The idea of a bipartisan health care bill seems unlikely, but there is historical precedent for parties working across the aisle to save critical programs, writes Julian Zelizer.
It has happened before.
Reagan and Social Security
One of President Ronald Reagan’s biggest defeats early in his administration came on his proposal to cut Social Security benefits for early retirees. When he included this measure in his budget, congressional Democrats snapped to attention. Dejected after Reagan’s 1980 victory over President Jimmy Carter, Democrats criticized Reagan for trying to slash the benefits that elderly Americans depended on.
But Reagan didn’t back away forever. In 1982, Social Security was back on the agenda when experts warned that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s greatest legacy faced a massive budgetary imbalance in the near term that threatened the program. The government would be spending more on benefits every month than it was raising through payroll taxes.
Reagan, still stinging from his defeat, established a bipartisan commission to offer recommendations about how to fix the program. Reagan appointed Alan Greenspan to serve as the chairman of the 15-person commission. The panel, which had more Republicans than Democrats, reviewed every possible solution. Democrats like Claude Pepper of Florida warned that the commission was stacked with conservatives and would not produce anything that his side could accept.
And other Democrats warned that the commission would have trouble making recommendations that were acceptable to their party. After all, the GOP was the party of Reagan, who had repeatedly expressed his opposition to the basic structure of Social Security, as well as Medicare.
In the 1982 midterm elections that took place while the commission met, many House Democrats — who picked up 26 seats — ran on the saying that, «It’s not fair . .. It’s Republican» in reference to the Social Security plan and other conservative domestic policies. Democrats handed out bumper stickers that read, «Save Social Security — vote Democratic.»
The commission came back with a recommendation to put the program on sound footing. The report «rejected proposals to make the Social Security program a voluntary one.» But there were concerns that partisan pressures would sink the commission’s recommendations.
Greenspan’s panel proposed increasing Social Security revenues by taxing a larger number of employees, accelerating tax rates, taxing some Social Security benefits, delaying cost of living adjustments and more. Reagan expressed his support for their recommendations, saying, «Well, sometimes, even here in Washington, the cynics are wrong. Through compromise and cooperation, the members of the commission overcame their differences.»
Dole and Moynihan
Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, the stalwart conservative from Kansas, had made a number of statements indicating his support for modest reforms to save the program, including an op-ed in The New York Times published on January 3.
Dole argued that «Through a combination of relatively modest steps, including some acceleration of already scheduled taxes and some reduction in the rate of future benefit increases, the system can be saved.» He added that «When it is, much of the credit, rightfully, will belong to this President and his party.»
Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan of New York, who was on the commission with Dole and had just been sworn in to a second term, was energized by Dole’s op-ed. Moynihan approached Dole on the Senate floor and asked: «Are we going to let this commission die without giving it one more try?» The op-ed was crucial to Moynihan, who recalled that until that point Republicans «were talking about scrapping the system.»
White House Chief of Staff James Baker organized a «gang of five» (also called the «gang of nine» for those who included the four White House staffers who participated) with members from both parties who entered into an intense, secretive set of meetings to find a resolution. Hardly «anyone expected the negotiations to succeed, » according to the Times given the intensity of partisan division.
Their meetings were conducted behind closed doors, leaving some to fear the kind of wheeling and dealing that was taking place. In his classic account of the reforms, «Artful Work: The Politics of Social Security Reform, » political scientist Paul Light wrote that the closed-door negotiations were essential to success so that members could make «painful choices» on key issues.
Other than a long break on January 8 to watch the Washington Redskins compete in the NFL playoffs, the negotiations were nonstop. In the end, both sides agreed that the final deal had to inflict some political pain on both parties — that was the only way it could work. They reached a deal on January 15.
The administration found support from such congressional Democrats as Speaker Tip O’Neill who was eager to join the president in this effort to save a key part of the social safety net.
Congress eventually passed legislation that raised the payroll tax, raised the retirement age from 65 to 67, delayed the cost of living adjustment for six months and required government workers to pay for Social Security. The Social Security Amendments of 1983, a $168 billion package, remain a landmark moment in the history of the program. It made the program solvent for several more decades.
Reagan said the legislation «demonstrates for all time our nation’s ironclad commitment to Social Security.» He continued, «It assures the elderly that America will always keep the promises made in troubled times a half a century ago. It assures those who are still working that they, too, have a pact with the future.»
The health care impasse
In 2017, repeating this success with health care seems almost inconceivable. The polarization in Washington has become so much worse that it is hard to imagine the two parties coming together on any issue of this significance.
House Republicans who are part of the Freedom Caucus and their allies in the Senate will have little appetite to join Democrats on any initiative. Shifting to the center feels to them like the ultimate act of political betrayal. Any Republican willing to sign on to such a deal would face great political risks back home. Repealing Obamacare has been so important symbolically that compromising on this question could be politically disastrous for Republican members of Congress.
Democrats will likewise have little appetite to hand President Trump a victory of this sort. The utter failure of Republicans to deliver on repealing the ACA, with the realization that much of the program is far more popular than conservatives believed it to be, has been one of the main rallying points for the Democratic Party. Continuing to hammer away on this issue, rather than giving Republicans a victory, could be critical to success in the 2018 election, allowing them to both save the program and regain control of the House. So why compromise right now?
And both parties must grapple with the reality that millions of Americans who now have health coverage are likely facing rising costs.
