Back in the dark recesses of my mind, I could swear I remembered some sort of Politico article in which Rahm Emanuel laid out his vision of health care reform. After a lot of searching today, I found it. Thanks, Google! In the piece, John Harris and Jim VandeHei sit down with Emanuel to talk through his memories of 1994, when he was one of the political strategists who advocated early compromise and was frustrated by Clinton's stubborn intransigence. The central question for any health reform battle, argues Emanuel, is when to hold -- to go for the whole bill -- and when to fold, getting a piece of something rather than 100% of nothing:
Emanuel says the lesson of the first Clinton presidency is that Democrats must head into any reform battle reaching for the Holy Grail — coverage for everyone — but with a clear exit strategy if that proves out of reach.[...]In an interview in his Capitol office (with a Dire Straits CD playing in the background), Emanuel noted that, roughly once every generation since Harry Truman, Democrats have believed they are on the verge of achieving this victory. Each time, they have fallen short, even while gradually expanding coverage for specific segments of society (Medicare for the old, the CHIP program for the low-income young). Compromise, he said, is not such a bad thing.“You've got to have a plan for universal coverage. But you also have to have some product at the end of the process you can deliver.”He argues the fallback plan should be covering new portions of the population, not all of the insured. Atop the list: covering all children, allowing early retirees to buy into Medicare at a higher premium and permit small businesses to create purchasing pools to insure their employees. He recognizes this is not necessarily what everyone in his party wants to hear. “‘Emanuel: Go Small;' is not the headline I'm looking for,” he said.
