I posted a recent note about the abrupt reversal of fortune of healthcare reform based on the recent election of a new senator from Massachusetts (see: Healthcare Reform and The Pressing Need to "Explain" the Proposed Legislation to the Average Joe). L.Needham, in response, posted the following comment:
[Y]our thoughts and ire are well placed. Moreover, as is your style, you admirably refrained from the perilous fields of overt political opinion....The irony of this 'situation' is thick; so is the comedy....[S]tatements regarding a need of a better explanation to the public about the bills contents are 'now' what some proponents are calling for ....However, the guise of 'back-to-basics' is horrifying in its intent. What it says to me is similar to your own expressed views: that without the majority 'bully' leverage, Washington will now how to revert to 'previous' 'basic' practices of exponential back-scratching, steroid-enhanced pork enrichment, and 5-digit pages of legislative bargaining contents...simply to strive to create a legislation that might pass....The issues related to healthcare are so layered, so wide-reaching, that the last thing needed in its discussion is having to make promises across the board in hopes of creating something complex enough that everyone thinks that they're ok with the bill...and no one being able to assess its true meaning.
Keep these thoughts in mind and now take a look at the opinion of David Brooks of the New York Times regarding this setback to healthcare reform (see: Politics in the Age of Distrust):
Instead of building trust in government, the Democrats have magnified distrust. The country already believed Washington is out of touch with its core concerns. So while most families were concerned about jobs, Democrats in Washington spent nine months arguing about health care. The country was already tired of self-serving back-room deals, so the Democrats negotiated a series of dirty deals with the pharmaceutical industry, the unions and certain senators. Americans already felt Washington doesn’t understand their fears and insecurities. So at the moment when economic insecurity was at its peak, the Democrats in Washington added another layer of insecurity by threatening to change everything at once. Instead of building a new majority, the Democrats have set off a distrust insurrection (which is not the same as a conservative insurrection). Republicans are enraged. Independents are furious. Democrats are disheartened. Health care reform is brutally unpopular. Even voters in Massachusetts decided it was time to send a message.
We are now faced with the national leadership of a president who was viewed by many people, when elected, as a man of the people and a unifier, despite a rarefied set of academic credentials. He leads a party with the total and unwavering support of the labor unions which represent, in part, the rapidly diminishing blue collar class. With the goal of reforming healthcare, he has tripped off a "distrust insurrection" among a broad swath of the population including many of the people who felt that he was representing their best interests. The process has also revealed, in an attempt to pass a massive and comprehensive healthcare reform bill, that congress is a one-trick pony. It only knows how to pass complex legislation using special deals and large concessions to lobbyists with bags of money.
According to Brooks, there are four bad options facing congress; listed in parentheses are his examples of how each option might be executed: (1) Heedless and Arrogant Approach: (ram the current policy through); (2) Weak and Feckless Approach: (try incremental reforms); (3) Dangerous and Demagogic Approach: (stripping the health bills of anything that might be unpopular and passing the rest regardless of the cost); and (4) Incoherent and Internecine Approach: (settling on no coherent policy but just blaming each other for cowardice and stupidity).
I am sure that variations on all four of these themes will be advocated by some members of Congress, I am also sure that Obama and the democrats can't walk away from passing at least some variant of healthcare reform legislation -- they will probably push for a watered-down version of the previous bill. However, I am personally just going to wait until some politician like Governor Rendell, or some of his more ambitious colleagues, can take the time to "explain" to me what I should think about all of this.
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