Dem
47
GOP
53
As expected, the vote on competing health care plans took place in the Senate yesterday. And, as expected, neither the Republican plan ("make it easier for people to buy junk insurance") or the Democratic plan ("extend the Obamacare subsidies") came within a country mile of the 60 votes needed for the legislation to make it through the chamber.
So, is this a loss for the Democrats? There is certainly a narrative along those lines out there. It goes something like this: "The Democrats had the upper hand during the shutdown, then caved in exchange for what was likely to just be a meaningless show vote. Now we know it WAS a meaningless show vote, so the party got NOTHING out of the shutdown. What a waste!"
That's not a crazypants way to look at things. But surely readers can anticipate that is not our take. As we wrote a couple of times the week the shutdown ended, there was zero chance the Democrats were going to actually get the subsidies extended. The Republican senators made it clear that was a non-starter for them. Should that hurdle have been overcome, then it was on to the House. The votes MIGHT have been there in the House, but maybe not, and on top of that, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) would have tried to avoid bringing the legislation to the floor. Should both chambers have passed the bill, then it would have run into the brick wall (well, maybe terra cotta, since it's flimsier and orange-r) that is Donald Trump. He was never, ever, ever going to sign off on a bill helping extend the signature program of Barack Obama, whom he perceives as one of his main enemies.
The Democrats did get SOME stuff of substance back then, like the SNAP extension. And they got their vote. And now that the vote has been held, they've got something to wield during this election cycle. They can say "The only idea the Republicans have is useless junk insurance. We Democrats are the ones who are trying to actually bring costs down and to get people covered." That's already pretty good, and on top of that, four GOP senators crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats yesterday: Susan Collins (ME), Josh Hawley (MO) and Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan (both AK). So, the blue team can also say, "See? Even the Republicans know that our approach is the way forward, even if many of them are too afraid of Donald Trump to admit it."
And now, with attempts at a "fix" having failed, a lot of Americans are going to get badly bitten by much higher insurance premiums. Obviously, the people who were getting Obamacare subsidies will be hit hard. And when many of those people, who skew younger and healthier, drop off the rolls, then non-Obamacare policies will go up in cost, either because insurers' costs will go up, or because insurers can get away with more in a less-price-competitive market.
What's going to happen, to use the metaphor we've deployed a number of times at this point, is that a lot of Americans are about to touch the stove. In the short term, that really, really stinks. It's a damn shame that the voters—or, better yet, their elected representatives—can't anticipate and respond to problems BEFORE they become painful. But history shows that is just not how it works in the U.S. political system. A president had to be assassinated by a disappointed office seeker before civil service reform could be enacted. People had to see their elders starving and dying before old-age insurance could be adopted. People had to see cops attacking Black people with dogs, and "uppity" activists hanging from trees, before civil rights legislation could be implemented.
So, the potential silver lining here, as we've noted before, is that maybe this will be the impetus for real change in the American health care system. Because, for far too many people, what the country has right now just is not working. (Z)