I’ve been thinking about what happens next if the health care law is overturned. One thing for sure, it won’t be pretty, and the right wing will be howling in joy as they blanket the airwaves with their condemnations of President Obama and the Democratic Party. And yes, there will be massive demoralization on the part of progressives in the wake of such a possibility.
As someone who fought long and hard for the public option in health care reform, hearing arguments over the severability and the commerce clause was sort of bittersweet because the public option, or an expansion of Medicare would have helped keep the sacrosanctity of the entire health law, and bolstered the government’s case for the constitutionality of the law.
I’ve also heard some progressives say that overturning the health care law would make it easier to get a public option passed. I don’t think so. It would not be easy at all to get a public option or a Medicare expansion passed. Why?
We have a heavily Republican House and a complicit Senate with a few so-called Democrats that work for corporate instead of public interests. The politicians are wholly owned by corporations, and the Citizens United decision makes it easier for them to tow the corporate line on major policy decisions such as our health care.
So what do we do next if the health care law is overturned? We’ve got to fight. We’ve got to donate. We’ve got to use social media to tell people the consequences of what that means. We’ve got to get more and more voters on our side. We’ve got to do a massive public education campaign about health care coverage that never really happened from the Democratic Party and their allies after the health care law was passed.
I remember after it was passed, the quick triumph and the few trumpets of glory from the White House, the Democratic Party, and their allies, but it didn’t last for long because the infighting over the making of the health care law still stung as a memory in their minds. The Blue Dogs ran as fast as they could from it. The party stalwarts shut down about it, and didn’t really educate voters about what it could do.
The large advocacy organizations also didn’t educate voters about it. Sure, there might have been a few education campaigns, but were they executed well in favor of the health care law? I don’t think so. So many Americans still don’t know what the health care law does for them aside from coverage of their adult children, and no co-pays on preventative health care.
The law’s late timeline for implementations of the health care exchanges, the subsidies, and other regulations have worked against the public perception of the law itself. Americans will not feel the full impact of the health care law until 2014, which is a detriment to voters and to the Democratic Party. The late implementation may very well have doomed the health care law because there is no large public support in favor of keeping the health care law. An earlier implementation of these regulations, as many activists had argued, would have helped the Democratic Party at such a crucial time in history.
It is too late now to fix the bill after it has been passed, because the bill may very well be struck down. Will the Republican Party pass a new bill? No, they won’t. And we’re stuck where we are now, in a quickly deepening morass that is the health insurance system in America.
As I mentioned earlier up thread, we’ve got to fight. We’ve got to donate. We’ve got to use social media to educate voters. We’ve got to do a massive voter education campaign to draw a very sharp contrast between Republicans and Democrats. That will help the Democrats when it comes to their seats in Congress, and in the White House itself.
We’ve got to become a voice that will drown out the corporate interests on the airwaves, a voice that shouts throughout the land about why we need actual health care, not health insurance, and why we deserve better in politicians. We have to urge people to vote, and to educate them about the consequences of what happens if they don’t vote.
It’s not just health care. It’s also education. It’s the environment. It’s Social Security. It’s Medicare. It’s Medicaid. It’s about all the programs that help support the poor and the middle-class. It’s about what kind of a country we are.
Are you with me in fighting for a better America? It’s not about electing more Democrats. It’s about electing actual Democrats. It’s about getting the right policies, advocating for them, AND leading on these policies. It’s about the big ideas that really matter to the American people, and drawing contrasts on these ideas.
We lead on this, and the politicians will follow. Join us at The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party to fight for a better America, and to restore the middle class.