In the last few days it has become abundantly clear that efforts to reform health care and health insurance is dead. The Congress may eventually pass something called “health care reform” and the president may eventually sign such a bill with glee, but there will be no reform of health care or health insurance any time soon.
Affordable health care for every American has been a Democratic ideal for three generations. Every Democratic president since Roosevelt has tried to pass some type of health care reform. President Clinton’s infamous effort in 1993 and 1994 imploded and led to the Republican takeover of Congress in January 1995.
Though health care reform is his top domestic priority, President Obama has been absent from this fight all along. He refused to send a proposal to the Congress; then he refused to say what he would or would not accept. He wouldn’t even take a concrete position on the public option. Clearly the president wanted to be able to sign a bill — any bill — so that he could claim victory.
Late this summer, the White House gave up on health care reform completely and began supporting health insurance reform. And the White House and the Congress became consumed with passing anything before Christmas.
In an effort to meet its own ridiculous deadline, the Senate is trying to pass a bill that’s literally not worth passing. A bill without the public option and without a Medicare buy-in is simply not reform. Howard Dean is right to urge Democrats to scrap the bill. The bill is worthless.
The idea of government-run universal care, the dream of liberals, never got off the ground even in a Democratic government. From the very beginning, the White House has been compromising and compromising, so that now there is nothing substantive left. All of this with a Democratic president and huge Democratic majorities in Congress. They failed us.
Health care reform is dead yet again…and yet again Democrats can only blame themselves.
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