Supporters of health reform need to get out of the weeds and stay on message - yes we can! That was the mantra of the election meant to make our democracy a government of the people. Now we see the center piece of the last election, health reform, slowing bleeding and perhaps dying a death by a thousand cuts. So this generation needs to get out of the weeds and ask itself, can we do greatness? Or are we just able to argue minutia? I think we can achieve greatness, it's in our DNA - somewhere.
The baby boomer generation entered the political stage with protests against the war in the late 1960s. I was recently asked if it made a difference. As one very involved with campus protests against the war, and later serving in the Navy detached to the Marines, my answer was no - it did not make a difference. In fact it was a distraction to the larger issues. A little context helps understand my answer. Just prior to the era of war protest, the President of the United States had accomplished greatness. LBJ had somehow passed landmark Civil Rights legislation in a Congress dominated by Southern Committee Chairmen vehemently opposed to civil rights legislation. They made today's GOP look tame as "the obstructionist." Then LBJ did something else - he passed Medicare over the objections of doctors, the insurance industry, and of course, the GOP. Medicare changed health care forever, as have the Civil rights bills. LBJ was, indeed, the last of his generation to achieve greatness. Primarily because he believed in The Great Society. None of the presidents to follow achieved greatness. We can debate whether Reagan ended to Cold War or the Soviet Union imploded. But no legislation in the lifetime of baby boomers has changed our daily lives more than Civil Rights and Medicare. The greatness of these progressive landmark achievements has been blurred by the cultural war spawned by the war protest that followed the greatness of the the mid 1960s. Another way to look at this is the Greatest Generation of Tom Brokow completed its mission in 1965 with LBJ's lasting legacy to the future generation, while the emerging baby boomer generation was about to create a cultural distraction that would divide the country for decades. The divisions over Vietnam would continue to pervade our political system from 1968 to today.
So here we sit, with the opportunity to achieve greatness ourselves, and we are stuck in the mud. The HCR bills passed by the House and the Senate are complex, making them easy targets in the latest chapter of the cultural wars. We have been wasting valuable time arguing over slivers and pieces of these landmark bills. Access to information via the Internet makes everyone an expert - capable of arguing minutia in circles. This engagement in winning the battle (the extension of the cultural wars) in the trenches of legislative detail is killing HCR through death by a thousand cuts. Something as momentous as changing health care that effects everyone in the country requires a bigger vision - a belief in our greatness. It does not require an ability to divide and conquer through mastery of things like the sunset provisions of reconciliation. My point, if you can mobilize common passion to the necessity for this generation to succeed, then there is no need to be concerned about things like a sunset provision.
First, accept that HCR is complex. It is suppose to be. Health care isn't for dummies - at least not if your my provider. So the solution to a complex problem will necessarily need to be comprehensive. The GOP and their masters, corporate lobbyists, whined all day at the health summit that the bill was too long. They want solutions that can fit on bumper stickers. They have polls to show that people respond favorably to the bumper sticker solution de jour. On the other side, the response has been to parry with the bumper sticker, sometimes proposing equally simplified solutions. The GOP and their lobbyists have succeeded in getting the opposition bogged down in the weeds. Arguing over minutia - as in "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
The predecessors of the baby boomers achieved greatness because they were forced into the situation. An historic depression and a World War required rising to the level of greatness just to survive. Thankfully we have, thus far, dodged a great depression. And nothing like World War II is on the horizon, we pray. But our challenge is equally daunting. Can we achieve greatness for our children and grand children? We have nearly destroyed our own financial base and appear, at times, willing to kick our problems down the road. That is what health care reform is achieving so far. Doing nothing, the objective of the toadies in the GOP and their masters in the corporate world, is nothing more than kicking the can down the road. They want us to hand this mess to our kids, rather than risk greatness. I guess that would make us the Ungreatful Generation.
We have a choice, thanks to President Obama. He has refused to accept that the proposition that our country cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. He has held Congress engaged in something they wish they could walk away from. Polls change, pundits divide us, and lobbyist distract us. But Obama has held us on the course of changing health care on a scale that has not been done since LBJ passed Medicare. If only we can help Obama, we may - just may be able to hand our kids a lasting legacy that will make their lives better in the way our parents' generation made our lives better. All it takes is for us all to go back to the belief that our government can achieve greatness, if we demand it. If we don't demand greatness with health care, it's game over. We will never achieve greatness in our lives. Not on the environment, not on financial reforms, not in creating jobs for the future generations - no chance at all at greatness. The market place solutions supported by a corrupt and broken Republican Party will lead this nation in a race to the bottom - and they will start with health care.
My plea is that progressives and fellow travelers on this side of the room demand greatness. Get out of the weeds. Stop arguing minutia. Keep your eye on the prize and mostly remember, if we fail to pass a comprehensive solution to health care, we are doomed to piecemeal legislation on all fronts. Death by a thousand cuts administered by corporations and their Congressional toadies.