Healthcare and the American Awakening

I think that today (Monday) may be a defining day for President Obama and the American people.  Obama is set to introduce his version of comprehensive health care reform.  In it is a provision giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies.  This provision provides a federal check on exorbitant premium increases, like the recent 39 percent hike announced by Anthem Blue Cross of California (thanks for the political peg Blue Cross!).  But it goes beyond just a bill proposal.  Obama’s decision to take decisive action on health care signifies that perhaps now he’s ready to assume that role given to him by history.  I’ll elaborate, but let me make a few side comments.

One.  I must admit that my post on the Massachusetts senatorial race was a bit brash and reactionary.  I said that the loss of the Democrats’ supermajority in the Senate might of killed any new health care initiatives or the movement altogether.  Although it’s still uncertain what will come of the already passed health care bills, I failed to acknowledge (due to some ignorance on my behalf) that the House and Senate bills can be reconciled and passed without a supermajority and threat of a Republican filibuster.  It’s called budget reconciliation and it doesn’t require 60 votes.  Forgive me, but understand that my analysis wasn’t totally off-the-mark (my primary focus was the political effect of job loss). I was just a tad ignorant and a little bit pessimistic.

Two.  This White-House led reconciliation proposal is likely to led to a Republican freakout, as Johnathan Chait suggests – and probably rightly so.  Obama’s comprehensive health care bill will be written in a way that reconciles the differences between the House and Senate bills.  Most importantly, since the bill is operating under a budget reconciliation banner, filibusters are explicitly prohibited, as per the budget reconciliation process.  Here’s a brief summary of the reconciliation process’s purpose and the extent of its use:

Created in a budget resolution in 1974 as part of the congressional budget process, the reconciliation process is utilized when Congress issues directives to legislate policy changes in mandatory spending (entitlements) or revenue programs (tax laws) to achieve the goals in spending and revenue contemplated by the budget resolution. First used in 1980 this process was used at the end of a fiscal year to enact legislation to fine tune revenue and spending levels through legislation that could not be filibustered in the Senate.

No filibuster = only 51 Senate votes required.  So, here’s the bottom line.  All the Democrats need to do is have the House pass the Senate health care bill.  The current bills, already passed, are Republican-proof.  The new provision proposed by Obama – government oversight of premium increases – and any other minor changes can be effectively fast tracked through Congress via the reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority vote in the Senate.

So all the conservative commotion post-Brown, plus some shoddy liberal analysis (re: me), has no rationale backing it up.  The biggest hurdle to reform has already been cleared – getting 60 Senate votes.  All that’s left is sweeping, mopping, and closing up shop. Republicans are bound to realize this.  Their rude awakening is calling.  Chait breakdowns the status of the health care game, appropriately noting to conservatives that the game hasn’t ended yet.  It’s only half-time and conservatives are still technically losing.

You can imagine how this feels to conservatives. They’ve already run off the field, sprayed themselves with champagne and taunted the losing team’s fans. And now the other team is saying the game is still on and they have a good chance to win. There may be nothing wrong at all with the process, but it’s certainly going to feel like some kind of crime to the right-wing. The Democrats may not win, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to try. The conservative freakout is going to be something to behold.

However, least I mess up twice – this time coming across as too optimistic – let me express my historically justified reservations about Democratic solidarity.  They could mess it up.  I don’t think that would surprise anyone.

Now for the broader, more lofty issue at surrounding Obama’s renewed effort at health care reform.  This issue doesn’t revolve exclusively around health care, although reform of the current system is a integral part of it.  It is certainly less political than it is philosophical and psychological, but is exponentially more impacting for Obama’s politics and the American psyche.  This is about Obama’s need to put his litany of proposals and initiatives into a grand scheme, or in the words of America’s unique politico-religious-philosophical nexus:  a grand narrative.  This is something that has been conspicuously lacking since Obama took office more than a year ago and was has made it seem like Obama has been unable to rally around his mandate to remake America.  It can start with the health care bill.

Obama needs to put the introduction of his bill into the context of a grand narrative.  Obama is president at an extremely unique, albeit volatile, time in American history.  He needs to capitalize on this opportunistic situation.  He needs to adopt something like what Thomas Freidman has suggested.  In a recent op-ed for the NY Times, Friedman states that we are no longer the “Grasshopper Generation,” the generation that ate through copious amounts of wealth and prosperity with little consideration of the consequences or the burden it placed on posterity.  None of that matter, because America was so wealthy, relatively speaking, in every sense of the word.  Things in the post-Great Recession era are fundamentally different.  We are living a new reality.  We needn’t fret though.  We simply to to adapt – something American’s are adept at doing.  With the new American reality naturally stems the need for a new generation, a new national purpose, and a new grand narrative to orchestrate the whole ordeal.  We must make ourselves into the “The Regenration.”   This is a generation that focuses on rebuilding American prosperity, confidence, and ambition.  As Freidman writes, we must be the generation that “renews, refreshes, re-energizes, and rebuilds for the 21st century.”

Health care reform is one piece of this new American narrative.  Obama’s at the reigns.  All he needs to do is cajole the American people into understanding their newly created role in a new world.  He needs read up on his Campbell, minus the bigotry, and help stir a new awakening – an American renewal.  Focus will be on keeping it bit-sized.  Save the fancy talk for the cocktail parties.  This message needs to be clear, simple, and repeatable.  Easy enough for the average American to understand and support.  Of course behind it will be a complex web of political coaxing, back-door deals, and quirky compromises.  But the people don’t need to understand that.  The narrative must be short, simple, “catch phrase-able,” and symbolic of American ethos.  It also needs to explain his political agenda is a clear, comprehensive fashion that shows the direction America is heading.  This ought to be second-nature for someone like Obama.

Game on, Mr. President.