THE TOP FOUR REASONS WHY HEALTH CARE REFORM IS IN TROUBLE
With apologies to David Letterman. I'm sure if I had his writers I could come up with 10 reasons, but these four will do for a start.
Number Four. There is not a big enough constituency for change. According to a recent poll, only 26 percent of those polled strongly favor reform versus the 44 percent who strongly oppose reform. Plus, most people who already have health care feel okay with the plan they have. More importantly, it is hard to be in favor a plan when there there is no legislation to rally around. In this case, the devil we know is winning hands down over the devil we don't know.
Number Three. The Republicans and conservatives are unified and on message. The Democrats are well, Democrats ... as in divided. The Republican disinformation campaign will go down as the one of the most brilliantly staged grass roots movements in political history. It helps that the Republicans, including their top elected officials, have no compunctions about letting untruths and half-truths sit out there uncontested. Case in point, the notorious canard about death panels to euthanize seniors. Meanwhile the Democratic left and right push competing versions, creating a home-grown divide and conquer strategy that so far is working beautifully — for the Republicans.
Number Two. Most Americans have no clue how things work. That leaves a lot of fertile ground to plant such ideas as the government can't do health care (not true, just ask any soldier or anyone on Medicare) or that single-payer health care equals socialism and won't work anyway (not true, again just ask on Medicare or any of the millions of government employees working under such a system).
Number One. Obama has failed to define the debate. In the discussion leading up to passage of the stimulus bill, he gave the American people a short list of provisions that absolutely positively had to be in the bill. Contrast that to the health care bill, which right now consists of 5 different bills that nobody outside of a few Congressional staffers really understands.
So where does it all end? Probably in the passage of some kind of bill that may do some good but most certainly will not be the sweeping reform envisioned at the start of this debate. The good news is that passage of any kind of bill will be a remarkable accomplishment. The bad news is that it may feel like a defeat.
Republicans will gloat, Democrats will gird themselves for losses in 2010. President Obama will move on to the next crisis that is always just around the corner. Whatever happens to health care reform, there is still a lot of history to be made.
August 13, 2009
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