Lesson: Voters like their single-payer health care

[n2doc]

By Ezra Klein

Erie County Clerk Kathleen C. Hochul speaks at the UAW Hall May 24 in Williamsville, N.Y., after winning the race in the 26th Congressional District. (Harry Scull Jr - AP) Newsflash: Seniors like their single-payer health-care system. And other voters like the prospect of having the protection of a single-payer health-care system when they get older, too.

That, at least, is the main message out of New York's 26th district, where Democrat Kathy Hochul turned a special election in territory Republicans have held since 1960 into a referendum on the Ryan budget -- and won. The Republican theory, that voters would come to appreciate the specifics of the legislation once they recognized the courageous leadership the GOP had shown in endorsing it, failed. That's bad new for the House GOP, where all but four Republicans voted for the budget, and it puts Senate Republicans in a tough spot, as they're going to be asked to vote on the Ryan budget in the coming days. But the immediate policy question is what it means for the two Republicans sitting in the room with Joe Biden.

The White House's deficit talks didn't begin particularly auspiciously, with Republicans sending two rather than the requested four, members, and Democrats sending negotiators like Max Baucus and Daniel Inouye, who seemed to have little interest in a deal. But they've made more progress than most expected, and both sides now think a deal including more than $1 trillion in cuts is likely.

Republicans now need that deal more than ever. And, in particular, they need a deal on Medicare, because they need something that takes the Ryan plan off the table while putting both parties on the hook for Medicare cuts. That's their best, and perhaps their only, chance to defuse the issue in the 2012 campaign. But a Medicare deal is hard to reach on its own terms and almost impossible so long as Republicans are also saying tax increases are off the table. Democrats aren't going to bail Republicans out and accept painful cuts to Medicare so long as Republicans aren't budging on taxes.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-voters-like-their-single-payer-health-care/2011/05/25/AGji2BBH_blog.html?hpid=z2

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Yavin4]

2. A Better Title would've been: Voters NEED their single-payer health care

You won't be able to get health insurance when you are elderly.

[Lorien]

3. Neither party should be talking about cuts to Medicare. They should be talking

about ending the wars and slashing the Pentagon's budget along with ending corporate welfare. This isn't a political game; these are people's lives that they are toying with.