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HEALTH POLITICS: Blue Dogs May Need to Think Twice About the Prevailing Winds...
The so-called Blue Dog Democrats have been focused on the cost of health reform, and worried about how a health plan, reviled by many Republicans as an expansion of Big Government, might cost them at the polls.
Al Hunt, writing in this weekend's New York Times, think these fiscally-conservative Democrats had better realize that they may be putting their political future in jeopardy if they vote against health reform.
The more relevant number for nervous congressional Democrats to consider is 54 -- the number of seats they lost in 1994 despite a reasonably good economy and no wars; this was after the party disintegrated over health care. The big news back then was the defeat of powerful leaders like Tom Foley of Washington, the House speaker. Over all, the losses disproportionately affected middle-of-the-road Democrats -- the Blue Dogs of their day -- from states like Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia and Ohio.
Hunt said President. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, need to find a tricky balance -- persuade the Blue Dogs that their own political survival may be on the line, while convincing liberals to make some deals and concessions. It's hard.
"A lot of members are choking," Mr. Emanuel acknowledged. Everybody liked health care reform, he said, "until they got visited by their local self-interest."
What looks like short-term setbacks could turn out to be long-term good news. Compromise, negotiation, another look at "curve-bending" options, will may give us a bill later than we'd like. But ultimately, it could end up being a better bill.
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Bullfeathers
The NY Times is dead wrong. As the official sock puppet newspaper for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, it wants no dissent. The fact that the real push-back on the health reform legislation is coming from within the Democratic, not the Republican Party (which lacks votes to be of any consequence) shows that this legislation is deeply troubling.
I am disturbed that my fellow Democrats don't want any dialogue, and won't tolerate any questions from within its own party. Is the democratic process not supposed to be noisy? Should legislation as important as this not be deeply vetted? If the protocol of the legislative process now to be a mere rubber stamp, we no longer have Congress, but rather, a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Supreme Soviet.
Frankly, I very worried at the legislation proposed in the House and Senate, ESPECIALLY the House bill. It's a financial disaster. It takes no account for the fact that in the next 20 years, America will age rapidly, and this demographic bubble will greatly impact our economy. Our current economy is in no shape to absorb such pressure on it, and I fear that legislation of this sort might not only put us into a financial winter like that suffered by Japan, but could, at worst, bankrupt the United States.
I congratulate the Blue Dogs for putting it on the line and questioning the troubling flaws in the legislation proposed by the liberals. My hunch is that the Blue Dogs won't be called to account in the future, but rather, the liberals will have their day of reckoning.
As for the New York Times, what we may be seeing is the frantic screaming of a dying enterprise.
Healthcare Reform - Unlimited Wants and Limited Resources
I believe that the political future of the fiscally conservative Democrats (and Republicans, if they exist...) is first reliant on ensuring that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are in good fiscal shape before adding an additional program to help those without.
Healthcare reform, and any other program for those without will require our representatives to have the courage to deal with the economics(unlimited wants and limited resources)of existing programs (e.g.: reducing benefits, delaying benefits, increasing taxes, "ring fencing" monies paid into actual accounts)before our citizens will support a new healthcare.