Why the "The Democratic health care legislation is a costly, futile mess"

[Better Believe It]

November 9, 2009

Change You Can't Believe In
Health Care: Winning a Battle, Losing the War
By JAMES RIDGEWAY

I know the prevailing opinon among the mainstream punditocracy is that Obama is in trouble because he is trying to do too much, too fast. I think it’s the other way around. There’s no doubt that the president faces tough opposition, much of it fueled by the kind of ignorance and racism that nearly impossible to quell. But they still do, after all, control a majority, both in Congress and among the American public. What makes Democrats most vulnerable to conservative attacks is the fact that they have no compelling message of their own to offer—and nothing to match the soaring rhetoric of the Obama campaign. Instead, they tiptoe cautiously down the middle of the road, and wonder why no one feels terribly inspired to follow them.

Take their health care legislation. When Obama addressed the Democratic caucus on the Hill this morning, they reportedly responded with “scattered chants of ‘Fired up, ready to go.” But fired up is exactly what reform supporters are not. There’s nothing in the bill to inspire any fervor on the left that could rival the tea parties. In fact, Republicans are partly right when they say that it won’t do much of anything but run up the deficit. The reason for this is not, as they claim, because it’s a socialistic big-government plot to take over the private medical system; the reason is that it isn’t any of those things–not by a long shot. The Democratic legislation is a costly, futile mess precisely because it refuses to rein in the industries that have been ripping off the American public year after year.

Obama and the Democrats have no real vision for a transformed health care system, so they’ve gone for a slightly modified version of business as usual. They’ve cut backroom deals that win a few meager concessions toward the public good, while at the same time ensuring the profits of the insurance companies, Big Pharma, and other health care profiteers by maintaining their basic control of the health care system and rewarding them with bigger assured markets and more and more money. (To make matters worse, at the last minute they also cut a deal with anti-choice members of their own party that will further undermine women’s access what was, when I last checked, still a legal medical procedure.) In other words, they’re doing what Democrats have done since at least the Clinton years–acting like kinder, gentler Republicans, rather than like the defenders of the common people.

A whole lot of Americans don’t like the current health care system, and a whole lot more hate insurance companies. The Democrats might have been able to translate that into some sort of populist support for real change. Instead, they dithered and compromised, and failed to invoke any compelling ideology. Health care ought to have nothing to do with profits. It should be a basic human right in a civilized society. But that’s precisely the kind of statement the Democrats are unwilling to make—so they end up saying nothing at all.

Obama was elected because people took him seriously when he said sought real change. So why won’t he take bold action on any of these fronts? Is it because if he did, the Republicans would abandon him and crush his dream of bipartisanship? Or because he doesn’t want the Democratic party to lose electoral ground among the so-called swing voters? Or because he’s afraid of being branded a crazy maniacal socialist? Oh, wait—all those things have happened already. So what does the president have to lose? If he’s going to be called a radical when he’s acting like a timid moderate, why not be a little more radical (or mildly progressive, even) in service of the public good? Then he might actually bring about some change we could believe in.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/ridgeway11092009.html

[Aramchek]

1. yet it passed, and will eventually become law. Your efforts to stop it will fail.

Miserably.