Please, please PLEASE don't fall for the opt-out compromise. Opt out is a horrible idea.
- It is bad politics.
- It is bad policy.
- It divides us from each other
- It allows our opponents to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
- It goes against the American progressive tradition.
Hear me out and I'll tell you why.
First of all, allow me to say that I know how a lot of you feel -- we, as Democrats, liberals, and progressives, need to pass a bill and half a loaf is better than none.
I've felt that way too, all along the way. My feeling is that success is defined as steady progress toward a worthy goal. Social Security was done done in phases over many decades. So there's that.
But after thinking about all of this some more, here's what I found: opt-out is not only bad policy AND bad politics, it also goes against the grain of what we believe in as progressives, liberals and Democrats.
Now I like Howard Dean. I like Nate Silver. I like Paul Krugman. I respect them all and enjoy listening to their reasoned analysis. But nothing they've said in recent days has swayed me.
For example, here's Nate Silver:
Perhaps some Republican governors or legislatures would seek to override the popular will in their states -- but they would do so at their own peril (and at Democrats' gain).
Really, Nate? I live in Louisiana and there is no way that Gov. Jindal does anything except opt out. The legislature will not force him to do otherwise. And the people of Louisiana will not either. The majority of my fellow state citizens are dead set against it.
If the public option indeed reduces the costs of insurance -- and most of the evidence suggests that it will -- than the states that opt out of it will have a pretty compelling reason to opt back in.
Maybe so, but I doubt it. If people made rational decisions based on carefully calulating the pros and cons of competing policy options, perhaps yes.
But if history has taught us anything it is that tribal identification is much stronger than rational calculations of gain and loss. And we knew that BEFORE the summer of death panels, socialism, Nazis, birthers, deathers, etc.
Say that Kansas opts out of the public option and Missouri keeps it. If a Kansan realizes that his friend across the border is buying the same quality health insurance for $300 less per month, he's going to vote restore the public plan in a referendum or demand that his legislator does the same in Topeka.
Nate, maybe it's a short jaunt from Kansas to Missouri. But in Louisiana, where I live, you don't have an analogous situation. Where am I going to go: Texas? Arkansas? Mississippi? Oklahoma? Really? Are you freaking kidding me? Texas wants to secede. Mississippi is run by the biggest, fattest, hack-lobbyist you ever laid eyes on. Arkansas Democrats are running scared and Oklahoma thinks global warming is a hoax.
Are you TRYING to throw my family under the bus? Are you TRYING to lose me in the next election?
Even in states that do opt out of the public option, the fact that voters could presumably elect later to restore it creates an extremely credible threat to the private insurance industry that will itself help to create price competition.
"Presumably?" I'm supposed to go along because of a "presumption" that one day the residents of Louisiana will rise up and force the legislature to opt back in? Sounds good in theory, but I guess you've never lived in my neck of the woods. I think you're being naive. Not going to happen, not any time soon.
Krugman isn't any better:
[T]idea of putting red-state governors on the spot, having to decide whether to deny their voters cheaper policies, definitely has some appeal.
Well, it might, if any of them HAD ANY SENSE OF SHAME. But they don't. You're dealing with the likes of Gov. Bobby Jindal and Gov. Haley Barbour. If you think, Krugman, that you're going to put them on the spot, think again. They live for the day they can DO NOTHING and still embarrass you.
But never mind all that. Maybe Nate Silver, Howard Dean and Paul Krugman are right. Maybe I don't know my neighbors as well as they know them.
Whatever happened to the progressive, liberal, Democratic contention that health care is a right?
Just the other night I sat and listened while Olbermann said that the government's role is to protect its citizenry from attack and harm. Well, he said (paraphrasing) "Disease attacks the citizenry too. If the government cannot protect its citizens from attack by disease, then it is not doing its constitutional duty."
Great argument. Seriously, it might have been the best thing he said all night -- or even all year.
But it all gets gets flushed down the toilet with the opt-out compromise.
And that's not all: Our constitution protects the rights of the minority. With opt-out, that is no longer the case. What if the 1964 Civil Rights Act had been passed with a clause that the Southern States could opt out?
Fact is, progressives believe that what's right is right, even if you are a minority of one.
But that's over now with opt-out.
Democrats, liberals, progressives: Please, please PLEASE don't fall for this. Opt out is a horrible idea.
- It is bad politics.
- It is bad policy.
- It divides us from each other
- It allows our opponents to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
- It goes against the American progressive tradition.
I'm begging you -- Don't do it.
UPDATE: I'm surprised by the number of readers who seem to be missing a fundamental point which is this:
If health care is a right, then it's a right for EVERYONE.
And on issues of fundamental human rights, when did we start to allow one group of states to decide that it was OK to split off from another...again?
Do you really want a Supreme Court fight about this? Because we'll have one and you really won't like how that ends up.
UPDATE 2: Maybe I missed it, but can anyone provide me with an historical precedent wherein one group of states provides for human rights and another group of states eventually, voluntarily follows them?