Thursday, May 8, 2014

Obamacare as legacy

I'd like to revisit something that Bill Kristol wrote back in 1993 about health care reform. At the time, he was talking about President Clinton's failed attempt to reach that goal. But his words not only speak to the total obstruction from Republicans on this issue, they also give us a window into the idea of Obamacare as the critical transformative legacy of this Presidency.


In that last paragraph, Kristol outlined the basic philosophical difference between Democrats and Republicans: Democrats believe that government spending and regulation help the middle class and Republicans claim that efforts to restrain the government help them. What he suggested was that health care reform would legitimize the Democratic position "at the very moment we have begun rolling back that idea in other areas."


I'll grant you that a lot of the American public isn't there yet. But with the passage of every milestone indicating its success, we get closer to the day that happens. The replacement of Obamacare as the central issue for Republicans in the 2014 midterms by Benghazi! demonstrates that at some level they know that is underway.

That's why I'm actually grateful to Republicans for re-naming the Affordable Care Act as Obamacare. It reminds me that when Scott Brown was elected to replace Ted Kennedy as the Senator from Massachusetts, and almost all others gave up hope, President Obama stood strong. He took the heat and continued the fight until it was done.  Over the course of history, that will be his legacy.

Now, as my friend Robinswing would and tell that!

1 comment:

  1. Kristol may be right in his analysis, if you look past the loaded words he uses. "Intrusion", "Disruption" and "Dependence" are all keywords that reveal his inner thinking: that any attempt to use the government to help people is, de facto, an invitation to slavery.

    At least that is what he wants one half of his audience to take away from the argument. The other half of his audience is supposed to listen to the political analysis while the previous half is just supposed to run screaming for the hills any time someone with any connection to the government actually suggests they might be able to help them.