How They Did It The inside account of health care reform’s triumph. ….Focus had come with the campaign and, later, the first months of his presidency. By August, Obama could square off against any health care wonk in the country, including the ones who worked for him. Still, the passion he discovered wasn’t ultimately about the substance of health care policy—not entirely, anyway. Obama had come to view this debate as a proxy for the deepest, most systemic crises facing the country. It was a test, really: Could the country still solve its most vexing problems? If he abandoned comprehensive reform, he would be conceding that the United States was, on some level, ungovernable. Besides, several aides recall him saying, “I feel lucky.” After the meeting broke up, a few of his advisers milled in the hallways outside the Oval Office, pondering the prospect of taking up such a high-risk strategy because the president “felt lucky.” As one of them later told me, “It was like, holy shit.” continue reading… the first of a five-part series explaining, in remarkable detail, how Obama and the Democrats came to pass health care reform.… The New Republic

How They Did It

The inside account of health care reform’s triumph.

….Focus had come with the campaign and, later, the first months of his presidency. By August, Obama could square off against any health care wonk in the country, including the ones who worked for him. Still, the passion he discovered wasn’t ultimately about the substance of health care policy—not entirely, anyway. Obama had come to view this debate as a proxy for the deepest, most systemic crises facing the country. It was a test, really: Could the country still solve its most vexing problems? If he abandoned comprehensive reform, he would be conceding that the United States was, on some level, ungovernable. Besides, several aides recall him saying, “I feel lucky.”

After the meeting broke up, a few of his advisers milled in the hallways outside the Oval Office, pondering the prospect of taking up such a high-risk strategy because the president “felt lucky.” As one of them later told me, “It was like, holy shit.”

continue reading… the first of a five-part series explaining, in remarkable detail, how Obama and the Democrats came to pass health care reform.… The New Republic

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