to leave the Democratic Party for the GOP. This might not be of note were this particular ex-Democrat a supporter of the Howard Dean campaign in 2004 who has voted 85% of the time with Nancy Pelosi, breaking most significantly with that party over health care and the stimulus.

Also apparent is the way in which partisan appeals were used by Democrats to push the public option. A rather comical email circulated to Obama supporters offered praise to Senator Roland Burris, an ally of ousted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is not seeking election to a full term next year. Curiously, the email, dated December tenth, made no mention of whether or not the Senator from Countrywide and temporary Iowan Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) should be excluded from financial sector regulatory reform discussions. A relevant portion of the email from Jim Dean of “Democracy for America”, the remnant of his brother Howard’s presidential campaign apparatus, and progressive activist organization is available below.

*Insurance Interests have contributed over $80 million to the campaigns of Senate Democrats.*

Insurance Industry Senators like Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, and Ben
Nelson are working against the very people they represent: Voters in their
states back home.

Now is not the time to give up and accept less. We must fight for both.

*CALL ON SENATORS TO SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH AND REJECT ALL AMENDMENTS THAT
WEAKEN THE PUBLIC OPTION*

Let’s be clear. Joe Lieberman doesn’t care about the 68% of Connecticut
voters who want a public option. Joe only cares about himself. So when Aetna
and other insurance interests give Joe over $3,308,621, Joe’s ready and
willing to do their bidding and kill real reform.

And we all know insurance interests don’t just own Senator Lieberman.
They’ve spent $80 million funding the campaign of Senate Democrats like Ben
Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Mary Landrieu.

We still have progressive champions who can beat back this so-called
“compromise.” Every amendment to the healthcare bill still needs 60 votes to
pass. We have Healthcare Heroes like Senators Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders,
Rolland Burris, and Sherrod Brown who can stand up.

We have to make sure they know we demand it. They must know we’ll have their
back. Because, we’re done negotiating. *Enough is enough.*

Were this email not comical enough with its allegations regarding the “true” motivations of those proposing the public option, one would surely find it amusing over its characterization of Ben Nelson. As it turns out, Senate Democrats led by Harry Reid would rather offer pork and generous concessions to individual members or their states-not to the private sector as the Dean email alleges-than work with Republicans to produce a better bill. Perhaps, in that sense, Democrats were done negotiating, and had moved on to payoffs. The bill passed by the Senate gives residents of Ben Nelson’s state, Nebraska, a potentially illegal and unwanted free ride at the expense of their fellow Americans in the other 49 states when it comes to sharing the burden of paying for Medicaid. Even Bernie Sanders, who was praised in the Dean email, earned concessions for his “yea” vote by adding to the bill assistance to small health centers, but this concession applies to those both within and beyond his state, Vermont. Other Democrats earned smaller concessions for their states. While Senators are elected to represented the people of their states, actually working with Republicans to produce a reform plan with broad support surely would have been both easier and more ethical than bribing members to sign onto a bad bill. As it turns out, the numerous Senate adustments to H.R. 3590 garnered only sixty votes, all within the Democratic Caucus. A truly bipartisan bill would carry support in both chambers, and even sime more progressive members could be brought on board. Consider, for example, that Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), a major proponent of the public option and the majority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, has given indication that reform proposals excluding such a measure are acceptable to him. Such an approach may have also spared Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) his latest political headache.

However, since Jim Dean and his fellow progressives are concerned with ethics, perhaps they will come out against the blank check that Congress is issuing to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-owned corporations whose lending and financial practices helped to cause the current recession. Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake is certainly one progressive who is sincere enough in her convictions to take the White House to task over its stonewalling on inquiries into the financial practices at the state-owned mortgage giants.

Early in the year, the main impetus presented for reform was a legitimate concern to address the burgeoning cost of health care in the United States. Now, as the year closes, the upper chamber of the United States Congress has passed a bill heavy on mandates and new regulation, but lacking in mechanisms to bring costs down. A measure requiring individuals to hold health insurance is one which by itself removes an incentive for cost containment. Essentialy, the Senate is praising itself for failing to do what it sought. Indeed, Senator Franken is emphasizing in his messaging on this legislation the unsupportable claim that the Senate bill will slow the increase in the cost of health insurance, even as the new coverage mandates will force providers and consumers to accrue new costs.

More troubling, however, is what the final product is likely to do for the deficit. President Obama made the lofty pledge that the health care bill should be “deficit neutral”. In reality, however, every gigantic social policy program enacted since the nineteen thirties has cost substantially more than was estimated. With Congress to date divided on how to pay for the Senate package, there should be no anticipation that the measure will ever pay for itself. Senator McCaskill (D-Missouri) had the audacity to compare Republicans unfavorably to a character in a children’s story best known for attempting to steal Christmas. Unfortunately for her, the bill she voted for will do more to steal Christmas from posterity than the proposals offered by Republicans to reform health care. As Joe Lieberman is learning, lacking common sense is becoming a prerequisite for good standing in the present majority caucus of the U.S. Senate.  It seems that a national debt already in excess of twelve trillion dollars is not enough for Democrats. In a separate measure, Senate Democrats voted to raise the debt ceiling for government spending. Vague, and likely meaningless attempts at requiring better accounting practices garnered a single Republican vote, that of the retiring George Voinovich from Ohio, who also voted with most Senate Democrats against a July bill to allow licensed gun owners to cross state lines with their weapons.

From day one of his administration to the end of this year, one thing is apparent above all else; that portrayals of the new commander-in-chief as a broad-minded and innovative moderate  were inaccurate at best. Indeed, President Obama has governed as a partisan, and has been reluctant to push for greater transparency in the debate process. His signature achievements to date have been passed without significant bipartisan support. The only change delievered by the Obama administration to date has been to replace one polarizing big-spending administration with another. With 2010 now merely days away, Democrats ought to reflect on what it was that caused Republicans their majority. A failure to put principle above party gave Nancy Pelosi her majority. We will know one year from now whether the same will give John Boehner his.

Last 5 posts by James Kane

• Politics of Process and Policy - March 17th, 2010
• Obama's Accidental Case Against Reconciliation and the Senate Bill - March 10th, 2010
• On "Real" Diversity and Thinking Critically - March 1st, 2010
• Analyzing the Blair House discourse - February 27th, 2010
• Scott Brown, Barack Obama, and the Politics of Change - January 27th, 2010