You can hear the jaws dropping as people read James Pethokoukis' latest piece on health care in U.S. News' Capital Commerce blog. Pethokoukis takes partisan politics to a new level by urging Republicans to block any efforts by Obama (or any other Democrat) to fix health care. Why? Because doing so would boost the Democrats' popularity and further hurt Republicans' chances of winning future elections.
Amidst the usual scary phrases like "government takeover," "Marxist," and "Obamacare" (what does that even mean?), Pethokoukis comes clean about his real problem with health care reform - people will like it and they'll like Obama for making it happen. Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute agrees. His message to Republican lawmakers: Blocking Obama's Health Plan Is Key to the GOP's Survival.
Don't be too shocked, though - health care opponents have long been putting the survival of their political power before the survival of uninsured Americans. As Steve Benen points out on the Washington Monthly's website, Bill Kristol issued an almost identical decree in 1993. He urged Republican lawmakers to "kill" President Clinton's proposal to fix health care in order to improve their chances of winning future elections. Benen speculates that 2009 could look similar:
Remember, for Kristol then and Pethokoukis/Cannon now, it's not about the quality of the policy -- it's about political survival. If Democrats deliver, they'll be positioned to win over a generation of voters. Blocking (or "killing") a reform effort may undermine the public's needs, but it would also block Democrats from winning a historic victory. With that in mind, the right will likely aggressively resist healthcare reform because, as a matter of electoral strategy, conservatives probably don't have a choice.
We do have one major advantage that we didn't have in 1993: you. Ezra Klein argues that 2009 will be the year to finally solve the health care crisis - largely because we're finally organized around this issue. From Klein's post:
"One of the big problems with moving health care," says Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org, "is that there haven't been health-care constituency organizations in the way there are on the environment, civil liberties, and so forth."
We've already started building the largest grassroots effort to fix health care. You can get involved right now by writing a letter to your local editor and telling everyone about our movement: http://www.seiu.org/healthcareletters.
Don't wait - Help take our movement public now.
Newspapers in New Hampshire, especially our local paper, Foster's Democrat, do not take letters to the editor sent from an email address not the writers. Can I get to the talking points without using the letter writing web page?
Hi John,
When you sign into the letter writing site, you will be asked to enter your email address. After you write the letter and have looked it over to make sure it's okay - it will be sent from your email address. So, your paper shouldn't have any problem accepting it.
If for some reason you still don't want to send a letter via email, you can still enter your information and choose any paper on the first screen of the letter writing tool and the talking points will be available when you click through to the second screen.
Thanks for taking action and being a part of our movement!