Great pains were taken to get a bipartisan stimulus bill - with great impact on the deficit and little to show on stimulus or on Republican support. Message to Congressional Democrats: Don't let the same thing happen with health care.
The stimulus bill totaled about $787B including roughly $288B in tax cuts. Most of those tax cuts had a multiplier impact of close to zero. If you received a tax rebate check, what did you do with it? Spend it, put it in the bank or pay down charge cards? Economic theory suggests that most people saved it. Did you use the use the $8000 first time homebuyer's tax credit? The number of people eligible, with sufficient finances and willing to buy has had minimal impact thus far on the housing market. Bottom line thus far: the tax cuts which accounted for over 1/3rd of the stimulus package have produced little stimulus.
In contrast, the parts of the stimulus package that have the greatest multipliers, increased unemployment packages and jobs/infrastructure programs, have been the most vilified by Republicans. Best examples include Republican governors like Jindahl, Palin and Sanford trying to avoid accepting funds for some programs.
What did the country get for the $787B stimulus package? Three Republican Senate votes, no Republican House votes, and less than $500B in real stimulatory relief. (Arguably, the Republican Senate votes were critical to passing the legislation.) Subsequently, the Republicans from Limbaugh to McConnell to Perry have been critical of the package and of the economic stimulus that has not yet produced a major upturn - not that any economist was predicting that we would have an upturn so soon, only that things wouldn't become dramatically worse.
Bottom line on bipartisanship and stimulus? A substantially weaker and worse bill, virtually no Republican support, continued Republican criticism of the bill and its workings after the fact when it didn't deliver things that (a) the Republicans worked to sabotage and (b) weren't possible to begin with.
Lesson for health care? Screw bipartisanship!
For a small fig leaf of bipartisanship, will Congressional Democrats cripple a reasonable health care proposal? If they do, what's to gain? Those remaining without affordable insurance will suffer and the Democrats in Congress ultimately will suffer as well. If the compromise effectively cripples real reform, Republicans will come back and argue that the system is not appreciably better than before and that costs have increased dramatically. They'll trot out their horror stories - and there will be some - and they'll parade the usual cast of characters to portray congressional Democrats as unleavened socialists. And the rebuttal will be half-hearted because there will be substantial problems produced by the Democrats own compromises!
Frankly, there will be intense Republican opposition no matter what the plan and no matter how well-thought-through it is. Social Security should be the comparison. Republicans are still attacking it generations later although (a) it's tremendously successful and (b) it's incredibly popular. (It's also fiscally sound but that's a story for other diaries.)
The message that each of us needs to convey to Congressional Democrats: Suck it up! Bite the bullet! Damn the torpedoes! Vote for the best bill possible and dare the Republicans to oppose. Get the best possible bill that will pass by just one vote if necessary and let the Republicans scream all they want about lack of bipartisanship.
If the country gets a good plan, in three years or ten years or 20 years, that plan is going to be associated with the Democrats, just like Social Security is now. And the Republicans are still going to be criticizing it.
If the country gets a bad plan because of compromise, then Democrats are going to be castigated - as they should! And we're going to be in a situation similar to where we stand now with insurance recissions and purges, many Americans uninsured or underinsured, and a medical system that is inefficient and costly.