It may have taken 10 years from the start of space travel to land on the moon, but it's taking fifty years to get a public U.S. healthcare system, even one that co-exists as an honest-broker side-by-side with properly regulated private health insurance, and there's legitimate reason to be concerned about it passing this year, this time, sixteen years after the last serious attempt.
If you favor something in the direction of what's being developed in both the House and the Senate, if not all of the particulars, then the only possible way to take heart is to look at the still relatively new man at the top. Barack Obama has been President for barely two quarters, not even a full year, and this is the biggest domestic test he's yet faced. Remember, of course, that he faced the stimulus test. Remember that he faced pirates. Remember that he kills flies with impunity.
Most of all, remember that everyone has always underestimated him, going back less than 18 months ago (really), except for his closest allies.
Obama is not walking away from this fight. He's taking Republican South Carolina Sen. Jim "Waterloo" DeMint's words and fashioning them into a whip, driving the progressive horses of the left, slashing back at the enemies of a citizen-friendly national health plan. Men like this and William "This is the Week to Kill Health Care" Kristol are now Obama's weapons, the bad guys for whom it's all just barefaced political.
Today (Monday) Obama turned on the blogger switch. Of all the candidates in last year's primaries, Obama attracted the bloggers and reached out to them with posts on Kos at well-chosen points during throughout the campaign. Usually his voice was that of David Plouffe, especially in the emails you got for joining. And sometimes even Michelle.
But while Obama always showed bloggers respect, now the first President to call on a blogger to ask a question during a press conference (Nico Pitney of Huffington Post for his coverage of the Iranian democracy protests), he's never pandered to them, even indicated where he expected disagreement -- and welcomed debate.
It is this implied intimacy of the blog medium and his stature in it that enabled the President to do something extraordinary today and in sharp contrast to El Presidente Bush convening the sycophants of the adoring rightwing noise machine to his White House not so long ago. He convened the nations top progressive bloggers in a conference call where he called on them for their vital support at this moment and answered their direct questions mano a mano. The man:
That's right. Remember Harry and Louise the first time around? There was no public media with the instantaneous power of the blog to tell you immediately that the health insurance companies paid for that propaganda. Or to counter the assumptive lies of the ads. This is a potential watershed moment because not only can these blogs debunk the slimy insurance company ads designed to block a public option this time around, or expose the Foxified lunacy of the screaming babies, but because our nation's leader is calling on them to do so."It is important just to keep the pressure on members of Congress because what happens is there is a default position of inertia here in Washington," the president said during an invitation-only conference call. "And pushing against that, making sure that people feel that the desperation that ordinary families are feeling all across the country, every single day, when they are worrying about whether they can pay their premiums or not... People have to feel that in a visceral way. And you guys can help deliver that better than just about anybody."
In a roughly 25-minute session with a handful of prominent progressive bloggers, the president also asked for help combating disinformation about his health care plan.
"I know the blogs are best at debunking myths that can slip through a lot of the traditional media outlets," he said. "And that is why you are going to play such an important role in our success in the weeks to come."
It this thing passes and saves the day, imagine the Hollywood movie ten years down the line where the President calls the nerdy bloggers who band together as their hope grows and the music rises:
President Obama strongly reiterated his basic principles for a reform bill:
- Cover all Americans
- Drive down costs over the long term for both the private and public sector
- Improve quality
- Strengthen prevention and wellness
- Enact real insurance reforms that end exclusions for preexisting conditions, etc.
- Relief to small businesses
- Create a robust public option
But the main message of the call was the urgency of getting this done sooner rather than later. In answer to John Amato's first question about the latest push for delays from Democrats and Republicans alike, President Obama answered that "we've been debating this for 50 years, that now's the time to make the tough decisions" with the options now on the table. In a followup question after President Obama left the call, Axelrod reiterated that message. This issue has been "talked to death for decades," and we've been "circling around the same issues"--what matters now is getting it done. He added that if you needed a demonstration of the urgency of getting it done, it's that those who want to stop it are counting on delays that will give them enough time to kill it. He also suggested that those pushing for delays, be they arguing in good faith or not, listen to their constituents who call and e-mail every day with their insurance horror stories.
The media is already starting to call itself out for de facto siding with the status quo big money interests by making it seem like Obama is sliding. Republicans are either trying to make their name opposing it (get a piece of beating Obama to get a seat at the 2012 primaries) or treating this huge and pressing facet of "the people's work" like a chore. It is essentially contempt for the suffering of millions of Americans, a willful ignoring of the stress and fear the current system has riddled our nation's population. A stress and fear completely absent, yes (per my friends and family), in Canada.
If he is successful.
If you believe, are you doing your part?
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