I personally think that part of this is a great development in terms of legitimizing all primary challenges:

It appears SEIU is dead serious about this business about yanking support for House Dems who vote No on the health bill. The SEIU bluntly informed Dem Rep Michael Arcuri of New York yesterday that it’s pulling support for him in the wake of the news that he’s an all-but-certain No, I’m told. And the search for a primary [. . .] challenger is underway.

I ellipsed the part that is clearly wrong - SEIU is promising to back a 3rd party challenger if Arcuri wins the Dem primary:

“This guy won by two percent with our support and 1199’s support against a moderate Republican last time,” [SEIU's] Nerzig continues. “It’ll be very difficult for him to win reelection next time without us.” Arcuri won with 52% of the vote in 2008.

That is Naderism. It is unacceptable. Imagine if progressives made such a threat? They would be rightly pilloried. Bad on the SEIU.

Speaking for me only

Nate Silver provides an intelligent and cogent response to my post on political bargaining. Silver disagrees with my comparison of the union bargaining on the excise tax with progressive bargaining for, to take the most obvious example, a public insurance program:

Armando brings up the counter-example of the unions who, he claims, "were willing to 'kill the bill' unless they received major concession on the excise tax issue" and indeed received "major concessions." Let's look at this case, because it turns out to be pretty instructive. I can think of at least three fundamental differences. First, the unions were worried about something -- a tax -- that was more linear in nature than something like a public option. [. . .] Secondly -- and this is the much more important point -- the unions could make a much more credible threat to walk away from the bill. [. . .] Finally, the unions actually had the more, rather than the less, nimble position. It's not clear that they directly threatened to kill the bill, for instance; they simply made clear to the White House that they would be very unhappy if the excise tax was not scaled down and let the White House fill in the blanks.

I do not find these distinctions persuasive. First, a public insurance program option on the exchanges is concrete and as seemingly malleable as adjustments to an excise tax. Second, why is it that unions could make a much more credible threat to walk away than progressives? Third, it is simply wrong to believe that the unions were not blocking passage of the Senate bill without an excise tax fix. More . . .

(See also Norman Solomon.) And when I say progressives, I do not mean Ezra Klein. Here is an example of progressive post-loss rationalization from Daily Kos:

True, we did not get a public option, but we are going to get a health insurance reform bill that covers virtually every American citizen and puts in place a patients bill of rights on steroids. It's not perfect: outside of Medicare, the middle-class will be entirely dependent on a system of for-profit medicine [. . .] But even though the bill is not perfect, for the first time in our nation's history we will have enshrined into law the notion that everybody ought to have health insurance -- and that's a major accomplishment.

When Lewison says universal health insurance coverage, he is referring to the individual mandate that requires all citizens to have insurance, but does not offer all citizens a public insurance option. That, we are to believe, is the great progressive accomplishment. I respectfully demur. There was a reasoned basis for believing a public insurance program was essential to real health reform. There was a real difference of opinion about that point in Democratic circles. Last December, Ed Kilgore articulately described this divergence of view:

Nobody likes to acknowledge their own powerlessness, but no good can come from shutting one's eyes and pretending it's not true. It's a genuine problem that the threats and demands of progressives (for lack of a better term) aren't taken seriously at all, and will be taken even less seriously now. Facing that problem is a prerequisite to finding a way to solve it. -Glenn Greenwald

Progressive failure in political bargaining is not a new phenomenon. Just in the past 4 years, progressive bargaining on FISA, Iraq, the stimulus and many other issues demonstrates that time after time progressives have abjectly failed in their political bargaining, both under Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents. After political defeat and after political triumph. Obviously something is wrong in the way they are going about it. I first started writing about this issue in the health bills context when I wrote my Madman Theory of Political Bargaining series last year. I strongly believe some introspection from progressives - pols and activists - is in order. More . . .

Ezra:

If you want to see how Nancy Pelosi gets the votes, Kucinich offers a hint. She unites her left flank, as these folks may not like the bill, but they love what the bill is trying to do and they don't want to destroy Barack Obama's presidency. And then she goes to however many Blue Dogs and strays as she needs and says, basically, that this bill is more to your liking than the original. The cost controls are stronger, the public option is gone and there's even an entitlement reform component. You won! This argument, incidentally, has the virtue of being true.

(Emphasis supplied.) Of course, Ezra won too. He wanted those exchanges and did not care for the public insurance reform. I wonder what he would be writing today if he had lost?

Speaking for me only

Natasha Chart:

Under the Senate [health bill,] which makes abortion part of the initial purchasing decision, a woman's employer, male partner or parents can all potentially prevent her getting insurance coverage for it, whereas now, it usually doesn't come up because most private plans just cover it. Now, of the one in three women likely to need an abortion in her life, millions of women never have to have that conversation. Under the current wording of the health bill, that second check is the federal spousal and parental notification law that never managed to pass.

[. . .] If you still want to pass this health insurance reform bill, and I understand why so many people do, understand the cost. Somewhere, right now, he's taking her lunch money, and this bill will let him force her into motherhood, too.

This is the price of the exchanges. There was another way.

Speaking for me only

Via FDL, in this segment on Countdown, Markos recognizes that progressives failed in the health bill negotiations. In a short segment, it is too much to ask that he explain how he thinks the failure occurred, but an important first step is recognizing you have a problem.

Speaking for me only

Sure, there are parades on St. Patrick's Day. But surely there can be no parades for the health bills. Turkana explains:

A year ago, we had a Democratic president elected by the largest majority in a generation. No Democratic president had been elected by such a large majority in a couple generations. We had large Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, and by summer we had sixty members of the Democratic Caucus in the Senate. We also had a nation still politically shellshocked from the worst administration in history, and yearning for transformational change. And the result, on the most important item on the domestic agenda, is, essentially, a 1993 plan put forth by moderate Republicans. And we should be celebrating this?

[. . .] We are where we are. The bill is worth passing. Barely. On the margins. Those 1993 Republican moderates have something to celebrate. For the rest of us, the day this bill becomes law is the day we start trying to make it something truly worth celebrating. Something that will provide health care, and not just health insurance, to all Americans. There is a difference. As a lot of people soon will discover.

What he said. Speaking for me only.

DemfromCt, citing Peter Hart, argues that it will:

Peter Hart makes the case that the Dems need to rally around their President on health reform.

Democratic voters are strongly in favor of the legislation being pushed by President Barack Obama, particularly constituencies such as blacks, Latinos and self-described liberals. [. . .] "If the Democrats are going to close th[e enthusiasm] gap, they've got to get their people excited. And I don't see how you get those people if you vote no" on the party's health legislation, said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "I don't think it's about winning the middle. It's really about alienating the base," Mr. Hart said of Democratic lawmakers' calculations about the upcoming health vote.

A little late in the game to be concerned about the Dem base no? Passing a health bill is likely a little better than not passing a health bill, but the base motivation problem is simply not soluble through the health bills anymore imo. The Dems will need a different issue for that. More . . .

Ezra Klein writes:

For some time, I've been trying to find good polling from the passage of Medicare. According to Greg Sargent, though, the Democrats beat me to it [. . .] I wonder how many of the legislators who took the tough vote to move Medicare forward regret doing that today.

The problem with this analogy for me is this - where is the Medicare-like program in the health bills? Klein loves the exchanges - I venture to say that for him it was the one dealbreaker in the health bills. Klein imagines a future where employer-based health insurance is replaced by individual health insurance policies sold through the exchanges the current proposals set up. I do not think much of this reform approach and do not see it as the Medicare-like proposal that will become unassailable decades from now. In the end, when it comes to the "reform" that is being proposed, what you think about the exchanges will determine whether you believe this is "historic" legislation akin to Medicare. I don't think it is and I do not think this is "historic" legislation.

Speaking for me only

Citing my piece (I would have preferred he consider this post) on the progressive failure in political bargaining on the health bills, Nate Silver writes:

Those, like me, who consider the even the "compromise" bill to be a reasonably important and impressive accomplishment will usually conclude that liberal constituencies did about all that they could reasonably do. But those who are dissatisfied with the outcome are likewise dissatisfied with the tactics.

This seems the incorrect metric to me. The metric should not be whether Nate Silver is satisfied with the bill, but rather how much of what progressives wanted ended up in the bill because of their bargaining. In my view the progressives accomplished almost nothing in their bargaining. And, in fact, it appears Silver agrees with me:

Kevin Drum on the selling of the health bills in Jason Altmire's district:

Doyle McManus writes today about a town hall meeting between Blue Dog Democratic congressman Jason Altmire and a group of tea partiers. The Senate healthcare bill, he told them, doesn't have a public option and doesn't raise income taxes:

But the conversation ran aground when he asked a fundamental question: Shouldn't the government help low-income people afford basic health insurance? "No!" most of the visitors shouted. "Some of you are never going to agree with me," Altmire said.

And none of them will ever vote for Altmire or any Democrat. and yet Altmire sells the health bills by pointing to how progressive ideas were discarded. But some want progressives to put on a happy face and whip for these bills. And some will do it. To each his own.

Speaking for me only