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Obamacare: Playing for Keeps in the Crafting of a Socialist Democracy

Posted March 16th, 2010 by Michael Erickson
Michael Erickson argues that, rather than showing a deaf ear to the cries of most Americans against the big government approach of "Obamacare," its proponents in fact are pursuing a long term, political advantage, one that will more than make up for expected electoral defeats in November. As such, Republicans cannot hope to win, unless they provide an alternative, positive vision of their own.

In recent weeks, much has been made within conservative media circles of the apparent penchants of President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, and company for political suicide. The argument is that, in defying the clear will of the American people by forcing through "Obamacare," even if necessary by the most tawdry of Congressional procedural gimmicks, they are showing a cavalier disregard for their own electoral prospects in November.

There is certainly a strong, factual basis for the claim. Polls have been steadily turning against "Obamacare" since the "Cornhusker Kickback" and the "Louisiana Purchase" became common parlance. The old game of "pay to play," which indeed has been a mainstay of legislative sausage making since the machinations of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, is now open to public scrutiny and comment like never before possible - thanks in large part to the internet and twenty-four hour cable news. Given how President Obama from the start handed over the details of his own health care agenda to the likes of Reid and Pelosi, it was inevitable that the process would be consumed by legislative trickery, resulting in a loss of public confidence.

Republican victories in special elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and then, most surprisingly, in Massachusetts confirmed the polls, especially as each of these contests emerged as a virtual referendum on "Obamacare." There is now a "perfect storm" brewing, one very capable of replicating, if not outdoing, the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994. Even Democrat spin does not pretend that this is going to be a typical, mid-term loss for the party occupying the White House.

Nevertheless, in spite of this cauldron, the Democrat leadership very defiantly presses ahead. There is no longer even the pretense of "fair play" or "listening to the voters," as President Obama tries to win over votes in the House by offering trips on Air Force One, and as Speaker Pelosi brandishes every one of her carrots and sticks over the remaining few dozen "undecided" Democrat Congressmen. If the House manages to pass the Senate bill, then it will be done as a most crass exposition of legislative skullduggery. It will be the sheer triumph of sophistry over reason, realpolitik over statesmanship, and Washington insiders over the people. Even the victors will need to sweep their embarrassment under the rug and brace themselves for the onslaught come Election Day.

This is not a pretty picture, and yet it easily could have been avoided if indeed President Obama had pursued a sincere, health care summit with the Senate and House Republican leadership, in the aftermath of the victory of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election. If he had pulled a "Clinton," by really reaching to the center and "triangulating" himself between the big government solution offered by the Democrats and the status quo presumably being offered by the GOP, then he could have forced both sides into a truly bi-partisan bill - one that would permit him then to transcend the old, partisan fray and recapture his role as the one, and indeed indispensable, agent of change. With some dare and imagination, he could have dismantled overnight the GOP surge accompanying Brown's victory, thereby showing himself to be the master impresario on the Washington stage.

Instead, Obama dug in his heels, by only adding a few, non-controversial, and relatively unimportant, Republican ideas to his post-summit proposal. It was sheer window dressing, and even the mainstream media could not suggest otherwise. In the aftermath, conservatives could not but ask: Is Obama simply not as smart as the "triangulating" President Clinton, who manipulated that Gingrich surge in 1994 into his own re-election two years later? Or is he allowing his ideological drive, one born in said cradle of Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to overcome his better judgment?

The implication behind both questions is that President Obama, and the leftist, Democrat leadership on Capitol Hill, are making a mistake; but in considering this from a long term perspective, they are appearing rather as the "fools" who don the stage in several of Shakespeare's plays. They are knaves, to be sure; and, when we see Pelosi in particular bumbling her way through a press conference, there is no doubt a good measure of basic obtuseness as well. Still, I cannot but help see the upturned, sly smile, as the "fool" bespeaks a canny insight in his jest.

If "Obamacare" passes in any form, the Democrats in the short term will face certain obliteration; but, in the long term, they will have done more since both the New Deal and the Great Society to cultivate an overarching dependency class. In creating a system of permanently increasing taxes and deficits (once it becomes clear that the presently imagined manners of paying for this new system will be all too inadequate, especially after the first decade of its existence), this monstrosity will rape whatever financial independence the already overtaxed middle class may be able to muster. More importantly, it will diminish expectations among American consumers of health care, as they reconcile themselves to the inevitable rationing of care. Instead of aspiring for better and more, even in regards to so personal an issue as their own health care, they will become accustomed to having less; and, among the indoctrinated, they actually will see a moral "good" in such a condition. I cannot help but think of Orwell's 1984, where the citizens of Oceania learn over time to regard their subsistence in squalor as a "patriotic duty" for the good of the "war." The next thing we know, we shall have a Vice President tell us that it is our "patriotic duty" to pay higher taxes and to settle for less.

Let us be clear on this point. "Obamacare" cannot but fail, in terms of its own, underlying financial solvency; and this in turn will create a burgeoning demand for a "public option" as a "remedy" for the overtaxed employers and individual policy holders trying in vain to make a living under its conditions. Also, when the United States Supreme Court inevitably throws out as unconstitutional the mandate that Americans purchase health insurance, the argument will be that, absent a "public option," there will be nothing to keep insurance companies in line.

Far from being a bumbling disaster, "Obamacare" will turn out in time to be a most grand, Machiavellian scheme. It will usher forth the socialist democracy for which said Democrat Party has been uniformly committed since Senator George McGovern and the "New Left" wrested power away from the "Old Guard" in 1972. Its proponents understand that, while Americans traditionally aspire to be free, in fact most of them will give up that freedom for the "protections" offered by an ever expanding government, if conditioned to see that they are unexceptional and that their best days indeed are behind them. When we are just another European style socialist democracy, and when most of us are content with that fate, then indeed the tyrants will have won. They know that; it is a key component of their Marxist playbook. That is why they are playing for keeps on this particular bill, in spite of the very real prospects of electoral obliteration in November.

Republicans alone stand between this agenda and the precipice. None of the "third parties" will be able to rise in sufficient opposition; and, in the end, even the loudest of street rallies cannot do more than slow the tide. But if the GOP is to be effective to this end, then it must do more than simply say "NO" to "Obamacare," or merely offer up ideas that it knows all too well will go nowhere on Capitol Hill. It must not play politics as usual on this one, because if it does, then it will turn out to be as much an aid to that emerging tyranny as the Democrat Left.

Rather than be the party of "NO," the Republicans must be the party of "YES" to an alternative, but compelling, vision of the future: YES to a free market based system of health care (rather than a perpetuation of the cartel system that prevails in the status quo), which would include a dismantling of Medicare as we know it in our time; YES to an economy of sound money and fiscal restraint (rather than that loose money, Keynesian worldview with which Republicans have been all too fond since the deficits of the Reagan years); and YES to an American exceptionalism - in health care as in all other industries and cultural aspirations.

We of the "loyal opposition" must be less loyal and more revolutionary. There is no better time than the present to rise to the clarion call of real change. If in our opposition to "Obamacare" we come to see ourselves in that light, as patriots of a noble, American landscape, not as subjects of a global world of scarcity, then the legislative affronts facing us today may have their silver lining.

A Response from a Friend to Michael Erickson

On March 17th, 2010 Michael Erickson says:
Here is an alternative vision to the one you proposed in your RNI piece. It was written to [Name Omitted] in response to his letter to Senator Feinstein. It goes back to the past, to a Federalist alternative, and to charitable instincts, which are still alive and well in America. It avoids the modernist abstractions like "social justice" and "free market." These are big ideological points, but they both dwarf real people and I think folks have had enough of that. Frankly, I don't think that a free market still exists. The U.S. Government and foreign capital is so far into every aspect of our lives that our only defence is to get small, get local, get personal. America used to be a nation of neighborhoods. It is time, I think to head back in that direction, for it will lead to some real diversity and some real personal responsibility for the common good on a scale that puts the person, the family, and the citizens back into a position of feeling competent to govern themselves. I would be interested in your rejoinder: When I was a boy, I remember that the biggest hospital in Pasadena was a branch of the Los Angeles County Hospital. These were locally based, public hospitals built by taxpayers and responsible for caring for citizens of all kinds and conditions. It was here that pro bono and public-supported healthcare was provided, under the watchful eye of the people who were paying for it. Alongside the county hospital system were the private hospitals, mostly organized by churches, or clinics organized by doctor's groups. This utterly un-uniform and bureaucratically unsatisfying system of niche institutions generated some of the best healthcare anywhere on the planet. It was driven by public and private charity, reflected the opinions and values of the people it served, and did not depend on the Congress of the United States. In contemporary words, that means that it did not involve ideology. Paralleling that system was a smaller, but critical system of State Hospitals, which had a very specific role to play in offering solutions to persistent health problems. Once again, these were institutions ordered up by the public which had their roots in a long tradition of community action on community problems. Although not as close to the people as the county systems, they were respectable and for the most part effective. Once again, they depended on the dual standard of practical, locally-controlled management and charitable sentiments. The truth is that we have had a public option before and it worked quite well. Two points: it was an OPTION as the private healthcare systems operated right next door, and secondly it was LOCAL, not national. The true radicalization of our health care system was the emergence in the 1950's of the health insurance industry. When you call for the generalization of health insurance companies from state-governed entities to national entities, you add to the problem of a lack of local control and a complete undermining of the precept of charity. Insurance companies are money managers. They work on actuarial systems. They will ultimately prove to be as vicious an enemy of choice in healthcare and as strong an advocate for controlling costs at the expense of lifesaving as though they were run by the Post Office. In fact, the insurance industry has been supportive of Obamacare so long as they get to handle the public monies run through the system. Out of each dollar they will take their cut. The closest thing we have to the old system in this novel world of healthcare is Kaiser-Permanente. Yes, it is a kind of insurance company, but it directly runs hospitals and clinics. Charity plays no role in it and it is not entirely local; but it is comprehensive and it has a public feel about it. Imagine if it belonged to the people of Sonoma County who not only used it, but had to pay for it too and keep it in the black each year without the capability to run it on borrowed Yuan. Imagine how up in arms the people of Sonoma County would be if the appearance of droves of illegal aliens began to bankrupt OUR hospital. Well Kaiser stays in the black as it is, and it even produces some green for its investors, but it is as close as we come these days to the original "public option." I think that we must resist any further erosion of removing power from the people and surrendering it to distant bureaucrats. That simply reduces citizens to a state of powerlessness and puts their respective fates in the hands of ideologues. It diminishes them as human beings because the essence of humanity in its social context is decision and accountability, will and blame or credit. It is descending into a new form of slavery to give these things up. The issue is not whether a thing is public or private. These definitions are vague and elusive when we speak about local institutions and only have meaning when those institutions are distant and beyond our reach. A huge corporation is ostensibly private, but it is as distant and imposing to individual citizens as any Federal bureaucracy with its headquarters appearing in foreign nations and boards meeting in skyscrapers in Chicago or New York. A school is considered public, though it is powerfully influenced by parents, local organizations, and influential individuals who know its officers and responsible figures by name and physiognomy. In short, we need not be pushed into any premature position on the solution to our healthcare problems. Those problems are best summarized as lack of local design and control, and lacking any spirit of charity. All of this is being encouraged on the left by the communists who only want power and on the right by insurance companies who only want money. Where are you and I and our neighbors in this discussion? That, it seems to me, is where our thinking must begin. Where will it lead? If we are fortunate it may actually return both power and responsibility back to the citizenry. Are they prepared to assume the former and to answer for the latter? If not, then the conservative movement is based on hypocrisy and prevarication.