Why I appreciate the Kill the Bill contingent

A lot of wonky progressives are furious at the activist base that is clamoring to kill the health care bill. One of the most eloquent critics is the New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg who accuses the Kill the Bill (KTB) left of unfairly projecting its well-founded disgust at the people and the process behind the legislation onto the bill itself. He calls it "the pathetic fallacy."

By now it's safe to say that no mater how bad the final bill turns out to be--and believe me, it will suck--the result will still be better than the status quo. Health insurance for 30 million people is a big progressive achievement, especially when you consider the history of attempts to overhaul the U.S. health care system. It's not like we can go back to the drawing board, confident that we'll get a better deal next time around. The same political and institutional foes will still be there.

Some progressives claim that a compromise would be worse than nothing because institutional subsidies for for-profit insurance will only further entrench the worst aspects of our system. Possibly. Yet, it's not clear that it would be easier to get to single-payer if Obama's health care reform crashes and burns. Health care reform has crashed and burned before and the insurers have only gotten stronger.

So, I don't want to kill the bill, but I'm grateful to the Kill the Bill crowd. Why? Because they're applying countervailing pressure. If there's nobody on the left willing to kick up a ruckus when our demands aren't met, every single policy will be further to the right than it needs to be. The right can be counted upon to push back hard. If the left won't do the same, it's always going to be easier to sell out the left.

Health care reform is no longer just an intellectual argument, it's a negotiation. KTBers understand that. Wonky progressives cringe when KTBers say the bill will be worse than than nothing. When they say that, wonks hear a ridiculous overstatement. Which it probably is. The U.S. is still a rich country. If we can afford to fight wars of convenience, we can afford to get totally ripped off on health insurance for our citizens until we figure out a better solution. But it would be nice if we didn't have to get ripped off as badly. At the end of the day, the KTBers probably don't have the power to kill the bill, but they do have the power to make life miserable for some of our so-called allies in D.C. The final bill will be better because they did.

A lot of wonky progressives are still approaching health reform as an argument. In a debate you open with your strongest points. You don't open with a stronger case than you think you can support because every point you concede to your opponent is a loss for you.

Whereas, if you're negotiating, you always ask for more than you think you're going to get because you know you're going to concede some things. After all, if you were in a position to dictate terms, you wouldn't negotiate. 

The other key aspect of negotiation that's lost on many lefty wonks is leverage. Getting your way isn't just about being "tough" or yelling loudly. If you can't make credible threats, the other side has no incentive to give you anything. You have to be able to inflict some pain. That's where the Kill the Bill crowd comes in. They're the ones who yell and scream and threaten to primary Bernie Sanders.

Remember, the relevant question is not "Would the world be a better place if we primaried Bernie Sanders?" Rather, the question is whether the activist base seems crazy enough to bring down the Democratic party if it isn't placated.

Acting crazy can be a smart negotiating strategy. Suppose a union is bargaining for a contract. Both sides know that a strike would hurt the workers at least as much as the company. If the union's negotiators cared about maintaining their reputations as reasonable people, they'd suck at their jobs. The boss would know that the union would never strike. If the boss isn't afraid of a strike, she has no reason to budge on wages. So, it's in the negotiators' best interest to seem like they're willing to strike even when it would be self defeating.

For wonks who strive to look reasonable at all times, this approach is utterly foreign. In a negotiation, it's not about being right or putting forward the morally superior proposal, it's about getting what you want.

We all know that centrist Democrats are easily scared. If they see a choice between pleasing the lefty wonks and pleasing Olympia Snowe, guess who wins every time? The Kill the Billers are performing an invaluable service to the movement. They're forcing the Blue Dogs to shut them up.

Sometimes the activist base lashes out at lefty wonks, too. Wonks shouldn't take it personally. It's all part of moving the discussion to the left, where we want it to go anyway. 

Comments

[Ian Welsh]

Agreed on almost every point, except that I think a wonky case (and I think most people would say my wonk credentials are adequate) can be made that the bill is worse than the status quo. Not going to go into it here, however, I'm exhausted by the debate, have other things on my mind and no one's paying me to care if Americans want to continue to commit slow suicide and what passes for their wonk class wants to go along with it.

However, on negotiation I absolutely agree, and it drives me nuts when Democrats don't seem to get it. For example, even if you honestly thought you'd never get Single Payer, you should have started off demanding it. Failure to do so was a huge mistake.

Assuming the goal was to get a good deal of course. From the point of view of those of us who understand how negotiation works, it appears that many people who say they wanted a good deal never did: they certainly didn't negotiate like they did. Either that, or they're terminally stupid.

Stick these people in a third world bazaar with $1000 and in less than a week they'd be begging for food. "but they kept charging me more and more, and rationally paying was better than going hungry!"

Putzes.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Ian, your wonk credentials are impeccable.

You're right that a lot of people who said they wanted a good deal never really did. They understood what a lot of lefties didn't. They claimed to want a minimally decent deal when they really wanted to moderately large jackpot for the insurers. Then they methodically traded away the "good deal" parts on their way to their desired end point. They got way more of what they wanted than we did.

[Brien Jackson]

"For example, even if you honestly thought you'd never get Single Payer, you should have started off demanding it. Failure to do so was a huge mistake?"

Jesus Christ, this again?

You don't start out with something everyone knows you have no chance of getting, because if you do that the opposition has no reason to negotiate, they've already got you beat at the start. This stupid meme basically requires we blieve it would have been better for Bush to propose eliminating social security altogether in 2005. How do you imagine that would.

[Brien Jackson]

It would also help if people would finish the principle...you make an initial offer of more than you hope to get because you don't want to come in below what the other party is willing to give you. That is, you hope they'll come to an agreement above what you hoped to get. Of course, that only works to the extent they're willing to give that to you. And at this point I'd say it's pretty clear that Lieberman wasn't letting progressives have a public option. Asking for more at the start wouldn't change that.

Alternatives are important too. To go to baseball, Johnny Damon was making obscene demands for a contract a month ago. Did it get the Yankees to offer him more than they wanted to? No, it got them to sign Nick Johnson and trade for Curtis Granderson and tell Damon to have a nice life, because there were other ways to fill their needs than dealing with Damon's craziness. If there were no alternatives, maybe that would be different. To bring it back to Congress, there isn't any alternative to getting Joe Lieberman's vote. If he votes no, you don't have 60. Unless you find a Republican vote in favor anyway. That's where your leverage is; with the sociopath who can block anything he wants to block. Not with people talking about primarying Bernie Sanders on the internet.

[mb]

They should have started with single-payer because it is the best way to provide high quality, timely health care to all people at the lowest cost. Seems stupid to start with a position that is inadequate to the task at hand just so we can continue to enrich one interest or another. The benefit to the entire system would be fantastic. But, apparently, Americans love insurers so much they want to continue to enrich them at ever increasing rates. It's really an incredibly stupid approach to the provision of health care to the general public.

[Ian Welsh]

Since there are polls which, at the time, showed medicare-for-all had majority support, why would it be considered completely impossible to get it? Especially if the President actually campaigned for it and threatened to do it through reconciliation?

Polls: http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/Chart_of_Americans_Support

Overall argument: http://www.openleft.com/diary/14554/

Social Security elimination does not poll at majority or plurality support: ever.

I always start hostile negotiations and often start really serious negotiations with bids I don't expect to get. And sometimes I get them, actually. Especially when it comes to pay.

Of course, I grew up bargaining in third world bazaars.

Not that you have to have. Republicans understand this principle very very well. It's only Democrats and their supporters who think you start negotiations by offering what you think you can get, so you can be bargained down even further.

[Brien Jackson]

"Since there are polls which, at the time, showed medicare-for-all had majority support, why would it be considered completely impossible to get it?"

Because 40 Republicans and Joe Lieberman (plus at least Kent Conrad) would never vote for it, and everyone on the Hill can count Senate votes.

"Especially if the President actually campaigned for it and threatened to do it through reconciliation? "

Well, first of all, the President doesn't get to decide whether or not something goes through the budget reconcilliation process, in so much as he doesn't actually get to decide anything regarding how Congress handles its business. Secondly, it wouldn't be a credible threat, in so much as you'd still have to have 218 members of the House and 50 members of the Senate vote for it.

[Alon Levy]

Ian, reconciliation would alienate a lot of process hawks. If Feingold and Byrd aren't going to vote for your bill, you may not even have 51 votes for it. And that assumes you could get 51 in the first place - support for single-payer in the Senate and the House is almost certainly less than 50%.

Even popular support may not be 50%. Medicare for all would either come without cost control, creating big deficit problems, or come with cost controls, triggering all the usual concerns about rationing and tampering with Medicare. Either would trigger new counterpoints, leading to reduced support. It's no different from how when polled Americans say they want a smaller government that provides fewer services, but then when the Republicans propose service reductions the people revolt against them. And this problem becomes especially bad when the party in power tries to circumvent the usual process.

Once single-payer is off the table, there's no reason to start with it because it's not a starting point for negotiations. You can't get partial single-payer; it's a yes or no proposition. With other starting points there's room for wiggling, which would allow the Senate to get to 51, to say nothing of 60.

Republicans' supposed understanding of third world bazaar principles got them kicked out of Congress unceremoniously. Rovism worked only while Bush could use the coattails of 9/11; once the coattails were off, the approach pissed off moderates and gave the Democrats control of Congress.

[Brien Jackson]

"Republicans understand this principle very very well."

Also, I'm not sure what Republican negotiating tactic I'm supposed to be impressed with, in so much as Republcans aren't actually negotiating anything, so much as they're committing themselves to oppose everything. A good counterexample would be Bush's social security plan, which 45 Senate Democrats just flatly refused to support. To hear you tell it, even though Bush couldn't get a single Democrat in the Senate to support even a small privatization of SS, if he'd only proposed abolishing Social Security altogether, which would be about as popular as the Ebola virus, he'd have wrangled up enough votes to get a small portion of it privatized, or more. That's just ridiculous. People can count votes.

[Alon Levy]

Did TypePad just swallow my comment?

What my comment said was that reconciliation would lose a lot of liberal process hawks like Feingold, so it would not necessarily get to 50 Senators. It might not get majority popular support, either. Support for Medicare for all would decrease once the bill was announced: either it would include cost control and piss off seniors and people who're concerned with rationing, or it wouldn't and piss off fiscal conservatives. It's no different from how polls show most Americans prefer a smaller government that provides fewer services, but any specific cut in government spending is unpopular.

So once single payer is off the table, the Democrats have to start with a proposal that can be negotiated. Single payer is an all or nothing proposition, and most members of Congress would go with nothing. The initial proposal of a public option (i.e. single payer by subterfuge), a mandate, regulations on premiums, community rating, and subsidies, could be negotiated, and was.

[Ian Welsh]

Republicans got Democrats to vote for many bills. Tons of them. Not even going to bother with that one.

And when they couldn't, they had the discipline to cram it through on reconciliation, which they did more than once.

People who don't even try, get only what the other side is willing to give them.

And the other side isn't just Republicans. Democrats like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman know how to bargain. It's only "progressives", the spineless wimps they are, who don't.

I will also point out that negotiations are extended games. I will walk away from one deal, or sabotage it, so people know I'm serious. I will punish them in other areas if they mess with me. There is a ton of pork which can be taken away from people who refuse to play ball, as well as various other perks, bills which are important to them, primary challenges supported by the White House or leadership, and so on.

There are things that can be done. If they aren't done, it's because it isn't important enough to them do it.

And so you get the least possible.

Which is what always happens to people who have a repuation for not being willing to walk, or to punish.

[John Ballard]

Lindsay, your point is well-taken. Even in the final days of the process some remnant representing a better alternative should remain loud and clear with that message. In the Kennedy locution, the dream must never die.

At this late date it is pointless to negotiate about negotiating tactics. The fat is in the fire and we all know the end result will fall way short of our hopes. The sad reality is that breathtaking ignorance of the public is fundamental to the challenge. Most people, for instance, cannot understand or explain the difference between Medicare and Medicaid.

Throughout this whole discussion I have yet to come across anyone distinguishing payroll taxes from income tax. Thanks to some legislative sleight of hand a few years ago payroll taxes, intended for Social Security and Medicare, simply wash into the general revenue stream. But voices defending the working poor never seem to mention that they are taxed from the first dollar earned with no deductions as in the case of income tax. And last I checked, Medicare was among the payroll taxes.

It should be remembered that one of the next dragons to be slain, after Immigration, FOCA and Lord knows what, is the looming "insolvency" of Social Security. (It isn't, of course, but the same people now distracted by health care reform should be stocking their toolkits for that next big legislative confrontation.)

I love and appreciate the never-say-die crowd as much as you. But the time is nigh to look ahead to the next fights. It's time to channel negotiating energy into setting the agenda for what comes next.

[FreddyMoraca]

"Sometimes the activist base lashes out at lefty wonks, too."

Especially deservedly, when the latter are undisclosed, lavishly paid shills:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/08/a-paid-insider-cant-be-an-objective-outsider-judge/

[dr2chase]

In terms of pursuing alternatives, I think that the senators from Maine were pursued, but declined to move. Why, I cannot tell, but if I were running things in the D party, I would find some ways to drag my feet on nice things for Maine for a little while. What the heck do Snowe and Collins expect to get from the bulk of the Republican Party?

[Brien Jackson]

"eople who don't even try, get only what the other side is willing to give them."

Um, that's all yo get any way.

[Brien Jackson]

Anyway, if you think there's no downside by starting from a crazy, ask Johnny Damon how it worked out for him.

[Chris O.]

"And the other side isn't just Republicans. Democrats like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman know how to bargain. It's only "progressives", the spineless wimps they are, who don't."

Nelson and Lieberman know how to bargain because they know they can hold bills hostage, because at the end of the day they don't really give a shit if bills fail. Progressives do actually give a shit about helping people and Nelson/Lieberman/et al know this. It's way more like hostage negotiating than good faith bargaining.

"Republicans got Democrats to vote for many bills. Tons of them. Not even going to bother with that one."

That's because centrist Democrats love bargaining with Repubs almost as much as they love hostage taking with Democrats, and because there ARE NO LONGER any centrist Republicans. Olympia Snowe has been an incredibly horrible bad-faith negotiator in the Senate over health care, and she's the closest thing Republicans have to a moderate.

[fishbane]

And at this point I'd say it's pretty clear that Lieberman wasn't letting progressives have a public option. Asking for more at the start wouldn't change that.

Um, I don't think you're the negotiator you think you are. That's just not how it works. When negotiating with observers who have a stake in the outcome (no matter how pathetic voters' power)pushing for things that won't happen moves the range. Had a credible case been made for single payer in the media, that changes the potential outcomes.

Anyway, if you think there's no downside by starting from a crazy, ask Johnny Damon how it worked out for him.

Nobody said it is all ponies and roses. On the other hand, ask Grover Norquist about how he feels about his accomplishments.

In any case, you seem like the kind of negotiator I'd love to buy product from on an ongoing basis, or a centrist Democrat, but I repeat myself.

[Brien Jackson]

"When negotiating with observers who have a stake in the outcome (no matter how pathetic voters' power)pushing for things that won't happen moves the range."

Perhaps, but that only works if you imagine that Lieberman absolutely wanted a bill to pass, and was completely unwilling to block its ultimate passage. If you think Lieberman was perfectly fine killing the effort if he didn't get what he wanted, then it doesn't move anything. The problem is that you're misrecognizing where the leverage is.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=513537621]

My concern is that killing the bill as a tactic is ineffective because that's exactly what the foot draggers like Ben Nelson have wanted all along. Causing primary pain is a great tactic and I applaud it. But killing the bill is playing right into their hands. Even some liberal Democrats would like the pressure off to pass a bill, and so they might welcome a killed bill even if it meant giving up health care reform.

[fishbane]

If you think Lieberman was perfectly fine killing the effort if he didn't get what he wanted, then it doesn't move anything. The problem is that you're misrecognizing where the leverage is.

No, I'm not. The weasel did well for himself, granted, and the reason pushing single payer didn't work was because everyone knew that most of the %$&*ing Dems-senators didn't give a damn about it. But -

Why is it that you seem to believe that Lieberman's threat to walk away from the bill is credible, but the kill-the-biller's isn't? The threat coming from Hamsher and (some of her) friends is to put reelection pressure on spineless Democrats, to get them to buck up for a change against the Liebermans and Stupaks (who, to digress a bit, probably screwed himself on this one, but that's a different topic). This is the entire point.

Had this happened two years ago, with a sacrificed goat, I mean congress critter, or two, would have created a credible threat to back putting single payer on the table, even if it weren't to be.

I'm certainly not denying that the spinelessness and pure tactical stupidity/not really giving a damn of the Dems screwed things royally this time. What I'm talking about is game theory in general, and why sometimes the right thing to do is to rip the steering wheel off your own car when playing chicken.

Managing to kill the bill, were that to happen, would be a seismic shift in the party, even if it cost some seats mid-term. Playing with fire, to be sure, and the outcome would be very much up in the air. But think through the incentives of the kill-the-bill types a bit. Even if it is true that this crappy bill is better than nothing, throwing a bowl of thin gruel in the face of those offering it to you frequently makes sense. To mix metaphors even more completely, just because a woman is getting *something* out of an abusive relationship doesn't mean she should stay in it.

[Brien Jackson]

"Why is it that you seem to believe that Lieberman's threat to walk away from the bill is credible, but the kill-the-biller's isn't? The threat coming from Hamsher and (some of her) friends is to put reelection pressure on spineless Democrats, to get them to buck up for a change against the Liebermans and Stupaks (who, to digress a bit, probably screwed himself on this one, but that's a different topic). This is the entire point."

Well maybe their threat is credible, but that doesn't really change much. You're basically working with a closed sample, that is, there's no where else to go. It's not like a sports free agent signing or something where the player can go somewhere else and the team can sign a different player, this is like a negotiation where if the sides don't agree then that player isn't allowed in te league and that team plays without someone in that position. Because if Lieberman and, say, Sanders are both unwilling to vote for a bill that doesn't meet their demands, and their demands are mutually exclusive, you don't "move the window," you just hit an impasse you can't get around.

[fishbane]

If you think Lieberman was perfectly fine killing the effort if he didn't get what he wanted, then it doesn't move anything. The problem is that you're misrecognizing where the leverage is.

No, I'm not. The weasel did well for himself, granted, and the reason pushing single payer didn't work was because everyone knew that most of the %$&*ing Dems-senators didn't give a damn about it. But -

Why is it that you seem to believe that Lieberman's threat to walk away from the bill is credible, but the kill-the-biller's isn't? The threat coming from Hamsher and (some of her) friends is to put reelection pressure on spineless Democrats, to get them to buck up for a change against the Liebermans and Stupaks (who, to digress a bit, probably screwed himself on this one, but that's a different topic). This is the entire point.

Had this happened two years ago, with a sacrificed goat, I mean congress critter, or two, would have created a credible threat to back putting single payer on the table, even if it weren't to be.

I'm certainly not denying that the spinelessness and pure tactical stupidity/not really giving a damn of the Dems screwed things royally this time. What I'm talking about is game theory in general, and why sometimes the right thing to do is to rip the steering wheel off your own car when playing chicken.

Managing to kill the bill, were that to happen, would be a seismic shift in the party, even if it cost some seats mid-term. Playing with fire, to be sure, and the outcome would be very much up in the air. But think through the incentives of the kill-the-bill types a bit. Even if it is true that this crappy bill is better than nothing, throwing a bowl of thin gruel in the face of those offering it to you frequently makes sense. To mix metaphors even more completely, just because a woman is getting *something* out of an abusive relationship doesn't mean she should stay in it.

[Thomas]

Lindsay,

In principle, I agree with your point about negotiation and I likewise appreciate the position of the KTB'ers.

However, there are some very strong arguments for why the current bill is, in fact, worse than no bill at all. Yes, we want to cover those presently uninsured and the current measure would do that. On the other hand, I can think of no other initiative in US history that mandates citizens to purchase a product out of pocket from a for-profit entity with virtually no practical recourse. I have serious reservations about such a precedent. We've moved corporate largesse from the chambers of congress to our own homes.

[fishbane]

(Sorry for the weird double post - not sure what malfunctioned.)

Brien -

I don't see this as a worthwhile exchange. You're ignoring big chunks of what I'm saying, and positing that the same-flank pressures that have Republicans freaked out about and pandering to the teabaggers somehow magically don't apply to Democrats. For instance,

"you just hit an impasse you can't get around."

Happen to notice the outcome in NY23? For that matter, what almost happened to Lieberman last time around? That's what happens when a credible threat meets an impasse. Now, what lessons do you think, public bluster aside, Republicans in at-risk seats took away from that? (Lieberman is a special case. He's in strip-mining mode because he knows there's no way in hell he'll be re-elected.) This is an iterative game.