While White House Condemns Liberals, Congressional Moderates Remain Inflexible

Now that the House and Senate have passed heathcare bills, the process of merging the disparate proposals must take place. The White House has branded liberals who oppose the more conservative Senate bill as inflexible and impractical. But moderates, whom Obama has eagerly sought to appease during the legislative process, have repeatedly drawn firm and rigid lines in the sand.

Joe Lieberman, for example, issued multiple filibuster threats until Obama instructed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to drop the public plan option from the Senate bill. Ben Nelson won concessions on abortion funding after he threatened to derail the bill. And Mary Landrieu secured millions of dollars in federal funding for Louisiana after she vowed to vote against the measure.

According to The Hill, Senate moderates have promised to maintain their inflexible stance during the upcoming negotiations:

Democratic centrists have informed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) they will accept few changes in the final healthcare bill negotiated between the House and Senate.

Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) have made clear there is little room to deviate from the bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve.

They are the most vocal of nearly two-dozen senators who have indicated they see little wiggle room in the conference talks. . . .

Lawmakers in the House will have to accept the Senate legislation with little change if a final bill is to muster 60 votes to overcome procedural hurdles and make it to President Barack Obama’s desk, the centrists say.

“There’s very little room for this bill to change,” said Landrieu. “The framework really has to stay basically in place.

Although centrists have continually dug their heels in the sand and threatened to kill the reform process unless their demands were met, the White House has not described their muscularity as "insane" or "irrational." Instead, these labels seemingly apply only to liberals who demand a tough posture during negotiations.

Question for readers: What do you think explains the disparate treatment of liberals and moderates by the White House?

See also:

NYT's Adam Nagourney Peddles New White House Attacks on Progressives

Criticizing President Obama Is Pragmatic

Rahm Emanuel Tells Liberals To Kiss His Arse

Liberals Battle White House Over Healthcare Reform

White House Shows Its True Colors on Healthcare Reform

Irrational Robert Gibbs Says Howard Dean Is Irrational

Salon's Glenn Greenwald Says: Blame Obama, Rather Than Lieberman

Why Is Obama Still Protecting Lieberman?

House Democrat Louise M. Slaughter: Scrap Senate Healthcare Bill

Obama Falsely Claims that the Senate Healthcare Bill Matches His Campaign Promises

Ezra Klein's "Pink=Blue=Colors" Logic Regarding Healthcare Reform

How Much Is Ben Nelson's Opposition to Abortion Worth?

Moderate Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska recently threatened to withhold support for the Senate healthcare bill. Nelson believes that the Senate bill does not do enough to keep participants in the insurance exchanges from using federal subsidies to pay for abortion services. After a day of negotiations, however, Nelson now supports the bill.

According to Politico, Nelson caved after winning federal subsidies to cover new participants in Medicaid. The Medicaid program is a federally based health plan for indigent people. The Senate bill would expand coverage in Medicaid. Typically both states and the federal government cover the costs of the program. But under the Nelson-abortion deal, the federal government will pay all of Nebraska's costs of new Medicaid recipients forever. Although "forever" is a tricky concept in the law (a subsequent Congress could probably negate the deal), this amounts to $45 million over the next ten years:

Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who claims that she opposes publicly run healthcare programs, received a similar deal earlier this year in exchange for her support. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid describe these deals as normal compromises to push legislation. I agree with this argument.

The White House, however, has described liberals who want certain things in the legislation as a condition of their support as "irrational" and "insane." By contrast, it has helped to secure hundreds of millions of dollars for conservative states that did not even go for Obama (or any other Democrat in recent history) in the presidential election. While the media is preparing to celebrate the passage of the legislation that it and the White House always preferred -- legislation devoid of a public plan -- the entire process will look corrupt to many people -- including some of the staunchest Democrats and progressives.

UNSTIMULATED

The stimulus does not have enough votes to pass in the Senate -- and senators are scrambling to cut (gut?) the proposed measure. Susan Collins and Ben Nelson, two moderate Republicans, want to eliminate $200 billion from the package. But it appears that lawmakers have already inserted a new provision that makes the legislation more expensive (a new home purchase tax credit). Good luck!

I think it's pretty remarkable that Republicans have been able to hold up the stimulus, despite the sweeping Democratic victory in national and state politics this year. Clearly, some Democrats in the Senate disagree with the package in its current form. And, perhaps the release of a Gallup poll which shows that only 38% of the public supports passage of the legislation in its current format has something to do with the current stalemate.