In an ironic twist of fate, health care reform suffered a near fatal blow on Tuesday because an anti-reform Republican replaced Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. Senator Kennedy, a leading American advocate of healthcare reform for several generations, died of cancer just as the finish line was in sight. He will be succeeded by Scott Brown, who came up quietly through the Massachussetts legislature to shock the Democratic establishment. He defeated State Attorney General Martha Coakley, who expected a cakewalk into the Senate. Obama's stumping for Coakley was not enough, just as it wasn't enough to help Jon Corzine win the Governor's race last November in another deep blue East Coast state, New Jersey.
Put aside the fun facts that the dashing Brown posed nude for Cosmo in his 20's and tried to pawn off his daughters on national TV during the victory speech on Tuesday night. The election was a dramatic defeat for the Democratic party just as Obama is hitting the one year mark of his administration. Massachussetts was a solid blue state that Obama carried by a huge margin, and a longtime stronghold for Senators Kerry and the beloved homegrown Kennedy clan. This race wasn't even supposed to be close, but the evidence shows that moderate independents who make up the largest chunk of the Massachussetts electorate migrated en masse to Mr. Brown, who ran as an anti-establishment outsider. Critically, the balance in the US Senate shifted from 60-40 to 59-41, leaving Democrats one vote shy of the filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes needed to pass health care reform and other parts of the liberal agenda.
In the immediate aftermath we are witnessing panic and dissent within the Democrat ranks, and gloating and rejoicing on the part of Republicans. The finger-pointing began even before the polls closed: administration officials blaming Coakley's lackluster campaign, Coakley's people blaming the DNC and the administration for not providing greater material support in a close race, and ugly internecine warfare in the Massachussetts Democratic party that was probably the largest factor of all. Many have concluded that the vote was a referendum on Obama and on healthcare reform. Meanwhile we are to believe Republicans and Tea Party folks are ascendant, the national electorate has shifted sharply to the right, and the 2010 midterms could become a bloodbath for Democrats. Whether any of this is true is debatable. But Tuesday was clearly a sick day for advocates of health care reform, including the president, but the show must go on. Here is why.
Democrats still own a massive majority. Many Democrats in Congress, in their weak-kneed fear that other "safe" seats across the country might fall in November, have forgotten that they were elected to office not simply to win more elections, but to serve the people. One measly defeat of a third-rate Senatorial candidate is by no means reason to give up on health care reform, or even scale back an already weak bill. Anyone who believes that reforming the health care system is right for the country, even if it is incremental reform, needs to double down on their efforts to pass it. Now is the time to courageously stand for convictions and deeply held beliefs, not abandon them out of fear. And if you are booted out of office, so be it. At least you can claim an ounce of integrity for standing for something. Yes, this might be Obama's Waterloo as Jim DeMint predicted, but at least he would go down in history as having fought for something that eluded liberals for 60 years and coming closer than any of them.
What seems to be getting lost here is that 59-41 is still a historically massive advantage, and paired with a House majority it's a far larger mandate than George W. Bush ever had. Yet under his watch the Republicans were able to steamroll through critical legislation such as the decision to invade Iraq. The problem with Democrats is that they lack that type of discipline. They need to find it, fast. The entire bickering caucus needs to get back on message. Passage of a bill in some form would be a victory that would not only help Democrats get re-elected, it would actually help real people.
This is About those 30 million uninsured Americans, remember? It's easy to see why some Massachussetts voters weren't scrambling to elect someone to office who could help pass health care reform. That's because Massachussetts already has a form of universal coverage, ironically implemented under Republican Governor Mitt Romney. Passage of health care reform at the federal level would not really help people in the Commonwealth at all. To the extent people were aware of that fact, Brown exploited it.
This represents a larger symptom of the health care struggle: most people are either pretty healthy or happy with the insurance they already have. The insurance industry is also perfectly content with the status quo, with laws in place which help keep the oligopolies in business and highly profitable. However, this arrangement comes at the expense of the millions of Americans who cannot get decent coverage, many of whom are children, the working poor, or the chronically ill, people who cannot speak for themselves as loudly as industry lobbyists. Who speaks for them? It was supposed to be Obama and his allies in Congress. To give up on them now, after already caving in on the public option and a hundred other needed reforms would be disgusting.
The Opposition. Sure, there is a groundswell of grassroots opposition to reform, though I believe this only played a limited role in Massachussetts. Politicians by nature must pay attention to this type of sincere and heartfelt opposition. However, much of it is fueled by the aforementioned contentment with the current system, coupled with fear. Fear of change, fear of spending more while the economy is a mess, fear of socialism, and even fear of the fictional Sarah Palin construct called "Death Panels" are what make the teabaggers tick. The opposition movement, to the extent they rally around any rational concept, are united by fear. And their scare tactics have successfully crept into the Democratic psyche. Yet neither the teabaggers, nor the Republican party have a plan on the table to cover the 30 million uninsured Americans. What are we supposed to do, just pretend they don't exist, and let them suffer and die from curable diseases? Nobody seems to have a good answer on that, except Republican coughs about tort reform, a good idea that at best would only constitute a fraction of the cost controls we need. The policy of saying no at all costs is untenable.
Obama's Position. The Obama camp is understandably rattled. The national mood has soured considerably since the inauguration exactly one year ago. Approval ratings have plummeted. The media has turned on the president for the second time, the first being during the long election cycle when now long-distant and irrelevant memories of Reverend Wright and Tony Rezko nearly derailed Obama's nomination. Most self-identified Republicans appear to hate Obama with a passion for his agenda which they consider diabolical, while many liberals are disappointed that Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan and compromising on civil liberties, the environment, and healthcare reform promises.
A sober look at his record, something the media is not paid to do, will show that Obama is not doing so badly. Sure, 10% of Americans are waiting in line for unemployment checks. The would-be Christmas bomber made us tremble and disrupted holiday travel. Deficits stare at us and look to grow bigger. While Obama's popularity abroad is high, we have not yet seen tangible foreign policy victories in relation to Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, or Israel-Palestine yet. Most Americans do not think we are better off than a year ago.
However most economists agree we have successfully avoided a more monumental collapse in the economy, and part of the credit must go to the administration's work in assisting the banking and auto industries, along with the stimulus package that clearly created and preserved jobs. We have seen steady improvement in the stock market and stopped much of the bleeding in the housing sector. The government over the last year has aggressively gone after terrorists, arresting or killing many before they were able to do harm to American interests.
Obama's position is much stronger than it might seem from emboldened critics and disheartened supporters. He inherited power at a historically difficult time, and has only been in office for a year. The next national election will not be until November. The players are in place. Now is the time to fight tooth and nail for health care reform, using whatever legal means available, including passing pieces through the 51 vote reconciliation process. It is critical to pass a bill with even minor reforms, so that in the future a more enlightened government can build on them. Losing at this stage, when a health care bill is so close, would set back efforts for years if not decades. It's quite possible that the fleeting Democratic majority may end as soon as November.
The 2010 election will hinge on the economy, not health care reform, as any provisions in the bill including higher costs and taxes will not kick in for several more years. The economy is the issue that will matter most at the polls, as Democrats can expect to be kicked out if they don't demonstrate that they were able to create jobs after nearly two years of being in power in Washington. It would be a mistake to conflate health care efforts with the Massachussetts election, which is exactly what the opponents of health care want the Democrats to do. If Scott Brown is the straw that breaks the health care reform camel's back, the Democrats should resign right now and leave Washington, and spare us the pretense of being in charge of anything, let alone our government.
It's gut check time. The next ten months will show what Obama and his party are really made of, will define their legacy far more than the first year did, will determine if they deserve to stay in power or not. Hope still exists, but the clock is ticking.
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