Compromising Partisans: Assessing Compromise in Health Care Reform

For differing views on the impact of partisanship and polarization, for instance, see the following: Ronald Brownstein, The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America (New York: The Penguin Press, 2008); William F. Connelly, James Madison Rules America: The Constitutional Origins of Congressional Partisanship (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010); Lawrence C. Dodd and Scot Schraufnagel, “Reconsidering Party Polarization and Policy Productivity: A Curvilinear Perspective,” in Congress Reconsidered, 9th ed., eds. Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2009), chap. 17; Morris Fiorina, “Parties and Partisanship: A Forty Year Retrospective,” Political Behavior24 (June 2002), 93–115; Gary C. Jacobson, “Party Polarization in National Politics: The Electoral Connection,” in Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era, eds. Jon R. Bond and Richard Fleisher (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2009), chap. 2; Keith Krehbiel, “Where’s the Party?” British Journal of Political Science 23 (March 1993), 235–266; Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (NY: Oxford University Press, 2006); Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism (NY: Basic Books, 2012); W. Lee Rawls, In Praise of Deadlock: How Partisan Struggle Makes Better Laws (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2009); Nancy Rosenblum, On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship (Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 2008); Nancy Rosenblum, “A Political Theory of Partisanship and Independence,” in The State of the Parties: The Changing Role of Contemporary American Parties, eds. John Clifford Green and Daniel J. Coffey (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), chap. 17; Barbara Sinclair, Party Wars: Polarization and the Politics of National Policy Making (Norman, OK University of Oklahoma Press, 2006); Barbara Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U.S. Congress, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2012); and Sean M. Theriault, Party Polarization in Congress (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

And on the permanent campaign, for instance, see the following: Sidney Blumenthal, The Permanent Campaign: Inside the World of Elite Political Operatives (Boston, MA: Beacon, 1980); David Brady and Morris Fiorina, “Congress in the Era of the Permanent Campaign,” in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, eds. Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2000), chap. 6; Connelly, James Madison Rules America; Hugh Heclo, “Campaigning to Governing: A Conspectus,” in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, eds. Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2000), chap. 1; and Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E Mann, “The Permanent Campaign and the Future of American Democracy,” in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, eds. Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2000), chap. 9.

Martin Benjamin, Splitting the Difference: Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1990); J. Patrick Dobel, Compromise and Political Action (Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1990); Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, “Mindsets of Political Compromise,” Perspectives on Politics 8 (December 2010), 1125–1143; Avishai Margalit, On Compromise and Rotten Compromises (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010); Rosenblum, “A Political Theory,” 300–306.

Note that some disagreement exists regarding the impact of partisanship and the permanent campaign on compromise. See, for instance, Brownstein, The Second Civil War; Connelly, James Madison Rules America; Dobel, Compromise and Political Action; Gutmann and Thompson, “Mindsets of Political Compromise”; Rosenblum, On the Side of the Angels, chap. 7 and 8; and Sinclair, Party Wars.

Heclo, “Campaigning to Governing,” p. 17.

We are not suggesting that challenging the status quo through legislative action is always the better course and that legislative achievement necessarily improves the status quo. See, for instance, Marie Gottschalk, “They’re Back: The Public Plan, the Reincarnation of Harry and Louise, and the Limits of Obamacare,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 393–400; Michael K. Gusmano, “Do We Really Want to Control Health Care Spending?” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 495–500; Charles O. Jones, The Presidency in a Separated System, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2005), chap. 8; and Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, “The Real Constitutional Problem with the Affordable Care Act,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 501–506.

Lawrence Brown, “The Elements of Surprise: How Health Reform Happened,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 419–427; Scott L. Greer, “The States’ Role under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 469–473; Colleen Grogan, “You Call It Public, I Call It Private, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off?” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 401–411; Rogan Kersh, “Health Reform: The Politics of Implementation,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 613–623; Joseph White, “Muddling Through the Muddled Middle,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 443–448.

On the question of whether health care reform qualifies as landmark legislation, see Brown, “The Elements of Surprise”; Grogan, “You Call It Public”; Jacob S. Hacker, “The Road to Somewhere: Why Health Reform Happened or Why Political Scientists Who Write about Public Policy Shouldn’t Assume They Know How to Shape It,” Perspectives on Politics 8 (August 2010), 861–876; Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda Skocpol, Health Care Reform and American Politics (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010); John E. McDonough, Inside National Health Care Reform (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011); Mark A. Peterson, “It Was a Different Time: Obama and the Unique Opportunity for Health Care Reform,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 429–436.

Included in the Democratic super-majority are the Independents who caucused with the Democrats, namely, Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT) and Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). The super-majority existed from the 7 July 2009 certification of Senator Al Franken (D-MN) as the victor in the contested Minnesota race until the 19 January 2010 election of Senator Scott P. Brown (R-MA).

Hacker, “The Road to Somewhere”; Sasha Issenberg, “Romney Defends Mass. Health Care Law,” 30 March 2010, accessed on the Boston Globe website at http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/03/30/romney_defends_massachusetts_health_care_law/, 1 November 2011; Jacobs and Skocpol, Health Care Reform, chap. 2; Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, chap. 8; Staff of the Washington Post, Landmark: The Inside Story of America’s New Health-Care Law and What It Means for Us All (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2010), 65–72, 90–91.

Although congressional parties are less heterogeneous than in the past and the center has consequently shrunk, significant diversity still characterizes the party caucuses. On these matters see Brown, “The Elements of Surprise”; Richard E. Cohen and Brian Friel, “2009 Vote Ratings: Politics as Usual,” July 2010, accessed on the National Journal website at http://www.nationaljournal.com/2009voteratings, 7 November 2011; James A. Morone, “Big Ideas, Broken Institutions, and the Wrath at the Grass Roots,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), 375–385; and Norman Ornstein, “Worst. Congress. Ever,” 19 July 2011, accessed on the Foreign Policy website at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/19/worst_congress_ever?page=0,0 27 January 2012. Consider, as well, the Republican Party’s problems in the 112th Congress due to the House GOP caucus’s diversity: Ornstein, “Worst. Congress. Ever.”

Connelly, James Madison Rules America; Gutmann and Thompson, “Mindsets of Political Compromise.”

Gutmann and Thompson, “Mindsets of Political Compromise.”

Stuart Rothenberg, “Capitol Hill Democrats Have Met Their Enemy and It Is Them,” 30 July 2009, accessed on the Rothenberg Political Report website at http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/news/article/capitol-hill-democrats-have-met-their-enemy-and-it-is-them, 15 June 2011.

David Brady and Edward Schwartz, “Ideology and Interests in Congressional Voting: The Politics of Abortion in the U.S. Senate,” Public Choice 84 (1995), 25–48; Eileen Burgin, “Deciding on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Evidence from Congress’s First Showdown with President George W. Bush,” Politics and the Life Sciences 28 (March 2009), 12–25; Donald P. Haider-Markel, “Morality Policy Individual-Level Political Behavior: The Case of Legislative Voting on Lesbian and Gay Issues,” Policy Studies Journal 27 (November 1999), 735–749; Kenneth J. Meier, “Drugs, Sex, Rock, and Roll: A Theory of Morality Politics,” Policy Studies Journal 27 (November 1999), 681–695; Elizabeth A. Oldmixon, Uncompromising Positions: God, Sex, and the U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005).

Michael Doran, “Legislative Compromise and Tax Transition Policy,” The University of Chicago Law Review 74 (April 2007), 545–600; Michael J. Graetz, “Paint-by-Numbers Tax Lawmaking,” Columbia Law Review 95 (April 1995), 609–682.

Marcia Clemmitt, “National Debt: Are Higher Taxes Needed to Reduce the Debt?” CQ Researcher 21 (March 2011), 241–264; Gary W. Cox and Mathew W. McCubbins, “Divided Control of Fiscal Policy,” in The Politics of Divided Government, eds. Gary W. Cox and Samuel Kernell (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991), chap. 7; Doran, “Legislative Compromise”; Graetz, “Paint-by-Numbers”; E. Scott Adler and David Leblang, “Legislative Bargaining and the Macroeconomy,” in The Macropolitics of Congress, eds. E. Scott Adler and John S. Lapinski (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), chap. 9; Irene S. Rubin, The Politics of Public Budgeting: Fetting and Spending, Borrowing and Balancing, 5th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2006).

Hacker, “The Road to Somewhere”; Issenberg, “Romney Defends”; Jacobs and Skocpol, Health Care Reform, chap. 2; Kaiser Family Foundation, “2008 Presidential Candidate Health Care Proposals: Side-by-Side Summary,” 21 July 2008, accessed on the Health08.org website at http://www.health08.org/sidebyside_results.cfm?c=5&c=16, 9 November 2011; Kevin Sack and Michael Cooper, “McCain Health Plan Could Mean Higher Tax,” 1 May 2008, accessed on the New York Times website at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/us/politics/01mccain.html?scp=1&sq=McCain+Health+Plan+Could+Mean+Higher+Tax&st=nyt), 7 November 2011; Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, chap. 8; Staff of the Washington Post, Landmark, 65–72, 90–91.

Jacobs and Skocpol, Health Care Reform, 85; Staff of the Washington Post, Landmark, 179–180.

Kaiser Family Foundation, “2008 Presidential Candidate Health Care Proposals”; Sack and Cooper, “McCain Health Plan.”

Eileen Burgin, “Congress, Health Care Reform, and Reconciliation,” Congress & the Presidency 39 (September 2012), 270–296; Hacker “The Road to Somewhere”; Jacobs and Skocpol, Health Care Reform; Staff of the Washington Post, Landmark; McDonough, Inside National Health Reform; Vincent G. Moscardelli, “Harry Reid and Health Care Reform in the Senate: Transactional Leadership in a Transformational Moment?” The Forum 8 (2010), 1–24. In addition, see the special edition of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (June 2011), which includes a series of mini-essays devoted to various aspects of health care reform.

Barbara Sinclair, “The New World of U.S. Senators,” in Congress Reconsidered, 9th ed., eds. Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2009), chap. 1.

Mann and Ornstein, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.

Frances E. Lee, Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 4, 9.

Brownstein, The Second Civil War.

Blumenthal, The Permanent Campaign, p. 7.

Brady and Fiorina, “Congress in the Era of the Permanent Campaign,” pp. 150, 155; Heclo, “Campaigning to Governing,” pp. 1–37; Ornstein and Mann, “The Permanent Campaign,” p. 225.

Lee, Beyond Ideology, p. 10.

Note that some studies of party polarization do not offer normative judgments. For instance, Theriault (Party Polarization) examines the causes of polarization and their effect on legislative procedures and elite polarization.

Rosenblum, On the Side of the Angels.

Rosenblum, “A Political Theory.”

Rosenblum, On the Side of the Angels, pp. 356–362.

Connelly, James Madison Rules America.

Ibid., p. 163.

Gutmann and Thompson, “Mindsets of Political Compromise,” p. 1134.

Ibid.

Rosenblum, On the Side of the Angels, p. 362.

Dobel, Compromise and Political Action.

Simon Cabulea May, “Principled Compromise and the Abortion Controversy,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 33 (May 2005), p. 317.

Gutmann and Thompson, “Mindsets of Political Compromise,” p. 1127.

Margalit, On Compromise, p. 5.

Benjamin, Splitting the Difference.

Rosenblum, On the Side of the Angels, p. 361.

Gutmann and Thompson, “Mindsets of Political Compromise,” p. 1135.

Lee, Beyond Ideology, p. 3.

White House Press Release, “Attendees at White House Forum on Health Reform,” 5 March 2009, accessed on the Washington Post website at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030502846.html?sid%27ST2009030501895, 9 November 2011.

Jeff Davis, “How Reconciliation Would Work,” 19 January 2010, accessed on the The New Republic website at http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/how-reconciliation-would-work, 12 January 2011.

Quoted in Carl Hulse, “A Health Legislation Fail-Safe Works, but Not as Expected,” New York Times, 26 March 2010.

Jan Austin, ed., CQ 2009 Almanac (Washington, DC: CQ-Roll Call Group, 2010), 13–4.

Newsweek Staff, “Stupak Like a Fox,” 19 November 2009, accessed on the Newsweek website at http://newsweek.com/2009/11/18/stupak-like-a-fox.html, 8 November 2011; United States Congress, House, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 884,” 7 November 2009, accessed on the website for the House of Representatives at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll884.xml, 19 April 2011.

For a discussion of process and the various cloture votes, see Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, pp. 199–210.

Ibid., p. 212.

Alex Wayne and Edward Epstein, “Obama Seals Legislative Legacy with Health Insurance Overhaul,” CQ Weekly, 29 (March 2010), 748–753.

Jacobs and Skocpol, Health Care Reform, pp. 115–119.

This GOP calculus of “putting partisan advantage ahead of problem-solving” is exactly what Mann and Ornstein (It’s Even Worse Than It Looks), describe regarding the 2011 debt limit crisis, notwithstanding the divided government at the time.

Marcia Clemmitt, “Gridlock in Washington,” CQ Researcher 20 (April 2010), 385–408; Hacker, “The Road to Somewhere”; Jacobs and Skocpol, Health Care Reform, 81–82.

Ben Smith, “Health Reform Foes Plan Obama’s ‘Waterloo,’” 17 July 2009, accessed on the Politico website at http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Health_reform_foes_plan_Obamas_Waterloo.html, 7 November 2011.

Emily Pierce, “Reid Set a Filibuster Record,” 2 January 2011, accessed on the Roll Call website at http:www.rollcall.com/news/-201997-1.html, 20 January 2011; United States Senate, “Senate Action on Cloture Motions,” accessed on the Senate website at http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/cloture_motions/clotureCounts.htm, 24 January 2011.

Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, p. 207.

Austin, CQ 2009 Almanac, 13–4.

Aaron Blake, “The Misappropriation of the Tea Party Label and the Headache It Is Causing,” 17 March 2011, accessed on the Washington Post website at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/the-misappropriation-of-the-tea-party-label-and-the-headaches-its-causing/2011/03/17/ABws711_blog.html, 7 November 2011.

Jonathon Allen and Meredith Shiner, “Tea Partiers Descend on Capitol Hill,” 6 November 2011, accessed on the Politico website at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29183.html, 7 November 2011.

Hacker, “The Road to Somewhere”; Matt Taibbi, “The Crying Shame of John Boehner,” Rolling Stone, 5 January 2011.

Interestingly, though, the very fact that health care reform was a presidential agenda item probably exacerbated partisanship and diminished the possibility of gaining minority party support. See Lee, Beyond Ideology, chap. 4.

Drew Armstrong, “Hopes for Bipartisan Health Care Deal Lie with Baucus; Reconciliation Still on the Table,” CQ Today Print Edition – Health, 3 August 2009.

Davis, “How Reconciliation Would Work”; Robert Keith, “The Budget Reconciliation Process: The Senate’s ‘Byrd Rule,’” CRS Report, RL30862, 17 March 2010.

Manu Raju, “Debate Tests Reid’s Leadership Style,” 29 July 2009, accessed on the Politico websiteat http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=1&subcatid=1&threadid=2764389, 22 November 2011.

David Herszenhorn and Robert Pear, “Democrats May Seek to Push Health Bill Through House,” New York Times, 18 January 2010.

Burgin, “Congress, Health Care Reform, and Reconciliation,” pp. 281–282.

Steve Benen, “Project for a Healthy American Future: The Way Forward on Health Care Reform in 2010,” Washington Monthly, 25 January 2010, 1–11.

Burgin, “Congress, Health Care Reform, and Reconciliation,” pp. 282–285.

Pelosi quoted in Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Jeff Zeleny, and Carl Hulse, “The Long Road Back,” New York Times, 21 March 2010.

Kaiser Family Foundation, “Health Tracking Poll, 11–16 February 2010, accessed on the Kaiser Family Foundation website at http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/8051-F.pdf, 21 June 2011.

Staff of the Washington Post, Landmark.

Cohen and Friel, “2009 Vote Ratings.”

The pro-choice and anti-abortion terminology is widely accepted and used. For further information on the appropriateness of this terminology, see the following: William Saletan, Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2004); John Seery, “Moral Perfectionism and Abortion Politics,” Polity 33 (July 2006), 345–364; and Michael Lim Tan, “Fetal Discourses and the Politics of the Womb,” Reproductive Health Matters 12 (November 2004), 157–266.

On these maneuverings and calculations, see Timothy Jost, “Implementing Health Reform: Pre-Existing Condition Coverage,” 30 July 2010, accessed on the Health Affairs Blog website at http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2010/07/30/implementing-health-reform-pre-existing-condition-coverage/, 12 January 2011; and Staff of the Washington Post, Landmark, pp. 30–35.

Matt Miller, “Sorry, Bart Stupak – The Feds Already Subsidize Abortion,” 4 March 2010, accessed on the Washington Post website at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/03/sorry_bart_stupak_--_the_feds.html, 27 November 2011.

Newsweek Staff, “Stupak Like a Fox.”

Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, 197; Newsweek Staff, “Stupak Like a Fox.”

Dominique Pastre and Chad Pergram, “Rep. Bart Stupak Announces His Retirement After Health Care Controversy,” 9 April 2010, accessed on the Fox News website at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/09/rep-bart-stupak-retire/, 7 November 2011.

Staff of the Washington Post, Landmark, p. 37.

Kaiser Family Foundation, “Health Tracking Poll.”

John Dickerson, “Stupak Opposes Senate Compromise – Interview with Bart Stupak,” 21 December 2009, accessed on the Washington Unplugged CBS website at http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6006181n, 7 November 2011; Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, p. 204.

Burgin, “Congress, Health Care Reform, and Reconciliation,” pp. 272–273.

Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, 220.

Ibid.

Barack Obama, “Executive Order 13535: Ensuring Enforcement and Implementation of Abortion Restrictions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” 24 March 2010, accessed on the White House website at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-7154.pdf, 12 November 2011.

Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, p. 226.

Newsweek Staff, “Stupak Like a Fox.”

Mimi Hall, “Both Sides of Abortion Issue Quick to Dismiss Order,” 25 March 2010, accessed on the USA Today website at http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-24-abortion_N.htm, 7 November 2011.

Jacobs and Skocpol, Health Care Reform, 18; Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, pp. 220–221.

Jost, “Implementing Health Reform.”

Ben Nelson, “Senator Nelson Delivers Floor Speech on Abortion Language in Health Care Reform – Press Release,” 24 December 2009, accessed on Senator Nelson’s website at http://bennelson.senate.gov/press/press_releases/122409-02.cfm, 2 November 2011.

United States, Public Law, P.L. 111–148, “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” enacted 23 March 2010.

Hall, “Both Sides of Abortion Issue.”

Molly K. Hooper and Mike Soraghan, “Up-Or-down Vote on an Amendment to Block Abortion Funding Approved,” 11 November 2009, accessed on The Hill website at http://thehill.com/homenews/house/66789-stupak-to-get-up-or-down-vote-on-amendment-to-block-abortion-funding, 7 November 2011.

Newsweek Staff, “Stupak Like a Fox.”

Kaiser Family Foundation, “2008 Presidential Candidate”; Sack and Cooper, “McCain Health Plan.”

Cohen and Friel, “2009 Vote Ratings.”

Ryan J. Donmoyer and Nicole Gaouette, “Senate Finance Panel Members Vow to Limit Insuree Tax,” 30 September 2009, accessed on the Bloomberg website at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newarchive&sid=a9ELmDRAIi9M, 8 November 2011.

Erica Werner, “‘Cadillac’ Tax Hit Worries Senators,” 18 September 2009, accessed on the Times Union website at http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Cadillac-tax-hit-worries-senators-551592.php, 7 November 2011.

Donmoyer and Gaouette, “Senate Finance Panel Members.”

Kaiser Family Foundation, “Senate Finance Committee Press Release on Bill,” 22 September 2009, accessed on Health News of the Kaiser Family Foundation website at http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/22/Modifications-Press-Relesase.aspx, 27 November 2011.

Werner, “‘Cadillac’ Tax Hit Worries Senators”; Jeffrey Young, “AFL-CIO Has ‘Concerns’ about Health Insurance Tax,” 29 July 2009, accessed on the The Hill website at http://thehill.com/homenews/news/52651-afl-cio-has-concerns-about-health-insurance-tax, 7 November 2011; Jeffrey Young, “Kerry Postpones Effort to Trim Health Insurance Tax,” 30 September 2009, accessed on The Hill website at http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/60897-kerry-postpones-effort-to-trim-health-insurance-tax, 7 November 2011.

John Kerry, “Why This Progressive Is Sticking by the Tax on Insurance Companies,” 7 January 2010, accessed on the Huffington Post website at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/why-this-prgressive-is-s_b_414968.html?view=print, 7 November 2011; United States Congress, House, H.R. 3962, “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” 2009, as passed in the House.

Jordan Fabian, “Sanders to Introduce Amendment Stripping Cadillac Tax From Senate Bill,” 10 December 2009, accessed on The Hill website at http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/71661-sanders-to-introduce-amendment-stripping-cadillac-tax-from-senate-bill, 7 November 2011; Werner “‘Cadillac’ Tax Hit Worries Senators.”

Bernard Sanders, “Tax on Workers’ Health Insurance Plans a Bad Idea – Press Release,” 10 December 2009, accessed on Senator Sanders’ website at http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=a8c2dee9-cc01-4f0e-b4e6-996036e3bbc9, 6 November 2011.

United States Congress, Senate Finance Committee, “Baucus Modifies Chairman’s Mark to Improve Health Care Affordability, Maintain Deficit Reductions,” 22 September 2009, accessed on the Kaiser Health News website at http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/22/Modifications-Press-Release.aspx, 9 November 2011. Note that these initial compromises occurred prior to the Finance Committee mark up: Amy Lotven, “Controversy Surrounding Excise Tax Suggests Compromise Likely,” 21 October 2009, accessed on the Citizens for Tax Justicewebsite at http://ctj.org/ctjinthenews/2009/20/, 28 November 2011. And the CBO estimated that the Senate Finance Committee Cadillac tax provision would have raised $201 billion over ten years, making it the biggest tax increase in the measure: Nicole Gaouette and Laura Litvan, “Senate Finance Panel Passes $829 Billion Health Plan,” 13 October 2009, accessed on the Bloomberg websiteat http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid+newsarchive&sid=a5TNXkq.9qa, 6 November 2011.

United States, “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”; United States, Public Law, P.L. 111–152, “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010,” enacted 30 March 2010.

Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking, 211; United States Congress, House, “Affordable Health Care for America Act.”

United States, “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010”; Jenny Gold, “Cadillac Insurance Plans Explained,” 18 March 2010, accessed on the Kaiser Health News website at http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2010/March/18/Cadillac-Tax-Explainer-Update.aspx, 6 November 2011.

Ronald Brownstein, “A Milestone in Health Care Journey,” 21 November 2009, accessed on The Atlanticwebsite at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/11/a-milestone-in-the-health-care-journey/30619, 7 November 2011.

Kerry, “Why This Progressive Is Sticking.”

Gold, “Cadillac Insurance Plans Explained.”

Kerry, “Why This Progressive Is Sticking.”

Brownstein, The Second Civil War, p. 367.

Eric M. Patashnik, Reforms at Risk: What Happens After Major Policy Changes Are Enacted (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 3.