Drew Westen: The Way Forward on Health Care

[depakid]

Democrats in Congress are between a rock and a hard place on health care, and so, too, are the American people.

On the one hand, if Democrats do not pass health care legislation, they will be seen, rightly or wrongly, as unable to deliver on anything of substance to the lives of everyday Americans despite a Democratic president, a supermajority in the Senate, and an overwhelming majority in the House. The American people twice voted to "throw the bums out," in 2006 and then again in 2008. Bush and the Republicans had done more damage in eight years than any president since Herbert Hoover, and the American people had had enough of the ideology of unregulated greed that was the core philosophy of the Republican Party during the Great Depression and remains their core philosophy today.

To his credit, the president pushed through a stimulus bill that prevented us from falling off the cliff. But he refused, as FDR had done, to brand the crisis that had occurred as the direct result of Republican ideology and governance. He refused to explain to the American people why deficit spending in times of a crashing downward spiral is a virtue and not a vice. And he refused to call out -- let alone even answer -- Republican politicians attacking him from his first days of office for deficit spending, although they had just created as much debt in 8 years as in the previous 200-plus with enormous tax breaks for the wealthy and a trillion dollar war "off the books," neither of which they even considered paying for. As a result, he got little credit for having prevented another Great Depression, and now there are two competing narratives, that the stimulus saved us and that it was a waste of taxpayers' money.

With all the talk of hope and change, the American people were expecting something very different from the new Democratic majority. The president insisted on bipartisan solutions for problems Republican "solutions" had created, for which the imaginary bipartisans on the other side have not, and will not, cast a single vote. Making matters worse, at a time when Americans are -- and should be -- deeply suspicious of big business, these "bipartisan" solutions consistently seem to gravitate toward that golden mean between the public interest and the special interests (in this case, of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries).

.The American people watched as Democrats insisted on 60 votes for every piece of legislation, despite the fact that the Republicans "jammed down our throats" (to use a current Republican talking point) one substantial piece of legislation after another for eight years when they had far less than 60 votes in the Senate. The result of what looked to Americans (fairly or unfairly) like a cross between cowardice and dysfunction was what George Will aptly called the "serial bribery" of senators. All of them could step up and demand whatever they wanted to water down the bill or load it with pork for their state whenever it was their turn to become the 60th senator.

But Democrats have no choice but to pass health reform legislation of some kind and finally use the reconciliation mechanism that could have allowed them to construct a good bill in the first place. Otherwise, they will appear completely unable to govern -- while leaving millions of Americans without health insurance and 15,000 people a day losing it.

That's the rock. Now for the hard place....

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/the-way-forward-on-health_b_489387.html

(I doubt that the administration or the Democratic leadership in Congress will follow the prescription Dr. Westen lays out at the end of the piece- which would solve the dilemma- though if nothing else, it might be a model to bear in mind to keep from stuffing up future issues).

[Teaser]

1. The republicans did not jam significant legislation "down our throats"

Almost everything they "accomplished" was through executive fiat (war, regulatory enforcement) or was something that a bunch of Democrats signed onto (No Child Left Behind).

They used reconciliation for tax cuts successfully. They failed in their attempt to use it for ANWR.

This article is willfully inaccurate.

[depakid]

2. You must have been asleep from 2001-2006

He's not talking solely about reconciliation- and we can safely assume that there were almost always a couple of turncoat "Democrats" to help them out (long with a lack of leadership by the Senate majority leader(s) to stop them).

You might also read the rest of the article- that's where the suggestions on what to do are.

[Teaser]

3. nope, not asleep. observing.

and they did not jam legislation down our throats.

They got a lot of little crap done, budget bills, etc, but their big legislative agenda (social security reform, anyone?) was nearly as stymied as ours has been.

Most of the truly horrific stuff done under the Bushies was either regulatory, or executive overreach.

[depakid]

4. Well, that's not how most Americans saw it

It was one egregious piece of legislation and one extreme nominee after another- until Katrina began to turn the worm.

That enough of the usual Democratic suspects went along- and were complicit doesn't change the widespread (and accurate) perception that Democrats got rolled, over and over.

As to social security, the very fact that this was even seriously considered just goes to show that the situation had degraded to the extent that the wee even willing to go for broke and aim to dismantle the untouchable, longtime third rail of politics.

Might have been better in the long run if they had- as it seems as though the last crash wasn't enough motivation for either the administration or Democrats in Congress to hold the banksters accountable.