During his campaign for the presidency, the signature of Barack Obama’s rallies was the “Yes, We Can!” chant from his supporters. “Yes, we can responsibly end the war in Iraq.” “Yes, we can repair our reputation in the world.” “Yes, we can provide access to health care to all Americans.” And so on. I don’t know if it was intentional or not that House Minority Leader John Boehner’s floor speech opposing health care reform contained the following, but it was unfortunate:
“No, you can’t…
…“The answer is no….
…“No, you cannot…
…“No, you cannot…
…“Hell no, you can’t!…
…“Hell no, you haven’t!
Yet, once the key votes had been cast, enacting the most sweeping expansion of the social safety net since the passage of Medicare, the joyous Democratic caucus erupted in the signature “Yes, We Can” chant. It could have been “Yes, We Did,” but it certainly wasn’t “Hell no, we haven’t.”
Thus, we close the book on an era of endless onslaught on liberal ideology that began on election night in 1980. For thirty years, liberals were on the defensive. Today, we are back on the offensive. Republicans will have to adjust to an entirely new paradigm. It will take them some time to come to terms with the size of their defeat. We can perhaps evaluate the Republicans’ behavior using the Kübler-Ross Model known as the five stages of grief. The Republicans have been in denial for a long time, and they’ve been angry ever since they lost the presidential election. They began bargaining at Obama’s health care summit, where they asked repeatedly for us to ‘start over from scratch with a blank piece of paper.” The next stage is depression: “We can’t repeal it, our country has been taken away from us.”
In reality, the Republicans will stay angry for a long time. They have no intention of reaching ‘acceptance.’ But they have no chance of undoing these reforms, and they will soon realize that a huge percentage of what future congresses will do will be to provide oversight and adjustments to the health care system. The government will be constantly looking for ways to make health care plans more consumer friendly and less costly to the budget. They will not be trying to take health care away from people.
The longer it takes the Republicans to realize this, the more credit the Democrats will get for having passed these reforms. When Republicans complain about the mandate and score political points, the Democrats will offer to create a public option as the only solution to the problem. They are trapped.
This is precisely why they fought against even these modest reforms. We do live in a different country today than we did yesterday. It’s a country that has no use for the old Republican Party.
I hope you’re right, but don’t lose sight of how crucial the coming days, weeks and months will be. The euphoria needs to be harnessed and put into action in a disciplined fashion leading up to the fall elections. The bill and the good it will do needs to be explained in broad, simple terms, and repeated again and again. The major flaws of the bill also need to be discussed, with care. There is likely to be a spike in right wing anger going forward, and it won’t stop until the media stops shoving their screaming down our throats as if it represents more than the crazy 30% that kept George Bush afloat. This fight, and the insane lies that accompany, is going to get worse before it gets better.
If Democrats play this well, they can come out of the fall with minimal damage and an opportunity to keep pushing progressive ideas forward. The key will be to seize the anti-Wall Street megaphone and crush the orange man, McConnell, Cantor, et al.
So far the Dems are playing it very well. I was afraid they’d celebrate the bill as a perfect and final achievement, but so far they’ve hit an ideal balance between historic triumph and the message that this is just the beginning of the process, not the end. If they manage to maintain that tone and that implicit promise, the Reps will fade to irrelevancy — at least on this issue — way faster than you fear.
I wish heartily that you prove to be right. Actually, it would be nice if the new new Republican Party turned out to be more like the old old Republican Party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. I have my doubts though. Having ridden the far-right tiger for so long, Boehner and friends are terrified by it and have no idea how to safely dismount. I say again: having one of our major parties captured by irrational quasi-fascists is not a good thing for anyone.
The party of Lincoln has been dead a long long time; I don’t think either TR or Eisenhower was typical of the Republican party of their day. The party of Eisenhower was the same as the party of Joe McCarthy.
Kubler-Ross absolutely, only explanation for their bizarre conviction that they had defeated hcr with the election of Scott Brown and that most citizens opposed the Senate bill because they opposed hcr. it’s totally weird. perhaps some people can put out of their mind suffering that is far away from them, but fear of illness, bankruptcy, death from treatment being withheld are daily concerns for most united states residents.
When Obama was elected, I thought “What is there that Republicans could possibly object to about him?” (I don’t mean that as an insult to Obama and now I know how stupid that thought was) and my biggest fear was that they would co-opt him or pretend that they had co-opted him or even play footsie with him because that would have been like nails on a chalkboard (for me). So happy that didn’t happen.
well, they have a vested short-term interest in preventing depression, which means bargaining/denial (repeal) and anger (we’ve lost our country) will remain with us through November.
Yeah, judging by the response on the right today a large chunk of them are still in the “Denial/Anger” mode. Maybe when they fail to win back the Congress in November it will create a space for the other stages to emerge.
This would be a good moment for Nancy Reagan to retract her legacy mantra of ‘just say no’.
Right, Booman, right, right, right. The Republican Party is now a fringe party. That does not mean they no longer can do any harm, it just means that everything they do will be perceived as more and more on the fringe or beyond the fringe of American society. And BTW, I wonder how long it will take for the MSM to adjust to this.
By the way, this is only the beginning of the fight. Taking on the banksters will be really interesting.
Does it seem to you that the MSM sounds like a bunch of lost children today? Like they don’t know where to go or what to report? They were so invested in the “failing presidency” meme that they didn’t even think about a backup plan. Their adjustment is going to be as painful as the Republicans’. At least I fervently hope so.
i’ve been noticing that for months actually.
the MSM narrative hasn’t been relevant (or even based in reality) for some time: heck, just a week ago newsweek put Bush on the cover claiming victory in iraq.
not to worry. the defining moment of Obama’s presidency was this morning (what did he have for breakfast????) and i believe he failed at that.
We do not yet live in a different country than yesterday. Nullification bills are being dropped into red-state legislature hoppers. No doubt there will be an effort in November to pass constitutional amendments to bar individual mandates. My guess is that both will fail for the same reason. People learn what is actually in the bill.
True to it’s journalistic whiplash self, the corporate media have gone 180-degrees and are trumpeting Obama’s great triumph. That could reverse itself as quickly as it appeared.
There are real problems with the reconciled legislation that Democrats should not gloss over while taking their victory lap. Enforcement, ending the anti-trust exemption, cost control, the structure of the individual mandates, and the restrictions on abortion that the Nelson amendment expands.
The first tightening of enforcement can occur in HHS writing the regulations to implement the bill. And you can bet that the industry will be trying to water down the legislation through conferences with HHS staff during drafting or through the public comments they submit during the required comment period. Advocates of stronger enforcement must focus on this process beginning about now and be ready to have sufficient public comment from the public to keep the regulations strong.
The anti-trust exemption repeal has passed the House and is in the Senate. If this is truly a different country, it will pass the Senate sooner rather than later.
Rep. Alan Grayson ha a bill to create Medicare buy-in at cost as a public option. While this bill is not likely to make it through the Senate (or even through the House depending on the White House), it should be pushed strongly now and through Novemeber in order to secure a mandate for it passing and in order to squelch the repeal movement.
The restructuring of the individual mandates will be the cornerstone of the repeal movement — their proposal being to repeal the entire legislation. This will be a hot political issue this fall. Having specific proposals for restructuring the individual mandates to help patients instead of insurance companies will be essential to being able to make some fixes to the bill in 2011.
And the abortion issue depends on the real strength and focus of pro-choice voters. If Republican pro-choice women who vote Republican for “economic and fiscal issues” cross over, it could be a different political climate. On the other hand, if pro-choice advocacy groups use the Stupak executive order and Nelson amendment as a crisis to raise money and then do nothing in the way of a field campaign, it will be more of the same. A key indicator of this will be whether they can get Connie Saltonstall elected in the face of an expected Stupak endorsement from the White House. (What do you think that Stupak speech opposing recommittal was for?)
So far I think the victory lap is looking just right.
You point out what we tend to overlook in this bill: it opens up the way for us to push for specific fixes instead of the whole idea that government has a place in healthcare. That’s a tremendous hill to have climbed. Now we have the opportunity to maybe move away from the political gossip and electoral handicapping and focus on the kind of issues you bring up. Yesterday the job seemed overwhelming. Today it seems eminently doable, one piece at a time.
I think there is also huge potential in the co-ops and the community health center part of the legislation. It gives our side a prime focus for bringing nonprofit healthcare providers into the game, leveraging federal and state money. That could be at least as good an outcome as single payer, seems to me, and help bypass political interference like the Nelson crap.
As to the abortion politicking, NOW and NARAL have pretty much seized on the outcome to pump up the money flow. Planned Parenthood has shown itself to be the grownup among them. They are the only ones I’ll support from here on.
On nonprofits and community health care centers:
Blue Cross/Blue Shield started out as a nonprofit cooperative (“mutual insurance company”) for insuring health care costs. Where it went awry is in the ability of management to control the direction of the organization through stacking the board of directors. This is what allowed CEOs to get multimillion-dollar compensation packages (BCBS of NC’s CEO gets $4 million and it is still “nonprofit”). And allowed boards to privatize BCBS organizations; the classic case is Anthem, now owned by Wellpoint, which took the BCBS organizations private in IN, OH, KY, CT, CA, and other states.
Community health care centers are vulnerable when they are owned by major (primarily university) medical systems. Once again, the CEO gets multimillion-dollar compensation, MBAs start running the system into the ground, and the bureaucracy reduces the quality of care and patient satisfaction.
Where community health care centers have worked best is in rural areas where there is no dominating hospital or where hospitals are still owned by the county and not just “county” in name only.
Certainly they have to be watched, but I think there’s great potential there. Blue Cross has become nothing but a franchised brand name for various gangs of crooks. That can be prevented if we pay attention.
BCBS became a franchise for a gang of crooks because a whole generation was not paying attention and was cheering on privatization. It took BCBS over 50 years to get to that point.
What is the best check on the system is to make the MBAs unnecessary because billing and collection by individual doctors and hospitals doesn’t require a large staff in its financial department; by financing medical education so that doctors are not put in golden handcuffs by large medical systems; by providing alternative startup financing to doctors and county-run hospitals than that of the private medical financing market, which is concentrated and dominated by GE.
Very interesting what you point out about the “no”. he was so angry too, and why did he set up a did you read the bill as a no? just leave that out. I loved “restore comity to this body” which sounded like “restore comedy to this body” which contrasted with his scrooge type tone. was he drunk?
Hilarious! Maybe Boehner will take on a position as the new House Jester.
his orange makeup might go well with a clown gig
Mission accomplished.
This is the most hope I’ve felt since the inauguration, and I’m going to revel in it for a while. I just hope the Dems keep the spines they newly rediscovered!
Me too, let’s hope this is the first kick in the pants to energize our fellow dems to show up at the polls in Nov. This will not be a mid term to stay home and sulk.
Well, our ability to make them do it just grew like a SyFy channel fire ant. It’s time for us to be their chiropractors.
I missed that fire ant!
This is brilliantly true. Makes me wonder if that was the idea all along.
Here’s my specific concern: that the GOP really does push their ridiculous constitutionality argument and John Roberts and his activist posse pulls a Citizens United on us again.
Wouldn’t that do undue a whole bunch of Republican enacted legislation?
Yes, we did. That’s why it’s worth celebrating—and also worth being aware that the newly defeated Right is, precisely because it’s newly defeated, a dangerous opponent. They don’t like how they’re feeling today, and will fight hard to regain power. (Kubler-Ross’ 5 stages can be slow and painful to go through.)
Here’s our ace in the hole, however. Every year, for the next decade, approximately 4 million people will turn 18 and become eligible to vote. Right now, they support Democrats by roughly a 2-1 margin. If we (progressives, liberals, Democrats…choose your favorite label) can hold that group, it means these changes will be lasting.
If we pass comprehensive immigration reform and that results in 10-12 million new citizens, then the “emerging Democratic majority” emerges that much more quickly and powerfully.
And if we can get them to the voting booth. That’s the key project the Dems need to work on starting now. It would be easier if Dr. Dean was still in charge.
I think it would be nice to assure free & fair elections, too, since the HAVA bonanza.
I agree with Robert Reich not you.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/22/the_final_health_care_vote_and_what_it_really_mean/
Yes, indeed. It is Romneycare gone national.
But even Romneycare is experiencing cost issues that will force it in the direction of single payer or some other New Deal style system.
Will they have to stop calling Obama Black Jimmy Carter?
I never saw that as an insult. The Carter Presidency and his post-presidential actions are full of significant accomplishments. Not the least of which was ending inflation by appointing Paul Volcker chair of the Fed.
History will redress the negative propaganda of the Reagan years just as it has restored the perspective on Harry Truman’s major achievements.
They’ve hated Carter forever. I thought he was honorable and a very good prez.
The repubs are really stupid. They think they are witty and insulting when they call Obama that.
Well they hated FDR and Harry Truman and JFK and Bill Clinton as well.
It was the Reagan administration (remember, Roger Ailes) who began the messaging trying to diminish the importance of Carter’s presidency because it was one-term and because they won election by screwing up Carter’s negotiations with Iran.