Although I've been sidelined by injury and surgery, I have no personal stake in health care reform, because I have the same excellent federal employee insurance coverage enjoyed by the President and all members of Congress. Were the 32 million Americans added to my government plan, I suspect my annual costs would go down. But, I'd be willing to pay more, if that was the price of insuring 32 million more Americans.
But, then, I'm a "liberal" and a patriot - someone who cares about large groups of Americans I'll never meet. I'm also my brother's keeper. Nevertheless, I still recall the upbraiding I received in 1995 from a Finnish woman, while visiting Helsinki: "What's wrong with you Americans? You're the richest country in the world and, yet, are unable to provide the free universal health care and free universal educational opportunities that we Finns take for granted."
(By the way, although a few Republicans attempted to conflate and deride Obama's health care plan with those in European welfare states, his plan actually brings 32 million new customers to America's private enterprise health care system. Moreover, those derisive Republicans badly need to be educated about European welfare states. Were they educated, they might learn that European welfare states actually provide greater opportunities for social mobility than found in the U.S. They might learn that European welfare states offer a higher quality of life than found in the U.S. - with no overall loss in individual liberties. They might even learn, as economist Jeffrey Sachs recently observed, that the steadily deteriorating U.S. already has the lowest taxes of all major Western nations - which suggests that even lower taxes would lead to further deterioration.)
The Senate bill single handedly approved yesterday by Democrats in the House of Representatives represents a singular historic accomplishment for the Obama administration and the American people. American Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt through Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton have attempted but failed to accomplish such a feat. It represents a triumph for "Yes we can" and the "change" that candidate Obama promised.
But it also marks a disastrous defeat for Republicans. Former Bush administration speech writer, David Frum, hit the nail on the head when he recently wrote: "Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s...We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat"it's Waterloo all right, ours."
Perhaps, now they'll wake up and smell the coffee -- and decide to support the American people, not just the military industrial complex and the rich. Just don't bet on it.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
