I've been thinking about healthcare reform and what it means in the large scheme of things to come.
I look around the Progressive "blogosphere" and I see an awful lot of people declaring the "Public Option" their line in the sand. If the boisterous talk is to be believed the Public Option is the Progressive reenactment of the Battle of the Somme.
Progressives across the country are prepared to saddle their horses and jump out of their trenches, charge recklessly into a wall of hot lead sprayed from machine gun entrenchments, and turn themselves into metaphorical piles of human meat for the Cause. Bully! Forward! The Public Option or Nothing At All!
Dying in melodramatic fashion Progressive will thump their chests proudly and declare, "Without the Public Option Healthcare reform is meaningless! Tis all pointless! But, aye, what a glorious way to die!"
And they would be wrong. The Public Option is not the Thing. When it comes to Healthcare Reform, the Act of Doing Something is The Thing.
I know. You're now revved up on righteous venom and already banging out a comment snidely decrying me as an Obamabot, or Neo-Liberal, or some other Wolf in Sheep Sheared Clothes. You're arguing that without a Public Option there would be no pressure large enough to reduce cost or compete with existing insurance companies.
And you know what? You are probably correct. Yep. When it comes to the mathematics of it, when it comes to the pure policy of it, you are so right it hurts.
But I ain't talking math. And I ain't talking policy. I'm talking about winning and changes the conditions of the healthcare reform debate permanently.
Right now people are scared of what healthcare reform is, or could be; they are scared about what it means to them. People are scared partly because the White House was Late to the Messaging Party while the Republicans and Insurance Industry were way early to the "Let's Scare the Crap Out of the Dumb Bastards" Party. But people are mostly scared because government involvement in healthcare is undiscovered country for most Americans.
In the United States the government has no visible role in healthcare until you hit 65. Private Insurance is the Devil You Know. Any government involvement in healthcare, or health insurance is easily demagogued because it is the Devil No One Knows. This is how End of Life Counseling becomes Death Panels and how a Public Option becomes "Socialized Medicine filled with Level 80 Rationing Ogres" (or whatever Betsy McCaughey came up with on her last acid trip).
The healthcare reform debate right now is not about cost reduction, or about the Public Option, or about Kent Conrad's Co-Ops and Healthcare Swap Meets. The healthcare reform debate is about something much more basic -- Does the Government, and by extension the American Public, have a role to play the healthcare system?
This is why I claim that the act of passing some kind of meaningful healthcare legislation even if it does not contain the Public Option is more important than dying on the hill of Progressive Purity.
Healthcare reform that provides universal coverage and hopefully fixes some the worst abuses of the health insurance companies also establishes a role and a precedent for the United States Government in healthcare. The American Public get comfortable with the idea of public involvement in healthcare; their lives get a little bit better and they realized the world didn't end when the government got involved. Any healthcare reform in 2009 lays the foundation for better healthcare reform in 2013 and 2016.
Reform of anything, or getting rid of reform, in America is like proverbially boiling a proverbial frog.
This is a lesson Republicans have learned well; they know how to boil a frog. The GOP started chipping away at our social safety nets, civil liberties, and economic base way back during the Nixon years. They did not see the accumulative fruits of their labors until George W. Bush stole his way into the White House and nearly ruined this country for good.
This is a lesson that Democrats and specifically Progressive seem less keen on learning, I've got to say. We seem to be more about always being morally and intellectually right at any price. And while that is a quality to be admired the quest to be Right and Pure also seems to lock us all into clusterfucks like the current healthcare reform debate.
Personally, I will support an imperfect healthcare reform bill that lacks a public option. Why? Because any step, no matter how small, is a huge step forward for making this country a bit better.