A robust public option will change national electoral politics for at least twenty years if Democrats decide to govern. Given past history, we should be able to sustain a multi-decade mandate in Washington if we deliver substantial health care reform that includes a public option available to all Americans. Failing to deliver or passing a weak health care reform plan will doom Democrats for years.
Since the Great Depression, Democrats largely ran the politics of this country. Just about every major social reform came from our party. Whether it was the New Deal, the Great Society, the Civil Rights Act, the Anti-Discrimination in Employment Act, or the Family and Medical Leave Act (and there's more...), Democrats chose at the moment to govern with the mandate bestowed upon them by the people to radically change the status quo. And once we passed these major reforms, we stood to govern for many years by proving to older Americans, women, minorities, and the youth that the Democratic Party stands to make your lives better, by guaranteeing opportunity, providing quality health care when you get older, ending discrimination, or giving access to higher education. These chances don't come often.
Today, we're faced with several problems; each deservedly more important than the others. Right now the moment has come to reform health care. We've passed that threshold where we can turn back and fight another day. Too much time, money, and hope are spent in making reform happen. We cannot come to this moment again, ever.
Our Senate leaders are putting together a health care bill that will please one crowd or one person more than the other. On the one hand, we have the millions who propelled President Obama to the top last November. Each one of us bought his vision of a health care system that would give everyone universal access to affordable and quality care. Today, 65% of Americans support this plan. It's called the public option.
One the other hand is one or two Senators from one of America's smallest states. Senators Reid, Dodd, and Baucus think that in order for health care reform to pass you need to placate the wishes of Maine's two senators. Whether its a trigger, an opt-out or opt-in, means-testing the public option, or some other watered down version, this is not what American bought on November 4th nor support today. And if our Democratic Senators think that pragmatism is what our Party needs, they need only look to history.
Standing firm and tall on our principles will reward us. Sure, there may be short-term consequences. But once America sees that the public option is no more communist, socialist, or fascist than public schools, the interstate highway system, or Medicare, or that they can no longer be denied care because of a pre-existing condition, we will once again reap the benefits of good policy and good politics.
Chances like this one comes about once in a generation. Let's not waste this opportunity.