TRY, TRY AGAIN
“There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.”
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
February 15, 1981
Kennedy Compound — Hyannis Port, MA
The issue was personal to him. As he looked at his son reading on the chair across from him, the Senator couldn’t help but think of those days. He heard it again, the sound of the plane coming down against the ground. He jolted.
Birch, he thought to himself. He remembered his days in the hospital.
How does anyone else do this? He didn’t understand. But he wanted to. That’s what Jimmy Carter never understood about Ted Kennedy. This issue about health care — it was personal to him. So, when Carter said the money wasn’t there, well that irked Kennedy, because it could be there, if Carter wanted it to be. And that’s what families around the country dealt with. There wasn’t money there. Not enough money for the treatment, the operation, the prescription drugs. They didn’t have the money, either. And that meant they would die.
And Teddy. He looked over at him. His son. It was 1973, when he came home from St. Albans with a cold and a bruised knee. It didn’t occur then to either of them what it meant: Cancer. They had to take off his leg — right up to above the knee. The Senator couldn’t bear it. It was too much. His son. Tragedy. Tragedy had always stalked him. His brothers. His sister. Now, his son. But the Senator could afford the operation. He could afford those days when his son sat in the hospital. He’d worried about Teddy’s life. He’d worried about the family. He’d worried about what it all meant for Teddy’s future. But never did he worry about the bill that was going to come at the end of it all. And that was why he cared.
If Reagan had won… Kennedy started to think. It would have all been easier if Reagan had won. He would have settled into a role as Leader of the Opposition. He’d have given speeches from the floor about Ronald Reagan’s America. He’d be good at that. He’d do what he had to do, too, to get some bills — some important issues — through the halls of Congress. He would work with Republicans if he needed to, Kennedy didn’t mind doing that. It was working with Carter that made him bitter.
If Reagan had won, Kennedy wouldn’t have felt so responsible. But here they were again: Carter in the White House. Democrats in charge of Congress.
We have to do it this time, Kennedy kept thinking. They couldn’t let the failures of the last go-around prevent them from getting something done this time. If Reagan had won, Kennedy wouldn’t have to worry about seeing Carter, or dealing with Carter. But the man was still the president, and Kennedy was still the Senator, and so something had to be done.
Kennedy knew what he wanted to do. He could have hearings, draft a bill, force it through to the floor, and he could let Carter oppose him every step of the way. The problem was
Carter would win. The only way to get a bill like Kennedy’s through was if every Democrat was shamed into voting for it. That was the truth. It would be a huge bill, and the most politically difficult effort since the Civil Rights legislation under Johnson. You couldn’t get bills like that passed if your own party was given an out. Carter would give them the out. So, Kennedy had to play the game on Carter’s terms.
They hadn’t been all that far apart — that is, until Kennedy saw a path to the nomination. Before then, they’d marched towards each other, finding a compromise. Labor had been an impediment, and Kennedy found himself caught between them and Carter. His political acumen told him that Carter was right, he had more votes than Kennedy had. His heart told him that labor was right, that they needed to be able to guarantee universal coverage. Then, it had all collapsed.
With a sigh, Kennedy considered all that had been and all that could be. His primary campaign dramatically underperformed expectations. It seemed every four years there was speculation about if Kennedy would run for president, but now the articles were different. They talked about Mondale and included Kennedy only as an afterthought. He was a Kennedy. They would always want to know if he was going to run for president. But it didn’t carry the heft it once had. He didn’t clear the field. Some polling even showed him trailing Mondale by 10-points.
Trailing Mondale.
And for all of the psychoanalyses, for all of the think pieces pontificating about the Restoration of Camelot, Kennedy did not feel — at least not anymore — a familiar (familial?) pressure coursing through his veins. He’d tried. He’d come up short. His marriage with Joan was now officially in shambles — headed for its inevitable divorce. There was no reason to believe that a campaign in ’84 would go any better than the last one had.
Swirling the scotch in his right hand, looking over at Teddy reading his book, Kennedy knew deep within him that the White House wasn’t meant for him.
Maybe this is it. Maybe this is why I lost, he thought. That he could understand. He’d been spared the White House, put back in the Senate, so that there would be someone there who could finally get the bill across the finish line. Had he won, who would’ve done the work in the Senate? Russell Long? Long had been with Carter. So had Abe. Ribicoff was his friend, but there he was signing on to Russell Long’s bill.
If he was a tragic figure, like the Shakespearean plays and Greek tragedies his brothers recited with such ease, then this was the part where he redeemed himself.
So Kennedy reached for the phone, and he called Stu Eizenstat. They had work to do yet.
• • •
When Eizenstat went to Carter and told him the news, the president couldn’t help but sigh.
Too late, Carter thought instinctively. The Senate majority was smaller. The House majority was smaller. They’d beaten each other up over it for a full year-and-a-half. How would they get it through now?
But Carter also knew that it was the right thing to do — if the country could afford it. So, he gave Eizenstat the directive. He could work with Kennedy. He could draft a bill. He could put it all together. But he had to keep Carter in the know, and Kennedy had to make the concessions. If Ted Kennedy wanted to be a part of this, he had to bring labor in, and they had to use the president’s proposal from 1979 as the starting point. Carter wasn’t going to waste another two years debating the merits of some single-payer system that dwarfed the ones in Europe, ran-up the deficit, and contributed to inflation. He wouldn’t sign it, and he didn’t want to entertain it. If Kennedy wanted to deal, he had to come to the table.
Eizenstat understood. He’d done it all before — back in ’78 and ’79. He’d met with Kennedy for hours, debated him at that awful midterm convention. He was the liaison to Long and Ribicoff and all the relevant House members. He’d squirmed when Harold Ford tried to the duck a tied vote that would determine which route the negotiations took. He’d done it all in the first term, but this time Eizenstat felt that Kennedy had come around. He’d heard it in the Senator’s voice. It wasn’t the sound of defeat. It was the sound of
knowing. Kennedy understood now what Carter had been saying, and he knew that there wasn’t some magical bill coming in the future.
Who was next in ’84? Mondale. And Mondale had been in the thick of the negotiations, too, and Kennedy had fought Mondale’s ideas that would’ve gotten the bill to Carter’s desk. They were still too moderate for Kennedy’s tastes.
He doesn’t have a choice, Eizenstat realized as Kennedy spoke in chopped sentences, interrupting himself and his own thoughts. He was sort of mumbling. Because he knew. He knew that if there was any chance for healthcare reform, it was now, and it was on Jimmy Carter’s terms.
If Carter had forced the point, if Mondale or Eizenstat had forced the point: Kennedy, here’s the deal, take it or leave it — well, Kennedy would’ve left it. That was his nature. But Kennedy had come around to knowing on his own. He didn’t win Iowa. Or New Hampshire. Or New York. The voters weren’t with him — not in the way he’d expected. And so, Kennedy came to know what he had to do: He had to take it.
• • •
Eizenstat went right to Kennedy’s hideaway when the Senator was back in Washington, and he laid it out for him. There wasn’t going to be single-payer insurance.
Kennedy knew. He understood. He nodded.
“The president wants to make this happen, but we can’t hash out everything we did three years ago or two years ago. We’ve got to take where we left off and work from there. That’s the only way the president’s willing to do this.”
“I know,” Kennedy said. He did.
Back in ’78, when Eizenstat sat across from him at that panel, Kennedy’s blood boiled. Eizenstat was defending Carter’s record, but Kennedy argued him point-by-point. The crowd was already on his side. He’d already told them: “Sometimes a party must sail against the wind. We cannot afford to drift or lie at anchor. We cannot heed the call of those who say it is time to furl the sail.”
But now Kennedy knew. The wind hadn’t shifted, it’d only gotten stronger, and if he tried to sail against it, there wouldn’t be a boat left for him to man. He knew.
So, Eizenstat regurgitated the bill that had been hammered out before — what Carter had presented in June 1979. His proposal called for the creation of Healthcare, a federal umbrella program that merged Medicaid and Medicare and provided catastrophic healthcare coverage for every American. Most Americans would access insurance through their employer, which was now guaranteed with an employer mandate to provide insurance options. Employees’ contribution to their plan would be capped at 25%. Employers would receive subsidies to ensure that health insurance costs did not exceed 5% of payroll.
One of the major sticking points in the 1979 debate between Kennedy and the White House was the issue of phased-in coverage. Carter’s program created the vehicle, Healthcare, for further national universal coverage. It did not, however, immediately cover everyone. Kennedy was not supportive of the phased-in approach. Vice President Mondale suggested there could be triggers in the bill that mandated the transition into the next phase so long as certain economic conditions were met. The White House’s idea allowed the president to postpone the transition into a new phase, but Kennedy wanted the decision to rest with Congress. The president would be able to request a delay if needed, but ultimately Congress would need to approve the delay.
Kennedy raised concerns that would come from labor. They had been the loudest opponents of Carter’s phased-in approach. Eizenstat cut him off: “Go to them and get answers. You need to push them on this.” But Kennedy knew there were still debates to be had. What about the transitions into new phases? What about the fee schedules for physicians? What about the idea of the Reinsurance Fund?
There would be time for all of those negotiations, Eizenstat promised, but first Kennedy had to get labor on board, and Eizenstat needed to go speak with Senator Long.
March 15, 1981
Flagler Greyhound Track — Miami, FL
Roger Stone’s physique did not betray his influence. He was a lanky fellow. His hair was chopped awkwardly above the ears, his face was skeletal, and he hadn’t gained much weight since the November election. He had, though, picked up a tan. He was in town, as were a number of the operatives from the 1980 race, to talk about what came next for all of them now that Reagan had lost. They wanted to take back Congress in ’82, and they wanted to beat Mondale in ’84.
Haley Barbour was standing next to him. Stone didn’t care much for Barbour, who he associated with the smear campaign on Jack Kemp’s sexuality. Barbour didn’t care much for Stone, who he thought was a no-good-sonofabitch who defamed John Connally’s character. And it was no surprise to Barbour that Stone liked Jack Kemp. He’d heard the rumors about Stone and what he got up to on Saturday nights. Some of that shit Barbour didn’t believe. Didn’t have time for it. He had a few years on these kids. But some of it he did buy, and when it came to Roger Stone — Reagan’s magic delegate counter — well, Haley Barbour was willing to believe just about whateverthefuck got said about Roger Stone.
Barbour was in Washington now, lobbying for an oil company that John Connally introduced him to. These guys around him — Stone, Manafort, Atwater — were peddling away in R+2 and D+3 Congressional districts in Michigan and Ohio. Haley Barbour was making the big bucks. Meeting the donors. Working with the Congressional staffs. Making connections. He wasn’t going to sit around and make pennies waiting to get a title one rung up on the ladder from where he was in ’80. No, Haley Barbour was going to manage the campaign for the next President of the United States. He just didn’t know who that would be yet. He also didn’t know which of these dogs he was supposed to put 20 bucks on.
“The 8-dog is the favorite,” Atwater said. He’d already placed his bet.
“I like the 1.” Stone said it like it was supposed to shut them all up. Like his daddy had been on some breeding farm in Kansas, spending all day raising the puppies, training ‘em to run in circles, training ‘em to chase the lure so they could get to a good track and make a few bucks.
The fuck did Roger Stone know about picking dogs? Barbour thought to himself.
He picked Kemp. I bet Reagan wish he hadn’t.
Atwater shook his head. “No good. The 1-dog’s no good. Did you read the book? He didn’t place in his last race.”
Stone didn’t care. He liked the 1-dog. Didn’t need anyone to tell him which dog was supposed to win. The 1-dog was a good dog. Solid dog. He read the book, too, and he knew what to look for. He didn’t look for the same thing Atwater looked for, or the same thing Barbour looked for, or the same thing the guy two benches over smoking a cigarette wearing a paperboy hat looked for. Stone knew what he liked. And he was picking the 1-dog.
Barbour pulled the curled up book out of his back pocket, gave it a quick glance, and then made up his mind. “I’m going with the 4-dog.”
Atwater shook his head. Nobody could read the fucking book.
This isn’t a campaign, he thought to himself. When Atwater was locked in a tight Congressional race last cycle, he’d used every trick he could think of to get his guy across the finish line. He’d planted fake reporters, he’d done push polls, he’d sent misleading mail. That was politics. That was a campaign. You could shape an outcome. Sure, you had the fundamentals, but they didn’t mean anything if you didn’t do what you had to get the win. But a dog race? Just read the book — it tells ya who’s gonna win.
“Well, go get it in,” Stone said, and Barbour took off to place his bet.
“Heard anything about Reagan?” Stone asked.
“Not a word,” Atwater admitted. It seemed the Gipper just sort of faded away after his loss to Carter. His supporters, though, were embittered, and they were ready to mobilize in the midterms. Atwater had been meeting already with people in the Moral Majority. A storm was brewing.
“It’s a shame,” Stone said. “He’d ‘ve been the best since Nixon.”
Atwater was less keen on the Nixon worship than Stone, but he agreed with the sentiment that Ford was an oaf and Carter was — well, Carter.
Barbour came back with Paul Manafort, and the four stood around waiting for the race to start. Manafort and Barbour had had the same job during the ’80, but Manafort had done it for Reagan. They’d gotten to know each other pretty well in the primary, and there weren’t hard feelings between them. Manafort had gone right to Stu Spencer and told him to hire Barbour for the general election, and Spencer did.
It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to politics. It’s what they all had in common.
“Dole’s already jockeying for some kind of spotlight,” Manafort said.
Barbour laughed and lit a cigar. “If Bob Dole thinks he’s going to be president, Bob Dole’s going to have a rough for years.” The others chuckled.
“It should be Kemp,” Stone said as if there was no room for debate.
Barbour laughed louder at that one. “Hell, he might do alright… if he gets off his knees long enough to campaign.” Manafort thought that was the funniest thing he’d heard in awhile, not least of all because he knew it would piss Stone off.
“That’s a good man,” Stone said defensively, his face reddening. “And maybe if your crooked candidate and you hadn’t spread that shit, we wouldn’t be dealing with Jimmy Carter for the next four years.”
“Hey now,” Manafort said. “Let it go.”
Barbour waved it off. “It was just a joke,” he said, “but I’m sorry if I offended ya. All I know is Jack Kemp twisted himself in more knots than a pretzel during that campaign. He wouldn’t have the votes for dog catcher in Buffalo.”
“It wasn’t Jack’s fault Carter got the hostages home. Or got shot in the chest,” said Stone.
“No, it wasn’t, but it was his fault he made Reagan talk about gay teachers for a week, when he could’ve been hitting Carter on the fact inflation was higher than Willie Nelson.”
Stone went to fight back but the announcer’s voice interrupted:
Herrrrrrrrrrrre’s buunnnyyy!! And they’re off!
Just as Atwater had told them, it was the 8-dog who broke early and was out in front. She was a black bitch. Came out of the box like a bat out of hell. She drew in, but she stayed on the outside just enough so she didn’t get caught up in the mess of the pack. These dogs were fast. The race would only last about 30 seconds. Thirty-one seconds. Thirty-two seconds.
And out of the box, it’s the 8, followed by the 2, 1, 5...
Barbour chomped on his cigar. “C’mon 4 gotuhrunninnow!” He’d folded the book into a tube and was banging it agains the back of the seat in front of him. “Gotuhrunnin!” Barbour’d been to the track once or twice before. Before the Arkansas primary he went to Southland. Sure, he’d lost a few hundred bucks, but he brought home one of the waitresses so it wasn’t an all-around bad night for the guy. Nothing serious. Nothing Marsha needed to worry about
Arkansas had been bad for Connally.
Fuck. Real bad.
Shoulda had that one, Barbour thought to himself. Shoulda had it.
Stone’s eyes gazed forward. The 1-dog was getting crowded on the inside rail, the 5 — some brindle bitch — kept jostling him, and he couldn’t find the room to break it open. The 8 was still in the lead on the outside, and she was starting to run away with it.
And around the first turn it’s the 8, 2, 1, 5…
Atwater stood, his arms crossed, shaking his head. None of these guys knew how to read a fucking book, and that’s why he’d be walking out the winner.
And into the backstretch its the 2-dog coming up to the front, but the 4-dog is trying to come around the outside. Alright, and it’s the 8, 2 — no, I’m sorry, the 2’s got him by a nose. It’s the 2, 8, 1—
“Goddamnit,” Stone was muttering under his breath. The 1-dog was still crowded. Was the bitch blind? Couldn’t she see she was getting trampled? How was she going to get to the lure if there were five other dogs in her way.
Stupid mutts. Didn’t know how to run a race. Didn’t matter that breeders around the country spent years perfecting pedigrees, breeding to the Hall of Famers, giving their stud dogs an extra treat back at the farm. Didn’t matter as far as Stone was concerned. He was about to lose a hundred bucks.
That 4-dog is on a journey. He’s comin’ around on the outside. Around the outside! And he’s getting there! And he’s there! He’s got ‘em. It’s the 2, 4, 8 coming into the home stretch. And the 4’s goin’ to runnin’ now, Yes. He. Is. It’s close, but he’s running now, and that’s the nose. It’s the 4, 2, 8 … and into the finish it’s the 4 — he’s got it. He’s got it. And it’s done, iiiiiiit’s the 4, 2, 8…
Stone was apoplectic. The 1-dog had fallen apart completely, finishing in last. “Stupid dog,” Stone said. “Let himself get crowded on the inside.”
“He needed a better break,” Barbour offered. Stone told him to shut up.
“What made you pick the 4?” Atwater asked. He’d read the book. The 4-dog had done alright but nothing in the book told Lee he should’ve bet on him. He was looking at Barbour and Barbour had this face on him. Like he knew something the others didn’t. Like now that he was on K Street making the big bucks, he knew something the soldiers out in the field didn’t know.
Taking a drag from his cigar, Barbour gave a shrug. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just had a feeling.”
March 19, 1981
Russell Senate Office Building — Washington, DC
Lessons learned. The clouds of healthcare reform swirling, Stu Eizenstat knew it was time to reach out to Senator Russell Long for cooperation. The White House’s decision to try and push through an aggressive budget without serious consultation had been an unnecessary complication in the early days of the second term. Eizenstat would not make the same mistake twice.
Russell Long had played an integral role in the healthcare negotiations two years earlier. In a May 1979 memorandum to the president, Eizenstat clearly stated the influence Long would have and how the White House would need to handle the Senator. Long, Eizenstat argued, could be persuaded to back a centrist approach over a more conservative bill narrowly focused on catastrophic coverage only “if the Administration makes it clear to him that we want to make such a choice and will cooperate in passing such legislation. In other words, we cannot refuse to deal with Senator Long and still obtain this more favorable outcome.” [1]
Now that Kennedy had come forward with interest in making a deal, Eizenstat returned to Long. He’d come around to the Carter plan and backed the president’s proposal in 1979. His continued support would require the kind of attention a long-serving Senator grew to expect. Such niceties had never been the way of Carter’s Georgia mafia. But lessons had been learned — at least by some of them.
Eizenstat made his way through the marble maze until he found Long’s front office door. He informed the receptionist and waited patiently in a chair until Long’s Legislative Director came into the room and invited him back to the Senator’s real office. They walked the familiar route out of the front office and around to the room where Long worked.
“Senator, thank you for making time to meet with me.”
“Not at all, Stu, sit down. Sit down.”
“Thank you, Senator. I’m stopping by today because Senator Kennedy has reached out to the White House and indicated he would be interested in pursuing an agreement on healthcare reform.”
Long scoffed.
This again.
“I understand your reservations, and, if I can be frank, Senator, they’re shared by the President. Right now, we’re trying to assess how likely it is that we can forge a deal with Senator Kennedy, but if we’re going to do this, we know that it’s important to have your help and your leadership on the Finance Committee. Ultimately, that is where we’d like to move the bill if we go forward with this.”
Long could have risen from his chair, paced slowly, and let Eizenstat squirm. He could have given a lecture about how just weeks earlier he’d gone to the floor and lectured the White House about the need to respect the Finance Committee’s role in the legislative process. He could have told Eizenstat to get the hell out of his office. But Long felt a pressure that had been growing among Democratic senators for years — the pressure of an idea whose time had come.
It was a pressure most profoundly felt in the 1960s as Martin Luther King, Jr. and others organized an historic March on Washington to demand rights for Black Americans. It was felt when President Lyndon Johnson, cloaked in the grief of a shell-shocked nation, called Southern Senators into his office, leaned in so close that the smell of the president’s breath paralyzed the senator as his eyes demanded a vote for change. But healthcare was the white whale of Democratic presidents. Truman. Johnson. They’d chased it. Once again, Americans had elected a Democratic president with comfortable Congressional majorities. Once again, the president had to decide whether or not to pursue reform. Once again, Democratic senators found themselves facing the same question.
“I don’t know if we have the votes anymore,” he said.
Eizenstat had been here before, when the windfall profits tax didn’t have the votes. Now, it was law and a boon to the federal budget. Russell Long worried first and foremost about Louisiana. He was not in the Senate to carry the president’s water.
“Senator, I think we need an agreement first before we can know that, and I think if we are able to get a hospital cost containment bill through, we will gather significant momentum for wholesale reform. Senator Kennedy —”
“I need to call Abe.” He was referring to Ribicoff, the liberal (now-former) Senator from Connecticut with whom he’d drafted a healthcare compromise before. Then he continued, “The president really believes he can balance the budget and pass this legislation at the same time?"
“The hospital cost containment bill will do a lot to help stifle inflation, and that’s going to help the economy.”
“In three years? You sound like Jack Kemp.”
Eizenstat ignored the comment. “Senator, we need your help on this. I’d like to find a time for you to meet with the president and discuss the legislation further. I think this is our chance.”
“That’s fine, Stu. Thanks for stopping by.”
March 22, 1981
Walker’s Point — Kennebunkport, ME
There was a light mist. The wind whipped against their rain jackets, taunting their baseball caps with a plunge into the cold Atlantic. Poppy smiled nonetheless, steering the boat through the waters as the sun peaked up from the tree line.
“Beautiful mornin’!” He bellowed over the roar of the motor. He may as well have been Curly McLain.
Baker nodded. “Sure is.”
“Jim, what do you think about taking on Bentsen next year?” The boat bounced along the water, picking up speed.
“I think it distracts you from the race in ’84. You’ll have to raise and spend money that would be better used to help other candidates or for the race in ’84. And if you lose, George, I don’t see how you can win the nomination.”
“You’re right,” Bush said, smirking. “But that’s why I wasn’t asking for me. I was asking for you. I think you should take on the ole’ bastard.”
Baker scoffed. “I didn’t have too much success back when I ran for AG.”
“Texas has changed!” Bush proclaimed.
It was true. Carter became the first Democratic president to win the White House without Texas’ electoral votes — something previously thought to be unimaginable. Bentsen’s days were numbered, especially if the economy continued to languish in a hazy in-between malaise.
“I don’t know, George…” Baker’s voice trailed off. Sure, he’d love to go to the Senate, but he also didn’t know why they were letting themselves get distracted. There was a big race ahead of them in ’84. Sometimes he feared Bush thought it would be a cakewalk — like everyone would stand aside and give him the nomination. Baker predicted an entirely different experience. He’d be the frontrunner, which meant he’d be the target.
“Think about it,” Bush said, slapping Baker’s back. “I think you’d win. And wouldn’t it be nice?” After a pause: “Taking out Bentsen I mean…”
“It would be,” Baker nodded. But he didn’t know.
As Bush took the boat into a hard right turn, he added: “George is thinking about it.”
“Junior? About what?”
“Running against Bentsen.”
Baker shook his head. That was an even worse idea for the ’84 race. Having Bush’s son in the Senate would only complicate the message. Junior would serve as a distraction for the media. “I don’t know…”
“I know. It’s a bad idea. He doesn’t seem to understand Jeb is the politician in the family. And it’s still my turn. I’ve got to do this next time. I’ve got to win it.”
Baker recognized the fighter in his friend of so many years. “And you will… For now, I think it’s best we keep the Bush Machine out of the Texas Senate bid. Let the Republicans there figure it out, and we’ll make sure you cut a big check, headline a fundraiser, hit the trail — there’s time for all of that. But let’s keep our powder dry otherwise.”
The boat slowed. “You’re right…”
After a minute or so, Bush interrupted the light chirping of the words and the sounds of the boat bobbing on the water. “So, will you talk to George for me?”
April 4, 1981
Russell Senate Office Building — Washington, DC
“I don’t think we’re going to get a better deal,” Kennedy said. He was sitting on a blue couch, an orange pillow under his arm. Behind him were an assortment of photographs and framed documents. There were ghosts in the room. Joe Jr, Jack, and Bobby looked on from the wall. There were pictures of sailboats. A photo of Ted and his children on the side table in front of a lamp.
He was meeting with leaders of organized labor to talk through the potential for significant healthcare reform in Carter’s second term.
“The fact of the matter is we held out for better reform under Nixon. We came up short in the primaries against Carter. This is our moment. We have no reason to believe there will be a better bill under Bush or Baker or Kemp — whichever Republican they nominate in ’84.”
“What about Mondale?” one of them asked.
“Mondale’s the one who has proposed the phased-in approach. I don’t see why he’d go for single-payer right away, and besides — We can’t be sure what our Congressional majorities will look like by then, or that Mondale will win the general election.”
There were nods of agreement around the room. George Meany, the man who held the labor movement together, was dead now. Throughout the earlier fight on healthcare reform, he had kept the unions in lockstep behind Kennedy’s push for more expansive reform. Now, his voice was gone, and Kennedy’s voice advocated a different path to reform.
“Where are the parts of the Carter framework that we need changes?” Kennedy asked. “I’ve talked to Stu, and he’s willing to work on some of the details with us, but he is not willing to go back to the drawing board on this, and frankly I understand his rationale.”
Someone in the room asked Kennedy why he wouldn’t just hold hearings on a single-payer bill in hopes of finding the votes and forcing Carter into signing the bill or vetoing it.
Kennedy appreciated the enthusiasm for a single-payer bill, but he was grim in his assessment of its potential: “First of all, I don’t think the president would hesitate to veto it. We’ve seen no indications he would cave into that kind of Congressional power. And second of all, I don’t know that I have the votes in the Senate to get the legislation through. Russell Long and the conservative wing of this party prefer Carter’s phased-in approach.”
Just as had been the case in 1979, the labor unions were most concerned with the phases through which universal coverage would be established. Once the bill took effect, all Americans would receive catastrophic coverage through the government program “HealthCare,” but from there, the Carter White House’s plan diverged from the demands of organized labor. Carter and his White House favored an incremental approach in which, at certain agreed upon intervals, HealthCare would expand to include total coverage for more individuals. At these intervals, a certain array of economic standards would need to be met in order for the expansion to take place. If the economic conditions were not met, the expansion would be delayed.
Back in 1979, Kennedy and labor pushed the Carter administration to adopt softer language that would only give the president the opportunity to request a waiver of the expanded access from Congress. Now, Kennedy came armed with the talking points Eizenstat had given him. Republicans would always be a block of votes to restrict expansion. A Republican Senate might be able to block expansion indefinitely. Instead, the president would be forced to abide by the economic parameters outlined in the bill.
Kennedy and labor did not immediately reach an agreement, but it became clear to Douglas Fraser, who featured large in the negotiations, that Kennedy was moving closer to the Carter model. Fraser never doubted Kennedy’s loyalty to universal coverage, and so he interpreted Kennedy’s movement as an indicator of the political realities.
“Ted,” he said, “I want you to go to the White House and get us the best deal you can, and then bring it back to us. Right now, if we give you our red lines we might be selling ourselves short. Bring back a deal, and then we can make up our minds about what needs to be changed.”
Kennedy sought clarification. “But you are okay with us pursuing an agreement based on the 1979 plan that the president put forth?”
Fraser said he was. “It’s the best we’re going to get out of the bastard.”
Kennedy laughed. “I think you’re right, Doug.”
The meeting was over. Everyone rose from their chairs and shook hands. Kennedy thanked Fraser profusely for wrapping it up. “I’m going to get us there, Doug. I promise.”
“I know you will, Senator,” Fraser replied.
When the labor leaders left his office, Kennedy placed a call to Stu Eizenstat and asked for time to meet with the president about healthcare reform. Eizenstat was happy to arrange it but cautioned that he wasn’t sure it ranked high on the president’s list of priorities. Carter wanted assurances that the talks would not fall apart like they did in ’79 before he staked political capital on the issue.
Kennedy nodded. “Stu,” he said, interrupting. “I’ve got labor on board.”
“Labor’s on board?” Eizenstat asked.
“In the general sense, yes. I need to talk to the president, but if we can come to an agreement on how to phase-in coverage, we’re there.”
“Senator, this is great news. We’ll find time to meet with the president right away.”
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[1] This memo is real, and it’s a total example of the gems you can find when you set your mind to the deep dive. You can access it through the Carter library
here.
