Missing The Point On Health Care Reform

On Twitter, in writing everywhere, one would think the Health Care Bill actually is about more people getting insurance (being forced to pay for it, anyway) and improving the health care system. The idealism on both the right and left is actually kind of heartening. The progressives want a bill to change they system. The conservatives want to preserve freedom. So, they’re fighting like cats and dogs to slay this thing. Well, the principled ones are fighting. It’s my thought that the progressives in the house will roll precisely because they have no principles.

This bill is not about health care. This fight is about giving President Obama a “historic” win.

If health care passes, but then gets repealed, the President wins. If health care passes, and Democrat Senators don’t get reelected, the President wins. If health care passes, and the House switches to Republican, the President wins. If more Americans are without health care, the President wins.

And Barack Obama thinks that when he wins, America wins. He IS the new America. He is wrong, but don’t anyone tell him that. Not that he’s listening anyway.

This bill is as empty as the President himself. It is meaningless, at this point. Everyone hates it and not because that’s what happens when big bills get passed. Everyone hates this bill because it’s the worst sort of American politics: selling out to special interests, increasing the scope and influence of government, individual mandates, covering the wrong procedures, increasing taxes, cutting care. It’s all in there. It’s vile. And still, all these “historic” provisions are meaningless because they’re all expendable.

President Obama wants to be able to say that he passed a health care bill when no one else could. The Democrats want him to be able to say that. So while a few on the hard left are frustrated because this bill is neither meaningful or actually helpful, they’ll vote for it.

This win is a win for political correctness. It’s a win for identity politics. It’s a symbolic win in servitude to the progressive agenda for decades. The Democrats know that they’re sending themselves into the wilderness over this bill. They don’t care.

President Barack Obama will sign this bill, triumphant. Sealing Barack Obama in history as The Man Who Changed America forever is the point of the health care reform bill. He did what no white man could. He did what eluded Roosevelt, Kennedy and every Democrat through time. Even if he hasn’t actually done that, he’ll look like he’s done it.

This health care bill will be a Democratic soul-killing, empty, symbolic victory and be the perfect symbolic show for the perfect symbolic President. He can say, “I won.”

And that’s the point of this bill.

Update:

Sean Trende says this bill is political suicide but this is why they don’t care:

I suspect that most of the left intuits this. That’s why the other argument you’ll see – and this is especially true of the Administration and the leadership – is that the Democrats should pass this bill because they have a chance to make history: Do something the Democrats have wanted since the Truman Administration. President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid believe that if they pass this bill, regardless of what else happens to them, they’ll have earned a place in the Democrats’ Pantheon of Great Leaders. These Democrats see universal coverage as their Holy Grail (never mind that the bill actually leaves behind millions of uninsured), it’s within reach, and they really don’t care what sort of bill they have to pass to get it. They’ll even let the press start describing them, with reason, as allies of Big Pharma to achieve the win. The train is simply running out of control at this point, and all Pelosi can do is stand at the front and repeat increasingly out-of-touch talking points about the American people wanting them to enact this bill and standing up to the insurance industry.

I don’t think they’re close to finding their Grail. I think the better analogy is probably that they’re close to their Moby Dick. And we all know what happens to Captain Ahab once he finally harpoons his white whale.

Captain Ahab went down heroic. That’s what the Dems want.

Posted in Barack Obama • Democrats • Liberals • Political Animals