Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives by Robert Draper Page B
Authors: Robert Draper
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jobs. They just want to shove a liberal, over-regulatory, Big Government agenda down your throats.
Next up: the health care bill. Or, as Republican pollster Frank Luntz helpfully renamed it after first hearing the term from a middle-aged St. Louis woman in one of his focus groups: “the government takeover of our health care system.”
On the evening of January 19, 2010, the House Democrats caucused at the Capitol Visitor Center. The atmosphere bordered on riotous. It had just been announced that in Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown had won the Senate seat previously held by the late Ted Kennedy—effectively ensuring that the Senate Democrats would no longer have the sixty votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. This meant, among other things, that the health care bill that the House Democrats had sent over to the Senate stood no chance of passage in the upper body. Many in the room believed that the Affordable Health Care Act, with its divisive provision of a “public option,” or government-run health insurance program that would compete with private insurance companies, was dead—or that it should be dead.
Speaker Pelosi quieted the members. “We came here to pass a health care law that will really change this country,” she said. “And we’re not blinking.” Pelosi promised them that she would fight to keep the public option in the health care bill. Then she left the caucus to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Even some of the progressives in the caucus were astonished by her words. One of them was Massachusetts Congressman Mike Capuano, who represented Cambridge, but also the working-class city of Chelsea,with a poverty rate exceeding 20 percent. Capuano kept on his office wall a large framed photograph of a meaty-handed Italian-American from his district. He had recently come off the campaign trail in a failed bid to be the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat that Scott Brown had just won. “They’re telling us, ‘Slow down,’ ” Capuano warned his colleagues that evening. “They don’t trust Washington. They don’t understand what we’re doing here. And this is a message they’ve sent us, and we’d better pay attention to it.”
Gene Taylor, a Blue Dog from Mississippi, was even more emotional. He stood before the microphone and told the House Democrats about how, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Taylor and his son were touring the devastation by boat when they happened upon a man who refused to believe that his home had been destroyed. “They were telling him, ‘Your house is gone,’ ” said Taylor. “And he kept saying, ‘No, no, it’s still there, you just can’t see it from the water.’ He was in denial!
“And if the Speaker were still here,” Taylor declared sharply, “I would tell her: ‘Madam Speaker, face the facts! We haven’t listened to the people—and now our House is gone!’ ”
The moment represented an astonishing turnaround from the year before, when the House Republicans seemed paralyzed by the new president’s ability to find support from among private insurers, the American Medical Association, and doctors for a comprehensive solution to the nation’s health care problems. But by August 2009, the health care debate had ceased to be an earnest disagreement over policy. It was now an ugly snarl of fear, loathing, and cynicism blaring through a Tea Party megaphone.
Pelosi’s task was a hopeless one. The progressives wanted universal coverage. The Blue Dogs wanted lower health care costs. Rural members wanted higher Medicare reimbursement rates for rural hospitals. Bart Stupak of Michigan wanted a stipulation that none of the federal funds would be used to pay for abortion. President Obama wanted at least one Republican vote from the Senate.
And these were only the major demands. Pelosi had countless others to contend with. Her most poignant dissenter was John Tanner. The Blue Dogs’ cofounder had served with Pelosi for
Next up: the health care bill. Or, as Republican pollster Frank Luntz helpfully renamed it after first hearing the term from a middle-aged St. Louis woman in one of his focus groups: “the government takeover of our health care system.”
On the evening of January 19, 2010, the House Democrats caucused at the Capitol Visitor Center. The atmosphere bordered on riotous. It had just been announced that in Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown had won the Senate seat previously held by the late Ted Kennedy—effectively ensuring that the Senate Democrats would no longer have the sixty votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. This meant, among other things, that the health care bill that the House Democrats had sent over to the Senate stood no chance of passage in the upper body. Many in the room believed that the Affordable Health Care Act, with its divisive provision of a “public option,” or government-run health insurance program that would compete with private insurance companies, was dead—or that it should be dead.
Speaker Pelosi quieted the members. “We came here to pass a health care law that will really change this country,” she said. “And we’re not blinking.” Pelosi promised them that she would fight to keep the public option in the health care bill. Then she left the caucus to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Even some of the progressives in the caucus were astonished by her words. One of them was Massachusetts Congressman Mike Capuano, who represented Cambridge, but also the working-class city of Chelsea,with a poverty rate exceeding 20 percent. Capuano kept on his office wall a large framed photograph of a meaty-handed Italian-American from his district. He had recently come off the campaign trail in a failed bid to be the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat that Scott Brown had just won. “They’re telling us, ‘Slow down,’ ” Capuano warned his colleagues that evening. “They don’t trust Washington. They don’t understand what we’re doing here. And this is a message they’ve sent us, and we’d better pay attention to it.”
Gene Taylor, a Blue Dog from Mississippi, was even more emotional. He stood before the microphone and told the House Democrats about how, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Taylor and his son were touring the devastation by boat when they happened upon a man who refused to believe that his home had been destroyed. “They were telling him, ‘Your house is gone,’ ” said Taylor. “And he kept saying, ‘No, no, it’s still there, you just can’t see it from the water.’ He was in denial!
“And if the Speaker were still here,” Taylor declared sharply, “I would tell her: ‘Madam Speaker, face the facts! We haven’t listened to the people—and now our House is gone!’ ”
The moment represented an astonishing turnaround from the year before, when the House Republicans seemed paralyzed by the new president’s ability to find support from among private insurers, the American Medical Association, and doctors for a comprehensive solution to the nation’s health care problems. But by August 2009, the health care debate had ceased to be an earnest disagreement over policy. It was now an ugly snarl of fear, loathing, and cynicism blaring through a Tea Party megaphone.
Pelosi’s task was a hopeless one. The progressives wanted universal coverage. The Blue Dogs wanted lower health care costs. Rural members wanted higher Medicare reimbursement rates for rural hospitals. Bart Stupak of Michigan wanted a stipulation that none of the federal funds would be used to pay for abortion. President Obama wanted at least one Republican vote from the Senate.
And these were only the major demands. Pelosi had countless others to contend with. Her most poignant dissenter was John Tanner. The Blue Dogs’ cofounder had served with Pelosi for
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