Dec 29 2007
Take who’s power away?
There’s an important aspect in the healthcare debate that I think has gotten, not overlooked, but less attention than it deserves. And that is the issue of power. Now, obviously, the Democrats seek to gain political power via health care. Or, at least I wish (as a Democrat) that the Democrats would seek to gain political power via health care, but that’s a different discussion. But what’s underdiscussed is that the Republicans also seek power by denying health care- and, by extension, denying the Federal Government is, or can be, a force for good at all. I wanted to point out a choice quote from this article from Mr. Anti-Tax himself, Grover Norquist:
He also confessed to Reason that he feared that Clinton’s effort to implement universal health care could have relegated the Republicans to permanent minority status: “Had the Democrats taken over health care, I think we would have become a social democracy and we could have never undone it. We wouldn’t have won in ‘94, and even if we did, it wouldn’t matter because 50 percent of the population would be on the take.”
Ignore for the moment the insulting insinuation that providing health care to the poorer half of the country means that they’re “on the take” (I assume it’s the poorer half- he didn’t specify which half). The entire Republican philosophy hinges on the belief that the Federal Government cannot help. If the government can help, then obviously it has a moral obligation to help. If people believe the government can, and thus should, help, then those who do not want the government to help will be headed for political exile for another generation. Universal, affordable, federally funded health care would be an electorial disaster for the Republicans. And the Republicans themselves know this.
The Republicans have already spent 40 years in the “electoral wilderness”- from 1932 to 1968 the only was Republican got elected was to run as a Democrat-lite. And even then, they often didn’t get elected. Note, the same is not true for the Democrats. The Democrats tried for universal health care- in ‘48, again in the 70’s, and again in the 90’s, and are currently 0 for 3. And they’re still here. They lost elections, sure, but nothing like what the Republicans faced after the New Deal.
The battle over health care, and by extension the New Deal and progressive government in general, will ramp up again, the next time a Democrat is elected. If not this election, then the next, or the one after that. And when it does, expect the Republicans to play no holds barred. To go even lower than they normally do. Because this isn’t just about an election, it’s about 40 years in the political wilderness. When they present their spin on the issue, keep this in mind. This might call for an even larger grain of salt.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Of course, the Democrats have their own vested interests, and so when they offer their spin on how great the federal government is, that needs a grain of salt, too. After all, as you alluded to, they have as much to gain as the Republicans have to lose: federal politics is effectively a zero-sum game between the Democrats and Republicans (and this is part of the reason I hate it).
An example of this is Hillary Clinton’s assertion that “nobody would be at the back of the line” for health care. That’s just blatant nonsense — the reality is that health care is a limited resource, and so (like any limited resource) it can only be doled out in certain portions. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to go without care so that someone else can get it: there’s got to be some way of prioritizing who gets care, and that means someone is behind someone else in line.
Socialized health care is a huge gamble for the Democrats: as big a gamble as the War in Iraq was for the Republicans. Imagine a world in which Bush ordered our soldiers into Iraq, and the result was a stable democracy which positively influenced the Middle East and became a Muslim state that was as loyal an ally as Israel. Imagine how immense a win that would have been for the Republican party, and how that would have solidified the neoconservative majority.
But that’s not what happened. The gamble backfired, and it’s turned into a huge mess, which we’re unsure of how to fix and unable to morally retreat from.
That’s the same way I view federally socialized helath care. If it works, it’ll be a huge win for the Democrats, and a great thing for the country. But if it goes wrong, it’s a quagmire that we’ll never escape from.