This Blank Verse is presented by David.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."
This may go down as Nancy Pelosi's most infamous quote. In the context of the times, when Obamacare was struggling to find enough Democrats to support it, and with Scott Brown being elected in the bluest-of-blue states, Massachusetts, the quote established in the minds of many Americans that mega-bills in Congress were too big and cumbersome for members to read or comprehend. It firmly established the idea that Congressmen and women don't read the bills they are passing. It remains the narrative, even though Republicans are now in charge of Congress. Ms. Pelosi's quote may have been one more building block in the argument that allowed an outsider like Donald Trump to win the presidency.
But to paraphrase Ms. Pelosi, sometimes you do need to pass a bill to find out just how the bill will work in the real world. In one way, she was right. The way legislation is supposed to work out, and the way it materializes are not the same.
America is full of smart people. We have many smart men and women in the field of economics. Too often, those people craft their analyses and projections based on static models. They make their calculations based on the here-and-now, but don't (or can't) factor in that outcomes change based on the changes that are introduced. These smart people refuse to acknowledge the multitude of variables affecting their projections. Or they know about the variables, but just don't know how to model for them. Obamacare is an example of this reality.
The knowledge we gained from the passage of Obamacare was to see how all of the projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and healthcare experts like Ezekiel Emanuel and Jonathan Gruber faired when the rubber hit the road. They didn't fair well.
Everyone in America was supposed to get coverage, but we fell well short of that. President Obama promised dozens of times that we'd all get to keep our plans and doctors. That didn't prove to be true (and, according to Gruber, Obama knew that was not going to be true from the beginning). Rates were promised to go down. Instead, rates have doubled for the majority of Americans, and most have deductibles that they will never meet.
While the CBO score on paper looked great, common-sense should have told them that their static model wouldn't work out in a dynamic world. For instance, if politicians make changes to health insurance that causes the cost of health insurance to double, people will be less likely to purchase it. Even if your model forces people to purchase insurance or pay a fine, they will pay the fine if it is much smaller than the insurance costs, particularly if that individual is young and healthy, and unlikely to need the insurance.
But what worked? It turns out people like free stuff. Who would have ever figured? Americans like to have their children stay on their plans until they are twenty-six years old. They like having their pre-existing conditions covered without having to pay any extra for the costs. Older Americans like having young, healthy Americans pay for their care. And states like having the federal government pick up almost the entire tab for their medicaid. These things, too, were easy to forecast.
There were fierce arguments both for and against Obamacare before passage, but it is only now, when we've seen the bill's effects in the real world that we can know with certainty how it worked. The variables were many, and the outcomes were not completely known. Proponents were certain the bill would be a success, and opponents were certain of it's complete failure. It was necessary for the bill to pass, and for the variables to play out, for us to know for sure how society would react, and what the bill would actually accomplish.
So what about the Tax Reform Bill passed last month? Again, economists are split into polarized camps. And once again, we have a bill that has many moving parts, and too many variables to count to know for certain how the legislation will actually play out. The economy has already improved considerably just on the promise of corporate tax cuts. Many of the key benefits that Republicans promised the bill would deliver are already showing signs of fruition. But will the economy actually bring more money into the IRS coffers as Republicans have stated, or will the bill add to the deficit, as Democrats claim? Will corporations repatriate their oversea's cash for the benefit of workers, or will they use the money to buy back stocks to benefit shareholders? Will the bill raise the wages of workers, or raise the pay of CEOs at the top of the heap? Is the bill a panacea for the middle-class, or a Christmas gift to the one-percent?
As Nancy Pelosi says, the bill has passed, now, we'll just have to wait to see what's in it for America.
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