THE HEALTH CARE REFORM MESS
Let's start with a simple statement. You can't expect people to help you do something they don't want to do. Seems obvious enough, but President Obama's whole strategy on passing health care reform was predicated on exactly the opposite, getting Republicans to help him pass reform measures they adamantly opposed.
When you put it that way, you have to ask yourself, "What was the president thinking?" It seems obvious now that Mr. Obama should have said: "To hell with the Republicans. We have the votes, let's get 'er done." It is what his predecessor would have done, in fact did do time after time.
But suppose he had done that, would it have guaranteed success? Maybe. Maybe not. Here is another simple statement to ponder. You can't get what you want if you don't know what you want.
Unlike the Republicans, who are Borg-like in their top-to-bottom discipline, the Democrats are an unmanageable confederation that simply could not come up with a plan they could all agree on. Instead, they argued among themselves and frittered away the golden months after an election when anything is possible.
Here the fault likes with those who insisted on pursuing the perfect instead of settling for good enough. What was good enough? Anything! Any kind of initial steps to tackle health care reform would have started a process that over time would lead to more and better reforms.
In the end, the reformers insisted on going for the whole enchilada right now instead of trusting in future generations of politicians to carry on the work they began. The result to date has been a toxic stew of failure and lowered expectations that if they are really lucky might result in the kind of bill they could have had months ago.
As Shakespeare wrote of another political stalemate, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
January 31, 2010
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