To explain my title, let me start with a qualifier: A single payer health plan is the most important social change of this generation. It is to this decade what the civil rights movement was to the 50’s and 60’s. If passed, a single payer plan would improve the lives of almost every member of this and future generations of Americans. Given that, what could be more important?
More important is the failure of our time-honored democratic process to hear the voice of the people over the sinister cajoling of special interests. Congress has failed in this duty by listening more to the people who contribute vast amounts to their campaigns than to the people who vote for them. This is more than a failure, it is a corruption. The agent of this corruption is the billions of dollars that the health insurance industry pours into campaign funds of Congressional incumbents.
This failure became glaringly apparent during the Baucus Senatorial hearings on health care. As America watched the hearings, we saw 15 witnesses, not one of whom was an advocate for a single payer plan. Instead they were representatives of health insurance companies and corporations who were there to protect their profits rather than to look after the health of Americans. This is appalling since poll after poll shows that at least 59% of Americans favor some form of a single payer plan. If the hearings were conducted with any regard to the expressed voice of the American public, single payer consideration would have been at the table. It wasn't and we must ask what can be done about this glaring omission.
An answer surfaced at the Baucus hearings when we learned an important lesson on how citizens can protest when special interests block their voice. This lesson in practical politics was given by eight single payer advocates who had repeatedly been denied the opportunity to testify before the Committee. They made the heroic decision that civil disobedience was the only way they could be heard. When each of the Baucus Eight stood up at the public hearing and were arrested, the balance of power shifted from the powerful to the previously disenfranchised. Instead of a carefully scripted carnival of special interests, an unwelcomed voice of the people forced its way onto the proceedings. As arrests were made of the Eight, America learned two things: one, that unresponsive power can be confronted; two, that a single payer health plan must be given consideration.
Civil disobedience is not to be taken lightly and must be used only when the need of the American people is great. The single payer cause of the Baucus 8 certainly qualifies. Civil disobedience is effective because it upsets the balance of power by bringing the media into the fray. Public awareness is the last thing Congress wants to penetrate the smokescreen they often use to obscure their proceedings. Baucus refused to allow testimony from single payer advocates and he had the power to enforce his ruling. When members of the Baucus 8 rose and asked to be heard, his power was challenged. The important point here is that, as television cameras rolled and America watched, Baucus’s power was confronted. From this the public learned that there are alternatives to passive acceptance of political forces that work against its benefit. When used responsibly, civil disobedience can restore the right of the people to be heard.
The battle has been joined and civil disobedience has proven to be an important, even necessary, weapon. Now Congress knows that the public has been aroused and, if they ignore a single payer health plan, they do so at the risk of their incumbencies. Civil disobedience serves the essential right of democratic representation with a single payer health plan as the rallying point. It was used at the Baucus hearings and it can be used again if necessary. Are you listening, America?