Health Care Reform and the Giant Internet Wurlitzer(tm) – witnessing history, folks
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This originally appeared as a comment at Balloon Juice on a post by DougJ about Kos and John Cole, but I thought I’d expand it a little, and post it here for review some day when Health Care Reform is just a page in a high school history textbook (assuming the neanderthals in the Texas textbook commission don’t replace it with a page about Phyllis Schlafley):
One thing I’ll mention about the entire discussion surrounding Health Care Reform (HCR) is that this is truly an amazing sight to see – this entire HCR debate. Step back a moment from the heated debate and marvel at what is occurring.
This is truly the first enormous, historic, ground-breaking legislative process that has occurred during the 24/7 Internet-enabled, social media-juiced media environment. Think about Medicare or Social Security or the 1964 Civil Rights Act as its precursors.
Thanks to the information-overload media system we now live in (or cursed because of that), the politically tuned-in public has been treated to the full panoply of legislative maneuvering in ways we have not witnessed previously. Even the ‘93 version of HCR didn’t have this level of information available about all that was going on. Now, we can find out more than we ever wanted to know about Reconciliation, the Filibuster, Conference Committees, and the like.
Two things I have observed from this:
1. Sausage-making is ugly: This new level of information has revealed a lot about our legislative process that turns off a lot of the public (look at congressional approval ratings across the board – ugly). Sure, the public hasn’t liked Congress for a while, but this whole process has made the disgust that much more palpable. I knew the sausage making process was ugly, but damned if I knew it was this ugly. And the sausage-making process is burning out some politically excited newcomers. Who knows how many, but cynicism seems to be the attitude du jour. It’s also exposed us to the powers of astroturfing by monied interests who don’t want any reform of the status quo (can you say Tea Baggers? I knew you could).
If I had to guess, I would say that the legislature will reform itself at some point in the near future, perhaps lower the majority needed to break a filibuster, or something like that. A nation as vast and populated as ours can’t survive with legislative gridlock for long. They will do this not because Congresspeople don’t enjoy the perks of being an asshole and obstructing legislation, but because the people will push them to it. It will be ugly, too. But the alternative in this hyper-real atmosphere will be worse for all involved.
All this Internet-based sunshine is revealing traditional legislative processes as the dated methods and machinations of a bygone era, in need of innovation as much as the printed newspaper.
2. Dialed up to 11: The constant need for content in the news media (and blogosphere) has artificially compressed everything, so that we (the politically attuned) are following every zig and zag as if it’s life-or-death. This has amped up the emotional level to 11, as witnessed by the heated discussions that go on every day at Balloon Juice, Daily Kos, or FireDogLake (or right-wing blogs that I won’t even bother to visit or link to, because that’s just the sort of asshole I am).
We want everything instantly, like we get our opinions and our e-mail. Meanwhile, the legislative process is *so damned slow!* They’ve been working on this for 10 months. Get ‘r’ done, already! we say.
Meanwhile, large swaths of the country are only minimally tuned in to the HCR debate. They overwhelmingly favor reform (if polls are to be believed), but aren’t dialed in to the particulars. I would hazard to guess that many are so busy making ends meet that they don’t have time or the energy to follow the legislative chess games.
Conclusion: I’m honestly not sure what all has been going on in Congress legislatively during the time HCR has been working its way through the bowels of the legislature. I’m sure David Waldman at CongressMatters could tell you. But I do know that this is important for our democracy. Health Care Reform is – in itself – important, because of the dramatic impact health care costs have on millions of insured and uninsured Americans.
But the mediated lessons are also important. As I mentioned in my comment at Balloon Juice, I’m not sure what to make of these two things yet. I’ll be glad when the HCR process is over, for sure. But there are definitely some things to take away for future legislative priorities of *either* party.
In the coming weeks, I hope to spend some time examining these two issues, because they are so important. My fellow BJ commenters are welcome to contribute, because I think these two aspects of the HCR debate are truly crucial in a “meta” sort of way. They will be with us as long as our media environment is saturated as it is now. And if we are going to get anything done in the future, politicians and politically active citizens will need to heed the lessons we can learn.
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I think the span of the process has had some benefits. I now find insurance and health care for more in the mix of ordinary conversation, which was not true before.
But the legislative process is amazingly unchanged from when they arrived in buggies. That’s a really good point.
Interesting post.
Meanwhile, large swaths of the country are only minimally tuned in to the HCR debate. They overwhelmingly favor reform (if polls are to be believed), but aren’t dialed in to the particulars. I would hazard to guess that many are so busy making ends meet that they don’t have time or the energy to follow the legislative chess games.
I think that the majority of Americans don’t know much about HCR efforts but they have a negative impression of it despite liking the particulars when polled (via that Kaiser survery). Some of that is the back-room deals and sausage making process but some of that is a failure from HCR advocates to clearly and consistently represent what’s in the bill and how it helps them. I know a lot of people who are outraged over Nelson’s deal despite realizing after some consideration that fully funding Medicaid at the federal level is a great idea. And of course Nelson’s deal is like a tenth of a percent of the whole bill but that’s what bothers them.
Bryan, I like this beefed up version. A few thoughts after a quick read. But I plan to revisit tomorrow, a slower day.
Remember when in the 1980s, direct mail operations were the ace in the hole technical advantage for Republicans? My point being that politics is being made really interesting by the increasingly rapid pace of technological innovation, interesting in a bad way.
Centrally controlled (too strong a word but its late) political parties were/are always problematic, but they were institutions with prerogatives to protect. So, the sausage making was hidden and the opposition was often loyal. They were, among other things, a buffer between process and people.
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#57 at BJ made me laugh out loud.
‘Cause you’re right.