Comments on: Political Feasibility is Relevant!

By: Austin Frakt

Austin Frakt — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:27:35 +0000

@bluntobject – We talked about Intrade on health reform. If we were the speculating type we’d be doing that. On the other hand, there are some ethical considerations. But really, it’s not that tempting.

By: bluntobject

bluntobject — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:10:25 +0000

Sounds like your friend could make some money on Intrade and/or iPredict.

By: Austin Frakt

Austin Frakt — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:23:03 +0000

@bluntobject – Of course it is art, not science (dark art maybe). And it isn’t by chance that what is politically feasible is complicated. The result of so many conflicting interests has got to be. But mostly, there are things that get proposed that one can immediately see won’t fly with one major interest group or another. Or, if you need 60 votes in the Senate for a left-leaning ambition but a senator or two is facing a tough fight in his state and vulnerable on the right you can’t count on his vote, at least not without some substantial gift or cover.

That’s just a start. I’m not even very good at discerning the boundaries of the politically possible, but I think I’m better than most. I do, however, have access to some very good political minds, one of whom has, lately, predicted every political news item on health reform hours or days before it occurred. If only there were big money in blogging he’d be making it. Fortunately for me (and readers here) he tells me everything he thinks.

By: bluntobject

bluntobject — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:54:43 +0000

So what makes a bill politically feasible? Looking at both HCR and Waxman-Markey, I suspect that one required feature is daunting complexity, in which any number of special considerations (like Nelson’s federal buyout of Nebraska’s Medicaid costs) can be hidden. I tend to prefer simpler proposals — they’re harder to game and easier to analyze, and in the end I think they lead to less voter mistrust because of that. But for all the polling and focus groups, the object isn’t to make the bill feasible for voters, but to make it feasible for politicians — and that means embedding something specific for everyone to point to at election time and say “See what I got for you in the big health-care bill?”