Here at TPM we started the week with a key question: just what happened over the last four weeks that got us from Health Care Reform seeming more or less dead till now when it seems like something pretty close to the whole pre-Scott Brown enchilada is likely to pass? This morning Brian Beutler explained the curious story of how a couple outside groups and a handful of endangered senate Democrats managed to revive the fortunes of the Public Option in a surprisingly organic and out-of-nowhere way. The other question that has intrigued me even more is: just what was going on at the White House?
That’s the question Christina Bellantoni looks at in a follow up piece we posted early this evening. I definitely recommend it to you.
When I was thinking of assigning this piece. The question I had was this. Did we, did I, just misjudge the White House’s reaction to the Massachusetts debacle? With this the plan all along? To let things settle, and then to come back hard and get it done a month later? Or was the White House reacting to other factors and developments that emerged over recent weeks?
My own sense had been that the original version of the White House Health Care Summit, the way it was presented at the outset, was very different from how it seems to be emerging. It really wasn’t clear to me it was even the intention to move a comprehensive reform bill.
So what happened?
The White House clearly played a role facilitating the on-going discussions between the House and Senate Democrats. They pounced on the Anthem health insurance hike in California. And they’ve done a pretty decent job boxing in the Republicans in this dance of bipartisanship over the last few weeks. Fundamentally though, it seems like the White House did hang back and was unwilling to commit itself in any serious ways until the chances of a victory seemed strong. They did not want to take a hit if another attempt failed.
Read Christina’s run-down of what happened here.
