It’s a bitter pill to swallow. For us ideological Democrats who envisioned pushing America into the ranks of the other major industrialized nations by creating affordable, universal health care, the Senate bill is a brutal disappointment. Our President appears to have compromised his promises away. Republicans have defied reason by bending to the will of corporate insurance giants. Joseph Lieberman has proven to be motivated by pure spite. But it’s time for us Democrats to grow up and look at what we do have. For the first time since FDR’s New Deal, we have a serious (albeit less than ideal) proposal to expand the reach of affordable health care coverage to millions of Americans. Unlike Quentin Tarantino’s blockbuster film, this would certainly not be a time to kill the bill.

The sweetness of the bill resides in one word: subsidies. These subsides - to the tune of $900 billion - will make an enormous difference in providing health care to those who need it most. In addition, health insurance companies would be prohibited from denying coverage to those with preexisting conditions or from dropping coverage from those who are sick. If this doesn’t close the deal, tax breaks would also be provided to small businesses to provide coverage for their employees. Even for low and middle income individuals, premiums would fall. Any way you look at it, more people will be getting covered, and this is something that we can’t afford to give up.

Unfortunately, it seems that some Democrats and interest groups, such as the AFL-CIO, are playing political games. I understand that they feel the bill would be handing over a victory to the right - but think of what would happen if we didn’t pass the bill. More likely than not, disillusioned voters would react in the midterm elections by cutting Democratic seats. A weakened Obama might not even be able to win presidential re-election. The next time this country would see the reemergence of a serious health care debate, if fortune allows, would be in 2012.

Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winning economist and columnist for the New York Times, looks to history as a guide to determine whether we should support this bill. “Social insurance programs tend to start out highly imperfect and incomplete,” he reasons, “but get better and more comprehensive as the years go by.” He points to Social Security as an example, which started out with serious gaps in coverage but has become the foundation of our social safety net. Consequently, passing this bill would at the very least provide a foundation for future reforms in health care. Not passing it would provide, well, nothing.

Let’s not sink to the immature level of the Republicans, who seem to invoke the filibuster in their sleep, by stubbornly blocking this piece of legislation. Call your senator, tell him or her to pass this bill. We can push Obama to live up to his promises, censure Joe Lieberman, and work on dismantling the Republican fringe group tomorrow. But today, let’s pass this bill.

Tags: health care

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.