Voter turnout this election cycle among what’s been called the Rising American Electorate – a group that includes Latinos, young voters, and unmarried women, all of whom trend left -- is in jeopardy.
We have a huge challenge ahead of us to convince the "Obama surge" voters to remain engaged in November 2010 and beyond. Polls show an enthusiasm gap among many of these potential voters. They fear the change they voted for in 2008 hasn’t happened deeply or profoundly enough.
On one issue in which I have been involved for decades I want to offer an alternate narrative. That issue is health care reform. Full disclosure: I’m the executive director of USAction and together with many powerful allies we formed Health Care for America Now, a broad-based coalition made up of some 1,100 groups.
The Obama Administration has seen several big wins – financial reform, student loan reform, economic recovery legislation. But perhaps the biggest win in terms of historic legacy was health care reform.
I know many people reading this may be thinking, "You know, that was really not worth the paper it was printed on and we could have done so much better if only the movement had been more aggressive, more left, more powerful, more something." While more reform certainly would have been preferable, it is critical for us as a movement to recognize this as a victory, as it is for many reasons.
First, we established a new right in America. Health care is now a right, and that is huge! It is an imperfect right as Social Security was certainly an imperfect right when it was created in the 1930s. At the time, the NAACP called the flawed Social Security legislation "a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through." Indeed, nearly two-thirds of African Americans and just over half of women in the work force were not covered. Today, Social Security is widely accepted to be the core of the American social welfare system. As Thaddeus Stevens said when he supported passing the 14th Amendment, "Do you inquire why, holding these views and possessing some will of my own, I accept so imperfect a proposition? I answer because I live among men and not angels." Health care is now a right in America.
Second, this is a victory because it is the largest income transfer since the Sixties; since, frankly, Medicare and Medicaid. By and large the people who don’t have health care or don’t have adequate health care are lower income, and now they are going to get better coverage paid for through relatively progressive taxation. In fact, tens of thousands of mostly low-income Americans are going to live who would have died every year. That’s like cutting highway fatalities in America every year in half – and all because of this bill.
Third, this is a great victory for the progressive movement. We would not have won this health care battle – and we did win – if we hadn’t fought for it. I have been involved in health care organizing for thirty-eight years. In 2008, presidential candidates actually competed for progressive loyalty on health care. In 2009-2010, progressives were crucial to winning enough support to pass the Affordable Care Act.
Finally, we showed that the government can have a powerful, effective role to meet urgent middle-class needs and even more than that, that liberals can govern. In the midst of the ugly Tea Party rallies and the bleating from the Blue Dogs, we still passed this historic legislation, and we did not do it with Republican votes.
I think this victory is enormous, and the progressive movement cannot forget that. There are appropriately tensions between the Obama Administration and the progressive movement, and this law needs to be improved, but we need to continue to tout these victories if we are going to continue to win in 2010 and beyond.