Health Care Reform - and Barack Obama - Survived the August Screamfest?

With all the idiot media's corporate media's focus on "conflict" - tea baggers (and Sarah Palin) screaming "socialism," "death panels," "keep government's hands off my Medicare," and other craziness - you'd think that the right wingnuts had health care reform on the run, pretty much dead in the water, with Democrats terrified of the enraged mob. Well, think again!

Somehow, though, health reform is not dead. Despite all of the setbacks and all of the missed opportunities--despite this train wreck of a month--the situation remains remarkably similar to what it was before the recess. Significant health care legislation is likely to pass, particularly if Obama manages to give a good speech on Wednesday night. And while the possibilities for what that legislation might accomplish have certainly diminished, mostly for worse, it’s not clear how much they have diminished--and to what extent progressives may yet have the power to change that fact.

Even better, check out this analysis, which says that "a funny thing happened on the way to the morgue..."

After August, conservatives have exhausted their repertoire of arguments and many of their demagogic tricks. Public support for significant health care reform as something worth doing remains high. Support for Obama's plan remains unchanged -- didn't grow, certainly, but didn't decline. Support among Democrats remains at 90%. Obama's message tomorrow night will be one that dovetails with what the American people believe: it's important to get health care reform done. How will Republicans respond to his speech? Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) can trot out familiar arguments about the Republican's "plan," which is in scare quotes because it was written solely to have something to show people who asked what the Republican plan was. (If Republicans had written a serious plan, one that recognized the reality of a Democratic Congress, then I'd drop the scare quotes.)

After August, Democrats have the momentum to pass the bill. And this point, made by Jonathan Chait, is key: whatever reservations liberal House members might have about the fate of the public option, by voting against final passage of a good (if flawed) bill, they would be directly hurting the vulnerable Americans they want to protect. A health care defeat could spell the end of the Obama governing experiment, the most progressive in 40 years. As Chait says, Dems can be weak-kneed, but they're not dumb. The more I think about the events in August, the more I think of professional wrestling. Lots of chair shots, blood and taunts, plenty of theater, but at the end of the day, everyone goes back to the locker room, changes out of their tights, and goes to the bar for a drink.

Meanwhile, the logjam in the Senate Finance Committee has finally been broken, and Ezra Klein says it's actually "not a bad bill." In fact, Klein writes, after reviewing the Finance Committee proposal, it now appears that we will see health care reform that amounts to "the most important progressive policy passed since Lyndon Johnson," "protect[ing] millions of Americans from medical bankruptcy," "[insuring] tens of millions of people," "curb[ing] the worst practices of the private insurance industry," and much more. Klein concludes that the "fact that a bill of this size and scope can still be considered disappointing is evidence that the doors of the possible have been thrown wide open."

In other words, despite all the inarticulate rage (e.g., nonsensical screams of "I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!!!"), misinformation, disinformation, outright lies, crazy conspiracy theories, frustration with the slow-moving legislative "sausage factory," and even some honest disagreements on the details of this exceedingly complex issue, it looks right now like we are going to see a major achievement in this country, something that has been talked about for decades but has never quite managed to cross the finish line. Today, after weeks of listening to lots of nonsense and craziness, health care reform is on the verge of doing just that.

Assuming that health care reform passes, which now appears likely, the main questions remaining are whether or not there will be a robust public option in whatever finally comes out of Congress (I'm hopeful there will be), whether the reform manages to truly "bend the health care cost curve down" (this depends heavily on whether a robust public option is included or not), whether the right wingnuts continue their self-defeating opposition to healthcare reform even after they see that it benefits 99% of them (I'm betting on "yes, continue their self-defeating opposition"), and how much credit the Democratic Congress and Barack Obama get when they achieve this with almost no Republican cooperation (I'm not sure about this one, but if there's any justice in the world, the Democrats will get HUGE credit and the Republicans will suffer accordingly next November).