This is, many of us keep saying, the moment we have been waiting for, the transformative moment in our politics when dramatic change is possible, when we will finally guarantee quality affordable health care for all.
As we keep saying it, we hear the other voices tell us that, no, we have to wait, that the economic crisis we face is too severe, requires too much attention, and will be too costly.
But a close look at history, at our present crisis and our politics, should teach all of us, including President-elect Obama that the pessimistic voices are wrong. This is the moment for health care reform.
And that is one reason you should come to the Neighborhood Networks Town Hall meeting tomorrow. For whether we actually we take advantage of this moment for health care reform is, in large part, up to us.
Date: Monday, November 17, from 7-9 PM.
Place: First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street
Here is why I think a major commitment on the part of the citizens of this country to health care reform will finally get us there.
Obama’s victory, like most large electoral victories is in large part an assessment of the immediate past than an embrace of a particular future. The shift in voters from Republican to Democrat reflects the deep trouble we are in. The same was true in 1932, 1964, and 1980. Voters did not vote for the New Deal, or the Great Society or the Reagan revolution because they were not presented in any detail with these political programs. What they did in 1932 and 1980, and to some extent, what they did last week, is to call for a change of direction. They gave a new team, lead by a new President, the ability to make that change.
While 2008 resembles these previous turning points, in one area, health care, it is different. For here Obama did present a clear program of change, one embodied not just in his own health care proposals but in the principles of Health Care For America Now, which Obama endorsed on October 6, one month before the election.
Those principles call for a guarantee of affordable health care for all to be met by new rules for insurance companies and a new public sector health insurance program.
The new rules are meant to stop insurance companies from making money by denying people coverage or care. Instead, by requiring them to provide an expansive health insurance package to everyone, it will force them to make money in different ways: First, by returning to the original aim of health insurance, and spreading the risk of becoming ill to as many people as possible. And second, by helping people get the care they need before minor, chronic¸ inexpensively managed problems become major, expensive health disasters.
And together with these new rules for private insurance, the public program is meant to give everyone a choice of health insurance providers.
Not only did Obama endorse the Health Care For America Now proposals, he campaigned on them. He mentioned them at every campaign stop. He spent over $110 million on campaign ads that mentioned health care reform. Indeed, according to politico. 81% of the ads he ran in the month of October mentioned health care reform.
And not only did Obama defend his own health care plans, he criticized John McCain’s health care proposals, which are the plans the insurance companies have for us.
So, more than any other transformative election in our history, this one was a referendum on a key issue.
And we won.
The table is set for health care reform. But Obama can’t put the meat and potatoes on the table by himself, especially when the insurance companies are going to do everything they can to tell us that the meat is poisoned and the potatoes are rancid.
It will take a movement to serve this meal. Tomorrow night I’m going to talk about what this movement looks like now and how you can help build it.
I should add that Neighborhood Networks has not yet endorsed this movement, but I’m hopeful it will. And, since Neighborhood Networks is a democratic, transparent, and inclusive organization, your have a role to play in making that decision.
I hope you can join us.