Speaking of Larison and impossibility of entitlement repeal, I thought he made an excellent — and oft-neglected point — about the deleterious political effect a repeal movement could have on the GOP:
After years and decades working to build a substantial Republican majority in both houses, most of these voters typically get little or nothing for all of their time and work, because the party does not actually represent the concrete interests of most of its voters, and then the discredited leadership that has misled them for years issues a rallying cry to give Republicans more power yet again. Frankly, health care repeal is another one of these political fantasies Republican and conservative leaders use to keep their supporters engaged and intent on turning out to vote. “Just keep voting Republican, and any day now we will repeal that awful health care bill…” Obviously, the party will have an incentive to reap the electoral rewards of whipping up the base while putting off repeal for as long as possible.
Proposing repeal without delivering it will keep the party’s supporters angry and mobilized, and the repeated disappointment of their expectations will actually lock them into supporting the GOP ever more reliably. In the meantime, the rest of the electorate adjusts and accommodates itself to the new entitlement, and repeal goes in a fairly short time from being a far-fetched but practical position to something that no elected representative from a competitive district would ever advocate.
After Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts, when it looked like Democrats were on the verge of completely abandoning the reform effort, activist Democrats threatened to abandon the party if it decided to go that route. And for good reason. Universal health insurance was a long-time goal of the Democratic Party, and if the party couldn’t use it’s majority to pursue it’s chief domestic policy priority, then what reason was there for supporting Democratic candidates in the future?
The same goes for Republicans if they decide to whip the base into a frenzy over the possibility of repeal. Repeal is virtually impossible, and while it’s tactically smart to motivate the base by way of repeal, it might not be beneficial in the long-term, given the high likelihood that Republican leaders will not seriously pursue repeal (thus demoralizing their base even further).
It won’t only be “the rest of the electorate [that] adjusts and accommodates itself to the new entitlement” – it will also be health care providers, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies who adjust to the new reality. Even if the changes result from stress caused by the bill, such as adaptation due to a shortage of primary care services, I doubt that they’ll want to adjust back. Further, in other areas all three of those established factions stand to profit from the bill – it’s part of the design of this bill to reward private corporate interests.