Dear America,
What a mess we have on our hands, America. Our president has descended to the depths of petty, sophomoric, personal-insult criticism of those who oppose him rather than responding substantively to their criticisms. The Republicans are led by two party hacks who think that casuistry, and outright lying for that matter, are acceptable rhetorical tactics, and though our country--and that includes substantial numbers of their own party members--has demonstrate its disdain for all of them and for the policies they are pursuing, the three of them persist. What is worst about all this is that the damage the Republican Party has suffered is self-inflicted, starting with assigning the sobriquet "Obamacare" to the Affordable Care Act, which is really the root of this problem with healthcare legislation. As it turns out, they might just as well have named it "mother's milk." And now, they have to dissemble something that a current majority of us like and replace it with something that so far has been nothing short of anathema to the vast majority of Americans. Talk about falling on your own sword, the ACA's concept was originated at the Heritage Foundation in response to Hillary Clinton's inquiry in the early nineties about a single payer alternative to our "free market healthcare system." They could have just voted for it and claimed it as their own and then everyone would have been happy with the prospect of improving on a very flawed idea ahead of them, but n-o-o-o-o. They had to make it out to be an albatross and hang it around the Democrats' collective neck. Well, the albatross has come home to roost, and to be blunt, I can't see a way out for the conservative Republican Party.
But as if to add insult to the self-inflicted injury, the Republicans nominated Donald Trump for president, and as if God was looking to play a cruel joke on us, he lost the election but won the office. That by itself would have been bad enough, but it turns out that emotionally, Donald Trump is still in the throes of his own puberty. He stamps his feet and spuriously demeans his opponents and his predecessor because his pride forces him to believe he is better than everyone else, but he's not. He displays the petulance of a jejune big man on campus even when he deals with foreign leaders, and he is rapidly becoming a bad joke both at home and on the international scene. Our only hope is that the Democrats will find ways to interdict the destructive momentum that Trump and his party are gaining, and I have a suggestion. It's not the first time I've mentioned it, but it seems more urgent than ever.
What the Democrats need to do is draft a bill in either The House or The Senate...or maybe both...that reforms Obamacare and submit it for consideration. It should include what was originally intended: a public option like making Medicaid or Medicare universal, or turning Medicaid into a kind of federal insurance program for which each participant pays according to his or her ability to do so. Or, it could include a provision to require the federal government to pay the subsidies that were originally intended and to create a federal Medicaid system that runs parallel to the current system run by the states. There is even precedent for that in that the original 1935 Social Security Act included four programs--retirement, disability benefits, support for the dependent spouses and children of the deceased and unemployment compensation--to be run by the states and funded primarily by the federal government. But four years later, it was partially federalized by the Social Security Amendments of 1939 and worker-funded trust funds were created to separate at least the retirement system from the federal budget. The framework for a plenary healthcare system could be as simple as duplicating the successful histories of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and it should be a simple matter for the Democrats to draft a bill capitalizing on that fact. Let the Democrats submit the bill and let the Republicans oppose it. Then the voters will know who is on their side.
The Democrats could put the lie to the entire conservative Republican myth in one fell swoop if they just put their minds to it. The progressive agenda could become the American creed if they would just act instead of reacting. Maybe there's something I don't understand about all this, but if so, I wish someone would explain it to me.
Your friend,
Mike
Leave a comment