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I have been hearing from friends and family members about health care reform a great deal, many of them telling me phrases like "politics is the art of the possible", "half a loaf is better than no loaf at all", "it's time to end the gridlock." While in some contexts I would agree that it's time to compromise, we're not at that point yet on health care.
Today, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, normally one of the more taciturn members of Congress, endorsed that argument.
Meanwhile, Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking Democrat in the House, said he has been reminding his party colleagues that Congress passed multiple, piecemeal civil rights bills in the 1960s and that activists had to put off demands for voting rights until 1965 to win a landmark ban on employment discrimination in 1964.
"LBJ made it very clear a half a loaf is better than no loaf at all," Clyburn said Wednesday. "We should do what can be done immediately and use the time between now and 2013 to figure out how to do the rest."
No, we shouldn't. Major attempts at health care reform comes along only once in a generation- as Ezra Klein pointed out, once every 19.5 years. We're not going to have another major shot at this anytime soon. Folks who are saying we should do what everyone agrees upon now- a ban on discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, a ban on dropping sick people from coverage, a ban on annual caps- and fix it later don't get that. When the horrible Medicare Part D bill was passed in 2003, a give-away to insurance companies and a nightmare for seniors, did Democrats go back and fix it when they took the majority in 2007? What about the 2005 bankruptcy bill, provisions of which that exempted derivatives from regulation helped lead towards the current financial crisis? The Military Commissions Act?
If arguments that the worst abuses under Republicans can be corrected later when Democrats are in charge are completely without basis in evidence, I don't know what makes Jim Clyburn expect that we'll just fix health care reform later, like it's as easy as changing a lightbulb. We'd be banking on not only picking up seats in the 2010 elections, which historically does not happen during a Democratic President's midterm, but we would need to pick up the seats of folks who actually would support a public option in the Senate. As Chris writes, Chris Dodd is already on the ropes, and we may lose Delaware. Who are we banking on for pickups that will actually commit to voting for a public option and hold firm? Mongiardo or Conway in Kentucky? Melancon, a Blue Dog, in Louisiana?
And what happens in between attempts? More people will lose their coverage, the uninsured will go uninsured, and premiums for people like me will continue to go up. Will our institutional allies have as much money and resources to spend on the ground? Will President Obama be as popular, and have as much capital and political favors as he does now? Oh, wait, he's already down to 50% in multiple polls. But I bet Clyburn would have told us with his crystal ball six months ago that his popularity would always remain above 60% for the first year of his term.
There are too many, to quote Rumsfeld, known unknowns in this hypothetical. We have to do it all now and make the Republicans vote against reform that will help their constituents. To do otherwise would be to take a very large gamble at a very large cost.
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