Obama uses Democratic supermajority early on

[Armored Diplomacy]

Suppose Obama used the Democratic supermalajority in Congress early in his term to pass truly liberal reforms, such as expanding Medicare to cover full single-payerror healthcare rather than the halfway measure known as Obamacare, expanding labor laws and tightening their enforcement to give them real teeth, bringing back Glass-Steagall, ending the war on drugs, ending federal use of private prisons, etc.

Suppose he had pushed through stuff like that. Would he get reelected? He'd no doubt get attacked savagely for it, but what would be the overall political repercussions?

 

[RousseauX]

The democratic supermajority was only a supermajority with some conservative democrats (liberman & like 2 other senators) the only major shift during the time was Ted Kennedy (iirc). If the senate in 2010 didn't approve the public option the same senate sure as hell aren't gonna approve single-payer.

 

[dw93]

I think the President would've been better off using the Supermajority for Economic reforms and regulations, and a bigger Stimulus Package, and at the same time passing smaller reforms to Healthcare (not taking young people off their parents insurance until they're 26, not denying people with pre existing conditions insurance, no lifetime limits, etc... in the form of individual legislation). This way, the Tea Party would get little traction and the Midterms of 2010 wouldn't have been as bad as they were. Then once that done and the President gets re elected, he can then use 2013 and 2014 to pass legislation that completely overhauls Healthcare.

 

[Deleted member 96839]

The democratic supermajority was only a supermajority with some conservative democrats (liberman & like 2 other senators) the only major shift during the time was Ted Kennedy (iirc). If the senate in 2010 didn't approve the public option the same senate sure as hell aren't gonna approve single-payer.

If the Democrats today had a supermajority, would they go for real liberal reforms then?

 

[Glass Onion]

If you assume some changes to the Democratic conference prior to 2008 you might be able to push through some form of Public Option or a Medicare Buy in Plan. For that to work you probably would need to somehow expand the majority even further and replace Lieberman with Lamont in 2006.

But even that might be a stretch.

You can't pass a larger stimulus with a 60 vote supermajority. A Democratic supermajority is not the same as a liberal supermajority. Even in a situation where the bill can pass with no Republican support the administration still needed conservative Democrats to vote in favor of the bill. Those Senators were every bit as adamant about the 799 Billion limit as Senators Snowe, Collins, and Spector. The stimulus will be different without the imput of Republicans but it can't be larger without more liberals in the conference.

 

[Glass Onion]

As far as adding more liberals into the conference, as I've mentioned before Tom Daschle lost his seat in 2004 in one of the closest races that year. While Daschle's liberalism is questionable given his work behind the scenes on what became the ACA seeing him as a vote in favor of the Public Option is possible-though Daschle winning might prevent the Obama administration from happening. While the election was not close perhaps Ned Lamont could win in 2006. That'd be two more votes in favor of the Public Option. Might still not be enough for cloture but it would be more of a possibility.

I have no idea how to make a larger stimulus pass the 60 vote threshold though. There would have to be at least six more liberals in the conference for that-possibly there would have to be more than ten.

 

[RousseauX]

If the Democrats today had a supermajority, would they go for real liberal reforms then?

It's hard to tell because it's hard to figure out what Clinton would push, but public option is likely

This is of course irrelevant to irl politics because the dems won't have the house

 

[Johnrankins]

I think the President would've been better off using the Supermajority for Economic reforms and regulations, and a bigger Stimulus Package, and at the same time passing smaller reforms to Healthcare (not taking young people off their parents insurance until they're 26, not denying people with pre existing conditions insurance, no lifetime limits, etc... in the form of individual legislation). This way, the Tea Party would get little traction and the Midterms of 2010 wouldn't have been as bad as they were. Then once that done and the President gets re elected, he can then use 2013 and 2014 to pass legislation that completely overhauls Healthcare.

If you do this you HAVE to require people to get health insurance like Obamacare does. Because unless you do you are on a death spiral. Only the old and the sick will get insurance as it is stupid to buy insurance before you get sick if you can get it afterwards. It would be similar to requiring insurance companies to cover your fire damage if you bought fire insurance after the house burned down. The individual mandate is the most hated part of Obamacare and is absolutely required to have even a ghost of chance of working.

 

[RousseauX]

I think the President would've been better off using the Supermajority for Economic reforms and regulations, and a bigger Stimulus Package, and at the same time passing smaller reforms to Healthcare (not taking young people off their parents insurance until they're 26, not denying people with pre existing conditions insurance, no lifetime limits, etc... in the form of individual legislation). This way, the Tea Party would get little traction and the Midterms of 2010 wouldn't have been as bad as they were.

The tea party insurgency will rise regardless of exactly how far obamacare goes as long as he pushes for some variation of it, and the dems lose the house because it's a midterm election

 

[dw93]

The tea party insurgency will rise regardless of exactly how far obamacare goes as long as he pushes for some variation of it, and the dems lose the house because it's a midterm election

They'd still lose seats, but if they play their cards right, they could narrowly keep the majority in the house just like they did the Senate. It's baffling to me even to this day that the GOP was able to make a comeback just two years after the Bush/Cheney debacle.

 

[Caspian]

Suppose Obama used the Democratic supermalajority in Congress early in his term to pass truly liberal reforms, such as expanding Medicare to cover full single-payerror healthcare rather than the halfway measure known as Obamacare, expanding labor laws and tightening their enforcement to give them real teeth, bringing back Glass-Steagall, ending the war on drugs, ending federal use of private prisons, etc.

Suppose he had pushed through stuff like that. Would he get reelected? He'd no doubt get attacked savagely for it, but what would be the overall political repercussions?

Medicare for All was not going to happen. There were too many Democratic Senators who were opposed to a public option, let alone universal Medicare, for that to be feasible - Joe Lieberman, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, and Ben Nelson in particular. I doubt Medicare for All could get through a Senate committee, let alone the whole Senate.

Glass-Steagel isn't universally supported among Democrats today (for instance, I'm not convinced reinstating the firewall between investment and commercial banking is necessary or beneficial). It's also not going anywhere.

Basically, Obama isn't going to get a bunch of extremely liberal legislation through Congress - pushing them means he'd wind up accomplishing very little and would be defeated for reelection on the basis of being ineffective.

 

[RousseauX]

They'd still lose seats, but if they play their cards right, they could narrowly keep the majority in the house just like they did the Senate. It's baffling to me even to this day that the GOP was able to make a comeback just two years after the Bush/Cheney debacle.

Because it's a function of the support base of both parties: the democrats are the party of urban areas and the GOP rural areas, the US system basically gives geographical areas representation and the Republicans naturally gets locked in more seats because rural areas are bigger.

This is why it's pointless for the dems to moderate w/e legislation they pass, a dem controlled house has being abnormal since 1994 and that's not gonna change until demographics shift and it's basically pointless precisely how many reps you have if it's below 215 but above w/e threshold you need to prevent veto overrides.

 

[Wallet]

3 senate seats were lost in 2004 with less then a point or 2 margin.

Assuming history stays the same, and let's have Frankenstein win his seat election night

That's a 63 seat majority. A public option might be possible

 

[Minty_Fresh]

The Democrats would not have had the Supermajority they had without Howard Dean's 2006 strategy of running a bunch of conservative Democrats in swing states to pick up seats and then running out the clock to 2008. There were substantial numbers of Democrats who were not Blue Dogs who were very skeptical of Obamacare and other liberal measures.

A lot of these Democrats lost in 2010 because they were from red state districts or because the activist wing of the party resented them and would not raise money or work for them in the election.

I also question how effective any of these liberal reforms would be, but that is mostly because I am a Republican. ACA in my view was doomed from the start, as you had an influx of people who were uninsured who were sick and therefore not profitable for the exchanges, while younger and healthier people either were able to get healthcare through employers (more and more employers are offering health coverage now, mostly because not doing so was harmful to the quality of their workforce), or just decided they weren't signing up, or they stayed on their parents plan. Therefore, most of the ACA exchanges were not profitable, which led to companies pulling out of them.

A public option would perhaps not be as prone to this death spiral, but it would cost a shit ton of money that the government simply doesn't have, and if the rollout is anything to go by, it would be run extremely incompetently.

 

[m0585]

I think the President would've been better off using the Supermajority for Economic reforms and regulations, and a bigger Stimulus Package, and at the same time passing smaller reforms to Healthcare (not taking young people off their parents insurance until they're 26, not denying people with pre existing conditions insurance, no lifetime limits, etc... in the form of individual legislation). This way, the Tea Party would get little traction and the Midterms of 2010 wouldn't have been as bad as they were. Then once that done and the President gets re elected, he can then use 2013 and 2014 to pass legislation that completely overhauls Healthcare.

This all the way! Many voters in 2010 felt Obama took his eye off of the main priority/worry, the economy. Whether passing Obamacare was a good idea or bad idea, the Democrats would have been far better served (politically) if they had done more for the economy, more than just TARP anyway. Perhaps Obama could have pushed for a "Second New Deal". This could have resurrected ideas from the first one to put people back to work (maybe infrastructure repair ). They might have lost some seats in the 2010 elections, but they wouldn't have been nearly as huge; definitely not the "shellacking" they received. They might have even kept the majorities one or both houses.

Now to be fair to the Democrats, they realized that this was the best (and only) chance to pass meaningful health care reform in the short term. And of course they had to appeal to the base. Still, they should have played the long game and addressed the concerns that most Americans felt were vital at that time (i.e. the economy).

 

[Johnrankins]

The Democrats would not have had the Supermajority they had without Howard Dean's 2006 strategy of running a bunch of conservative Democrats in swing states to pick up seats and then running out the clock to 2008. There were substantial numbers of Democrats who were not Blue Dogs who were very skeptical of Obamacare and other liberal measures.

A lot of these Democrats lost in 2010 because they were from red state districts or because the activist wing of the party resented them and would not raise money or work for them in the election.

I also question how effective any of these liberal reforms would be, but that is mostly because I am a Republican. ACA in my view was doomed from the start, as you had an influx of people who were uninsured who were sick and therefore not profitable for the exchanges, while younger and healthier people either were able to get healthcare through employers (more and more employers are offering health coverage now, mostly because not doing so was harmful to the quality of their workforce), or just decided they weren't signing up, or they stayed on their parents plan. Therefore, most of the ACA exchanges were not profitable, which led to companies pulling out of them.

A public option would perhaps not be as prone to this death spiral, but it would cost a shit ton of money that the government simply doesn't have, and if the rollout is anything to go by, it would be run extremely incompetently.

One thing done stupidly with ACA was allowing young people stay on their parents insurance until 26 after ACA kicked in. You need those twentysomethings on ACA for it to pay off.

 

[RousseauX]

3 senate seats were lost in 2004 with less then a point or 2 margin.

Assuming history stays the same, and let's have Frankenstein win his seat election night

That's a 63 seat majority. A public option might be possible

In 2008-2010 it depends on who exactly those three extra senators are but if they are blue dogs from red states they might have opposed the public option just like wrecker lieberman

 

[Minty_Fresh]

One thing done stupidly with ACA was allowing young people stay on their parents insurance until 26 after ACA kicked in. You need those twentysomethings on ACA for it to pay off.

They needed a lot more than that. They needed healthy people in general to sign up, and many either already had coverage, or didn't want it. That, or were too lazy to try to get it.

From the beginning, it was said that ACA would pay for itself. That of course was bullshit, but the administration knew that with the taxpayer funded coverage of losses for the insurers who went into the program, it would have a few years to start working. They didn't like to talk about this part, but nobody was in the dark. The losses were not however getting better, and therefore, the Republicans I believe passed a rule that stated that taxpayer funded coverage would be not be allowed, calling it (rightfully) crony capitalism. ACA was supposed to take profits from successful exchanges and use them to pay off the losses from the failed ones. There were not enough successful exchanges to make this work.

The plan was fucked from the beginning. Had the bailouts been allowed to continue, personally, I don't think the ship would have been righted. But there is disagreement about that. There wasn't much evidence that the situation was improving. United recently pulled out, and there isn't much to make me think that there will be an improvement in the near future.

If the government was in better fiscal health, much like say, Massachussetts was with RomneyCare, they could have absorbed the losses better and might have been willing to stick out.

I don't have a better solution, though. Single payer is the only thing I can think of, but with our government's track record, I can't help but think they would massively fuck it up.

 

[Johnrankins]

They needed a lot more than that. They needed healthy people in general to sign up, and many either already had coverage, or didn't want it. That, or were too lazy to try to get it.

From the beginning, it was said that ACA would pay for itself. That of course was bullshit, but the administration knew that with the taxpayer funded coverage of losses for the insurers who went into the program, it would have a few years to start working. They didn't like to talk about this part, but nobody was in the dark. The losses were not however getting better, and therefore, the Republicans I believe passed a rule that stated that taxpayer funded coverage would be not be allowed, calling it (rightfully) crony capitalism. ACA was supposed to take profits from successful exchanges and use them to pay off the losses from the failed ones. There were not enough successful exchanges to make this work.

The plan was fucked from the beginning. Had the bailouts been allowed to continue, personally, I don't think the ship would have been righted. But there is disagreement about that. There wasn't much evidence that the situation was improving. United recently pulled out, and there isn't much to make me think that there will be an improvement in the near future.

If the government was in better fiscal health, much like say, Massachussetts was with RomneyCare, they could have absorbed the losses better and might have been willing to stick out.

I don't have a better solution, though. Single payer is the only thing I can think of, but with our government's track record, I can't help but think they would massively fuck it up.

They needed the mandate tax to be much, much higher for one thing. They should have assumed that the insurance had a value of zero when they did the calculations. Set the mandate tax at the highest rate in the country. That is the tax you pay if you don't get covered. The various subsidies remain in place so if you won't actually pay that unless you pick the highest rate in the country and have no subsidies. Everyone would pick the exchanges over that particularly if you treat it as any other tax and are allowed to garnish wages and/or seize property if not paid.

 

[Minty_Fresh]

They needed the mandate tax to be much, much higher for one thing. They should have assumed that the insurance had a value of zero when they did the calculations. Set the mandate tax at the highest rate in the country. That is the tax you pay if you don't get covered. The various subsidies remain in place so if you won't actually pay that unless you pick the highest rate in the country and have no subsidies. Everyone would pick the exchanges over that particularly if you treat it as any other tax and are allowed to garnish wages and/or seize property if not paid.

That kind of stuff may be effective, but politically it would be a disaster. The mandate itself, and "like your plan, you can keep it" were bad enough as it was. Those measures could have cost Obama the election, and maybe somehow could have led to ironically enough, Mitt Romney coming through with healthcare reform based off of his Massachusetts model, with some adjustments for things like birth control to appease the party. But that might be a long shot.

Abolishing the use of discrimination based on pre-existing conditions was a political slam dunk. The Republicans even thought it was a good idea. However, the mandate was extremely unpopular, and remember, Obama's own party wasn't even sure about the mandate, with some not voting in the House for it because of that. You add punitive measures like that and you might not be able to get it passed. In fact, I am guessing that this was considered, and rejected, for political reasons.