by AndrewMc | 3/21/2010 06:27:00 PM
Ahh, the summer of 1935...we remember it so well. FDR was facing criticism from the right (the American Liberty League) and from the left (Huey Long, Father Coughlin, etc.). Democrats held the House and Senate. Meanwhile, the American people demanded the relief that private, local, and state institutions could not provide. After decades of abortive attempts, the time finally seemed right for some sort of old-age and unemployment insurance. FDR's administration and Democrats in Congress launched a massive push for a program of economic security. Republicans were outraged, claiming that Social Security would bankrupt the government, introduce socialism, assault liberty, and destroy America. Progressives clutched their pearls, as well, noting all the limits to the administration's plan: its regressive contributory model; its exclusion of farm workers and domestic servants; its relinquishing of power to undependable state governments; etc.. Social Security, it must have seemed at the time, was on the ropes.
In the summer of 2009, we see plenty of similarities. New president facing left/right criticism: check. Democrats holding legislative and executive branches: check. American people demanding relief (this time, from the cost of health care or the lack of it): check. And it seems like now, more than ever--more than Truman facing resurgent Republicans, more than LBJ racking up immense war deficits, and more than the Clinton machine thirsting for power instead of designing policy--health care reform might actually make it. The right hates the idea, of course: socialism, bankruptcy, un-American, etc. The left, too, has its issues, particularly with censorship of the words "single payer," and those misgivings have led some progressives to hold back their support.
But it seems to me that we (progressives, that is) have a choice. We can abandon this leaky health care reform ship and let it go down. The best case scenario is that there's such a wide-spread public reaction that we get a proper single-payer health care system. Worst case: people get sick without health care. This is happening already, and I don't think that's acceptable. Health care reform, much like social security, begins with an essentially moral proposition: it's wrong that millions of people don't have access to health care.
The second option is to throw our support behind the best bill we can get now and work on it later. This is precisely what happened in 1935. SSA passed and it was seriously limited, but revisions in 1939 and 1950 removed those limits, and the Social Security Act of 1965 went even farther with the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid. I'd suggest that the same thing can happen with health care reform: we can make it better later.
Because here's the crucial point: once it's in, it ain't going away. The first post-FDR Republican president, Eisenhower, wouldn't touch Social Security with a ten-foot pole, and his conservative successors have followed in his footsteps. Bush tried, but even with total Republican control of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, it didn't happen. And they're scared now for the same reasons: (a) it's going to make Democrats wildly popular and (b) once we get it, it's not going away.
Labels: FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, Geschichte Grad, Health Care, New Deal