It Took a Nixon to Open the Door to China
Why on earth has Obama and the Democratic leadership ruled out the “single-payer” model, the one Canadians love so much?
I’m sure he wants Americans to believe that he is not a fanatic, a radical, who intends to impose a socialist regime on the country. I’m sure he knows that this perception is ridiculous. I’m sure he knows that the insurance industry and some doctors’ organizations and conservative talk radio and Fox News and the Republicans will spend millions and millions of dollars to try to convince Americans that Canadians hate their health care system (in spite of some studies that show up 97% of Canadians would not trade our system for theirs) and that Canadians are dying in unparalleled numbers because we can’t get doctors or treatment (in spite of our longer life expectancy) and that our breast implants are not as firm or ample as good old all-American breast implants.
So why has Obama rolled over on this one? He’s afraid of a brutal, divisive fight. He wants to be bipartisan. He wants to unify America.
I always thought that if a liberal Democrat took George Bush’s approach to the Iraq war and applied it to health care, the U.S. would have a single-payer, universal health care plan in a matter of months. Nobody wanted the Iraq war. Nobody thought it was a good idea. Nobody believed Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. Did that stop Dick Cheney? Not on your life. He just steam-rolled the idea through Congress and the Executive branch and refused to compromise or bend until he got his way. Above all, he threatened to paint every wavering Democrat as an unpatriotic wimp if they didn’t join in.
Now, if an idiot could do that with a bad idea– why can’t a genius like Obama do it with a good one?
To answer my own question: because Cheney’s opponents were intelligent, reasonable people who were not given to hysterics and mudslinging. They wanted to compromise. They wanted to seem even-handed and fair to President Bush.
Obama’s opponents are well-funded shrieking harpies who will lie and distort and stop at nothing to take political advantage of any issue.
Perhaps it is going to take a Nixon (or a John McCain?) to change America’s health care system for the better. (The story is that if a Democrat had tried to establish diplomatic relations with “Red” China the way Nixon did in 1972, the Republicans would have revolted en-masse and created a constitutional crisis of insane proportions. But Nixon, who was trusted by the conservatives, was able to achieve remarkable results because everybody thought that if old arch-cold-warrior Nixon thought it was okay, it must be okay.)
Why doesn’t labour approach the problem of influencing government the way conservatives do? What they would need to do is create a foundation (or several of them, each of which appears to be independent of the others) called the “Ruthless Capitalist Institute” or something, and find some stooge entrepreneurs to staff it and fund some stooge college professors (maybe at Oral Roberts University) to do “research” and then make presentations to Congress on how investors would make even more money if they employed only unionized labour.