A recent Washington Post editorial proclaims that "the Obama administration will have to ditch its goal of a public plan" because it doesn't have enough votes in the Senate. But as the editorial goes on to explain, the problem is that the left just can't get this fact into its head, since it suffers from a strange "fixation on a public plan" that "is bizarre and counterproductive," reaching the level of "irrationality." The only way out of the current legislative impasse is to get the left to drop its irrational demands so we can get insurance reform passed sooner than later.
There is only one problem with this solution, I submit. In order to make it work, we might just have to render our elected officials immune to public pressure. Unfortunately, 77 percent of the electorate are just as irrational as those radical leftists, since they too are calling for a public option. If fact, so fixated is the American public on this counterproductive proposal that it refuses to support a health care bill without it. What can be done about this bizarre fixation? Surely we will have to call on the 77 percent to stop pressuring their democratically elected officials and convince them to support congressional bi-partisanship. But this won't be easy.
We have known now for some time how radical the American public really is. Is it not true that most Americans are willing to pay higher taxes so that all citizens can have health insurance and that most Americans believe the government can "do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector"? Such irrational beliefs are not easily cured. That Americans still suffer from them is a failure of message control.
We cannot ignore this threat. It is dangerous to take the clamouring masses and their irrational intransigence for granted. Mid-term elections are approaching, so we must control dissent now. Will the public forgive their elected leaders for standing steadfast against democratic accountability? Nothing is assured.