One of the bizarro aspects of being an issue activist is that you wind up in a bubble and sometimes forget that most people, most of the time, aren’t paying attention to the issue that consumes your life day in and day out.
Given that the primary goal of a political activist is to find people who care about an issue and motivate them to become active in one way or another, you would think that it would be hard to forget that most people live outside the bubble. But activists spend time a lot of time with other activists, both professional and amateur, and with politicians and their staff members, and with members of the media. And we are all inside the bubble.
If you are reading this, you at least stick you head inside the bubble once in a while. And from time to time, you take action to bring engage your friends, neighbors, and co-workers in political action, bringing them inside the bubble as well.
This is the time to do so with regard to health care.
The bubble is starting to float—health care reform is going to happen.
When politics in America is going really well, the issue bubble expand dramatically as more and more us get inside it. And then the bubble float upwards carried along by our hopes and dreams.
Right now the health care bubble is starting to float and we are on the verge of enacting the most important social welfare legislation since Social Security was created in 1935.
We are the verge of saving hundreds of thousands of lives and, improve the quality of life for millions.
We are on the verge of finally filling in the huge gap in the social safety net of America—our failure to provide a guarantee of quality, affordable, health care for all.
We are on the verge of raising the standard of living of working people more quickly and decisively than at any time since FDR and World War II ended the depression.
We are on the verge of reducing the rapid rise of health care costs and begin rebuilding our economy from the bottom up, on the basis of growing wages.
We are on the verge of solidifying progressive rule over this country for the next generation.
There is simply no question that health care legislation—which can do all this and more—is going to be enacted in 2009. The only question is how good it is going to be. You can help make it as good as it can and should be.
The activists are blowing as hard as they can
Even if you just stick your head in the bubble from time to time, you may not have noticed how well things are going. As usual at this point in the political process, the bubble is fairly opaque and press reports on our growing movement and the initial stages of congressional consideration of health care reform have been few and far between. Unless you know health care activists inside the bubble, you may not realize just how active we have been.
I started work with Health Care For America Now (HCAN), the largest health care campaign going and perhaps the largest organized issue campaign in American history about a year ago. And if someone would had predicted then, that we would be where we are right now, I would have said, “from your lips to God’s ears.” Things have been going just that well.
For one thing we have a clear, winning strategy for expanding the bubble. The HCAN principles, which then candidates Obama and Biden endorsed in October 2008, three central elements.
1. Creating new regulations on health insurance that would require all insurance companies to offer comprehensive health insurance to everyone and would prohibit them from charging more to people who have pre-existing medical conditions, who are women of child bearing years, or who are older.
2. Creating a new, public health insurance option open to all.
3. Creating new subsidies for both public and private health insurance that would make it affordable for everyone
This is strategy designed to be immune to those who want to burst the bubble by saying that health care reformers will take away private insurance and put everyone in a health insurance plan run by the government. Under the Obama / HCAN principles, if you like your private insurance—and more and more people don’t like it—you get to keep it. But if you don’t, you can get other private insurance or join a public insurance plan.
Our politician’s are blowing, too, and it’s not all hot air
Even more importantly than our strategy, we have seen an extraordinary degree of support from those inside the bubble. Our political leaders are blowing very hard to expand it.
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President Obama has not retreated an inch from his commitment to health care reform this year. It is clearly his top priority for the rest of the year
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The Democratic leaders of Congress have embraced our strategy and President Obama’s commitment as have the committee and sub-committee chairs of the two Senate and three House committees charged with health care reform.
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A budget was passed by both House and Senate that not only contained a $634 billion downpayment on health care reform but also contained a provision—called a reconciliation rule—that would prohibit a filibuster against health care reform if it is not enacted before October 15.
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Already there is majority in the House of Representatives for what is likely to be the most controversial part of upcoming legislation—the new public health insurance plan.
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We are not quite there in the Senate although we are picking up support every day. And only a minority of Senators have said no to the most far reaching reform proposals before them.
Legislation coming soon
Legislation will be introduced soon. This legislation will be the real thing. It will make sure that all Americans have affordable health care. It will control health care costs. It will decisively shift power away from insurance companies. It will encourage innovative approaches in health care delivery. And it will encourage the choice and competition in health insurance that we need to keep innovation flowing and costs down.
Will the legislation be perfect? No. But it will not only go enormously far in attaining the central goal progressives have long sought—getting everyone good health care—but will also control costs and pave the way for future transformations of the health care system that get even closer to our ideal.
The special interests are trying to burst the bubble
As we move toward real reform, the insurance companies and their allies are going to do everything they can to stop us. They have always been inside the bubble and are working as hard as they can to burst it. And if they can’t do that, they will try to weigh it down, with their bags and bags of money. We have already seen TV ad campaigns against reform coming from the health care industry. More are on the way.
Insurance companies want to block a public health insurance plan. And they want to weaken the regulations on their industry.
We need to expand the bubble to win
We are on the cusp of history making events. Between now and September, we will see how good health care reform is going to be; how many lives we will save; how far we go in filling the gap in our safety net; how much we raise the standard of living of working people; how much we can control health care costs and jump start wage growth; and how far we can go in solidifying support for progressive government.
The special interests are always in the bubble. The health care activists have joined them. But unless thousands of Americans join us, we won’t win.
We need to make the bubble more transparent, so that our fellow citizens can see and be inspired by what is inside. We need people from every city, town, county, and state in this country to step inside it. We need the voices of thousands to ricochet inside the bubble, get louder and stronger, and in doing so, expanding it even further. We need the energy generated by our hopes and dreams to lift the bubble up.
We need you and your friends, neighbors and co-workers to recognize that this is the critical time and that your work can make a difference.
We need you and your friends, neighbor and co-workers to recognize that in doing so, you can be part of a special moment in history.
We need you to
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Invite your friends and neighbors to join us.
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Respond to our requests to contact members of Congress, again and again.
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Come out to our meet-ups, town halls, and our June 25th Health Care Can’t Wait National Rally and Lobby Day..
If you are willing to do all that, our health care reform bubble will rise all the way and become entrenched in the sky, alongside the Social Security Act of 1935 and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 and the Clean Air and Water Acts of the early 1970s. It will become a shining example of all that American politics can be when the bubble encompasses us all and the American people come together as one.