From the FINANCIAL TIMES:
…The trap the Democrats had hoped to spring was to say to Republicans, “Here is our plan. Where is yours? Why aren’t you bringing anything to the table?” With the opposition exposed as a nullity, reconciliation would look more respectable. It didn’t work. The Republicans outmanoeuvred the Democrats, not the other way round. They mostly let spokesmen with relevant experience and expertise carry the burden, and they stuck to a simple script that said, “Let’s do this step by step, starting with things we agree on, instead of trying to do everything at once, which we can’t afford.”
Substantively, that is a weak argument, in my view, for familiar reasons. Successful healthcare reform has to be a big package: crucially, for instance, you cannot do guaranteed issue and community rating without the individual mandate. But superficially the Republican line is very appealing, and Democrats failed to knock it down…
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