There is a growing consensus among pundits, policy wonks and even some progressives that the Democrats are crazy to push through health reform legislation that the voters don’t want.
The pundits all think it’s political suicide. The general idea is that the Dems will get hammered in the 2010 congressional elections. RCP’s Sean Trende provides the conventional wisdom:
I’ve become increasingly convinced that there is little political upside for Democrats in passing this bill, and much, much downside.
The policy wonks think Obamacare will ignore or exacerbate the structural problems that bedevil the system, resulting in increased costs, decreased access and lower quality. Arnold Kling provides that argument:
None of these problems is addressed by the bills in Congress. This year’s health care debate is proof that top-down reform is not going to work. The more the system is politicized, the less likely it is that it will change.
The progressives think Obama and congressional Dems have sold out to the “health care industrial complex.” Howard Dean recently made that argument in the Washington Post:
Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform.
All of these people are right, and the Democrats know it. But Obama, Reid, et al are willing to take a beating in 2010, damage the health system and string the insurance companies along.
Why? Because they have a long-term strategy that factors in a few setbacks. They know that health “reform” is America’s tipping point toward a European-style welfare state. Mark Steyn puts it thus:
To get health care, they would be willing to reduce their majority, and perhaps even lose their majority in the House and the Senate, because they know it’s a game changer … the object for savvy Dems is to get this thing passed in whatever form because, once you do, there’s no going back.
They are certainly willing to lose a few “moderate” Democrats to achieve this goal. Indeed, they know such people have no long term place in the Party anyway. May as well throw them to the dogs now.
So, the President and the Democrat leadership in Congress are not crazy. They are are all too sane. That’s why it’s so important to “kill the bill.” Compromise won’t cut it. Only a stake through its heart will do.
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