Condition Critical
The Democrats' health-care bill has become a political albatross.
President Obama, his White House inner circle and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others, believe that passing a health-care bill, even the one being sutured together on the Hill right now, is better for the country and for the Democratic Party than no bill at all. I don't know enough about health-care economics to make a judgment about the social policy, but as a piece of politics, the legislation has become a disaster. And that is true whether or not the Republicans manage to pull off an upset win in the Massachusetts Senate race this week.
It's hard to see enough voters ardently for the bill at this point. Seniors are afraid of it; grassroots activists view it as a sellout; independents are upset at the process that produced it, and dubious about whether it will make the system more efficient; union members, despite recent changes to protect them from an excise tax on their health plans, may still harbor doubts. Democrats remain supportive, but fear that there won't be a political upside, since many of the bill's most direct beneficiaries—the uninsured—are in a low-vote-turnout category: young, Hispanic, legal immigrant (but not yet voting citizen), or all three.
Politically, the bill has become what the late historian Barbara Tuchman called a "march of folly." Sometimes, she wrote, political or military leaders pursue strategies even after they are faced with incontrovertible evidence that their course will lead to ruin. Sticking to their original decision becomes a matter of faith, not reason.
When Democrats glumly huddled with Obama late last week to hear his pep talk about the bill, a number of them—I can't say how many—were privately hoping that the whole thing would implode. But they didn't dare say it. "Half the caucus wishes the bill would go away at this point," said one liberal Democrat, who insisted on anonymity because he didn't want to seem disloyal.
In Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown focused on independent voters; nationwide, they have become skeptical of the Democrats’ health care bill —opposing it 54-39 percent. Independent voters had hoped for a bipartisan process, and they tend to focus on budget deficits as a key concern. They're evidently not convinced that the bill will save money. Seniors, who already have Medicare, are wary of the changes they've heard about, and, by at least a 42-32 percent plurality, approve the bill.
Bloggers and activists, from Markos Moulitsas to Jane Hamsher have led opposition to the bill from the left. Liberal opposition accounts for the overall weak support for a bill. According to Gallup, votes support passage of a bill by a 49-46 percent margin, but if "leaners" are removed only 37 percent of voters want their representatives to vote for the bill.
Democrats in Congress are fully aware of all of these numbers, but they are marching ahead anyway. In the Trojan War, Tuchman wrote, the leaders of Troy knew that they were making a mistake when they wheeled that horse into their besieged city, but they did it anyway. We'll see what happens this fall.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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