The Campaign Trail, Post-Healthcare

President Obama just released his own healthcare reform bill and with the bipartisan “healthcare summit” taking place yesterday, everyone in Washington has been speculating on the chances of healthcare reform passing the House and Senate and landing on the President’s desk.

“I would say very slim,” said Candida Wolff, former Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs during the Bush Administration, in a phone interview.

“It’s not dead,” wrote New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, on health reform and the public option in a column on Monday.

But what isn’t being discussed is the future - the campaign strategy for each party if a healthcare reform bill passes, or if it doesn’t.

With the number of members of the House and Senate retiring before the upcoming elections in November, there will be many closely contested open seats in addition to a number of seats held by incumbents up for reelection that could be in play this November.

In recent months, Republicans have hammered the healthcare reform bills in the House and Senate because of what the bills entail. It is no question that the Republican strategy so far has been to knock Democrats supporting the current healthcare bills on the table.

According to Wolff, if healthcare reform does not pass both houses and land on the president’s desk, the Republican campaign response for House seats will be to tout Republican alternatives to the Democratic bills.

“House [Republicans] have… some set of proposals that they put together which they call health insurance reform, and that set of proposals is something the candidates will end up using when they’re out on the stump and they are campaigning” said Wolff.
If something does pass, however, Wolff believes that two routes could arise from the situation.

If healthcare passes with “bipartisan support” than Republicans will flaunt their support of the healthcare reform bill during their campaigns for reelection.
However, if healthcare passes with only partisan support, than Republicans will declare their issues with the bill and “campaign against it.”

For Republicans, healthcare is a very tricky campaign topic because there are so many routes that they can take depending on what happens between now and November.

For Democrats, though, many people say that passing healthcare legislation is the best thing they can do.

Eugene Robinson wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post that if “Democratic leadership in Congress has only one rational course of action: Pass the thing (a comprehensive healthcare reform bill), and quickly, or risk becoming the loyal minority” after the elections in November.

“By…passing a healthcare bill…we could, and we plan to, run on the message that we delivered comprehensive healthcare reform to the American people,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Ihsan Raleigh in a phone interview today.

According to Raleigh, Democrats want to prove to their “own base” that they delivered on a campaign promise many congressional Democrats were elected to fulfill and prove to the American people that they can bring effective change.

If a healthcare reform bill does not pass, it is likely that Democrats in contested districts will find themselves in tough battles with Republicans who seem ready and willing to prove Democrats can’t get anything done.

What is also important is how relevant the healthcare issue will be come this November.

“[If] there hasn’t been a political discussion on the floor of the House or the Senate for six months, then something else may be a defining issue in September,” said Wolff, “What is it when you’re going into the election after Labor Day?”

When no one really knows what the most defining issue will be in the election in November, it is best for both Democrats and Republicans to do now what they think will help them in the elections. For Democrats that seems to be passing healthcare legislation, for Republicans the future isn’t quite as clear.