As it becomes increasingly clear that any health care reform bill that passes Congress and will be signed into law by President Obama is unlikely to include a robust public option available to all Americans on day one to compete with the private insurance industry, it is time for progressives to change strategy.
We should begin contacting Members of Congress and Senators to demand that they introduce amendments to any health care bill being considered to remove the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance ("the mandate"), and vote against any bill that contains such a mandate without a public option, either in committee or in the full House or Senate.
We should explain to them that there will be hell to pay for the Democratic Party and all its elected officials, almost certainly leading to massive losses in both chambers of Congress as well as the Presidency, if they go through with such a stupid and immoral "reform" of the health care system -- a law that would be regarded by the American people as a regressive tax on the middle class, corporate welfare for some of the largest and most disliked corporations, and a significant loss of personal freedom.
Moving on from the battle over the public option is emotionally difficult. We progressives have invested a tremendous amount of passion in this issue and have worked hard to lobby our government to create a public competitor to provide more choice for Americans seeking affordable and high-quality health insurance. We have wrung our hands with worry -- and sometimes burned with anger -- as we've watched President Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker Pelosi fail to take a strong stand for the public option as an essential part of any health care bill that should be enacted into law.
Democratic leaders, especially our President and the Senate Majority Leader, chose their path, a path of wishy-washy centrism rather than bold and firm progressive leadership. Now we must choose our own path in light of this fact. Our path from this day forward on the current health care reform debate needs to be reality-based and based on a desire that something good will be enacted into law, rather than a bad bill or no bill at all.
Although it may be worth continuing to press progressive Members of Congress and Senators on the public option, to increase the slim chance that this may be included in the final bill, I think we can safely say at this point that we've done what we could do on this front and we did our best. Unfortunately, there simply are not enough progressives in Congress (especially the Senate), and our President is not progressive enough, to give us a good shot of seeing the public option become law at this time. We should admit this and move on to the next front in the battle for reform of the American health care system.
I believe that next front on which we need to begin fighting -- with the same passion and zeal we have fought for the public option -- is to take a strong stance in opposition to mandates that individuals buy health insurance, assuming there will be no public option at this time. Barack Obama during his campaign even agreed with this position, opposing a health insurance mandate, but has since reversed himself and now supports mandates without demanding that a public option must be provided.
We need to remind President Obama of his former opposition to the health insurance mandate. We need to ask him to remain true to his views expressed in the campaign and veto any bill with a mandate and no public option. We need to press Members of Congress and Senators to come out in opposition to the mandate, if it is not paired with a public option. We need to ask them to introduce amendments to the bills going through Congress to remove the mandate if the public option is removed, and to vote against any bill that has a mandate without a public option, so that such a bill would never even reach the President's desk.
There is nothing wrong with passing a health care reform bill that has neither a mandate nor a public option, but simply includes basic, necessary reforms of the private health insurance industry. This will be better than nothing. It will be a step in the right direction! Such a bill will likely be popular with the general public, won't anger the Democratic base, and can be used as a beginning toward eventual enactment of a public option when Democrats have more seats in Congress or more political will and spine to fight for it.
This needs to be our strategy right now: encouraging lawmakers to send President Obama a bill without a mandate if there is to be no public option. And we need to fight for this with all we've got.
Why do we need to do this? Because the alternative is so terrible. If the Democrats pass a law forcing poor and middle class Americans to buy health insurance who currently can't afford or don't want to buy it, and don't even give them a public option to choose if they don't like private insurance or insurance companies, the Democratic Party will face the full wrath of the American people. Republicans and libertarian-leaning independents will see the law as simply a new tax and a reduction of personal liberty. Young people, many of whom don't feel that they really need health insurance and/or who don't have much money, will lose their enthusiasm for the Democrats, which will be reflected in decreased voter turnout of our base and decreased volunteering in campaigns to help Democratic candidates get elected or reelected. People in general will feel that the Democrats are a party that simultaneously believes in big government and giveaways to big corporations -- a recipe for electoral disaster!
It is very easy to envision a scenario of a tremendous popular backlash against a mandates-without-public-option health care law passed by the Democrats -- a backlash that cuts across all party lines, including virtually all Republicans, most independents, and many Democrats (especially the progressive base). Such a backlash would probably lead to the Democrats losing their majority in the House and losing several seats in the Senate in 2010. President Obama would also be seen as responsible for this unpopular mandatory health care law, and could very well lose in 2012 -- even to somebody as ghastly and dangerous as Sarah Palin, who would have a perfect populist issue to run on.
It is our responsibility to make sure that this nightmare scenario doesn't unfold. We need to shift our attention from fighting a losing battle for the public option to fighting a battle that we just might win: to change the health care bill into simply a reform of the private health insurance industry, without mandates if there is to be no public option. We need to begin repeatedly contacting our Members of Congress, Senators, and President Obama to urge this course of action. It's in their own best interest, the best interest of the Democratic Party, and the best interest of America (which certainly doesn't need a President Palin and the return of rabid right-wing Republicans to rule in the Congress).
Let's do it!