Brown's Win Gives GOP a Voice in the Health Reform Debate
Last Friday, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told the em>Los Angeles Times<, “If Scott Brown wins, it'll kill the health bill.” Not so fast, Barney.
Scott Brown did manage to defeat Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat, pulling off the largest political upset in years. Defeating the Democratic healthcare bill was a major part of his platform, and certainly the issue spotlighted by Democrats and Republicans alike as the greatest reason why the Massachusetts race mattered. Brown’s victory bodes well for the GOP, looking to capitalize on voter frustration over the healthcare debate and other priorities of the Obama Administration in the 2010 midterm elections. If a Republican could win a Senate seat in Massachusetts for the first time in four decades by lambasting Democratic healthcare reform efforts, then there is a distinct possibility that the GOP will make major gains, if not win an outright majority, at the next polls.
Facing an era of divided (or at least more divided) government seems likely in the wake of Brown’s victory. But Barney Frank and other progressives yearning for healthcare reform should not despair quite yet. If they keep their spirits up and look out for opportunity, they might just manage to pass the healthcare reform that the White House says “can no longer wait.”
Divided government has proven to be better for Americans looking for major reform than partisans like me are generally willing to admit. Any kind of sweeping political reform needs at least two things to succeed: a compelling vision of change, and a commitment to consensus-building that makes change acceptable to the voting public. Single-party government has not generally been very good at succeeding in providing both.
The Democrats in power right now certainly have the vision to move ahead with healthcare reform, and it has taken up most of the year’s political agenda. But they have become so caught up with reaching the promised land of universal coverage and cheaper care that they have failed to take the time to build consensus. Neither transparency nor pluralism have been deemed important by Speaker Pelosi and her fellow party leaders; labor unions and swing-state politicians have had far more of a seat at backroom negotiations than have Republicans, none of whom plan to vote for the final healthcare bill in the Senate. The vision of a better healthcare system held by the Democrats has not been matched by a commitment to pleasing the public and the Republican opposition that would make reform realistic.
The GOP is in the opposite position, for the moment. The party seems leaderless, and a lack of leadership means that there is no compelling vision that the Republicans are putting forward for America. Peggy Noonan pointed this out in her Wall Street Journal column two weeks ago, asking if the Republicans can earn the electoral success they seem to be heading towards. That said, as the minority party, the GOP has found itself as the champion of proper procedure and transparency. One of Scott Brown’s most common talking points was that the Democrats have used “chicanery” to try to ram their healthcare reform bill through. The Republicans are demanding consensus before they will even consider the merits of healthcare reform, but they have no alternative vision as yet of how to fix things.
When (more) divided government comes next year, politics will change dramatically. The Democrats will no longer have the numbers to think that they can act in a brazen way on healthcare, cracking plenty of eggs in order to make a universal coverage omelet. Republicans, meanwhile, will not be able to just sit still and complain that breakfast isn’t ready yet, as they have managed to do by being the obstructionist superminority for most of the past year. It will be time for President Obama to prioritize the essential parts of his healthcare agenda, like expanding Medicare and cutting costs for middle-income families, and it will be time for the Republicans to contribute substance to a better debate over healthcare and start listening to the Right’s own healthcare gurus, like those at the Cato and Heritage Institutes.
It will be time for what President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich managed to accomplish: slowing down the national debate over globalization, the deficit, and welfare while still managing to promote free trade, a balanced budget, and work requirements for the poor. It will be time for what President Bush and Speaker Pelosi managed to accomplish: bringing transparency to national security policies and politicking while still managing to promote the War on Terror and big government welfare. It will be time for major national political changes that garner broad public support.
Changes like reforming our broken healthcare system will not disappear as an issue of major importance for every American for many election cycles to come. Scott Brown’s victory means the end of this round of healthcare reform, but whether or not healthcare is a dead issue for the remainder of Obama’s presidency is ultimately up to him and the Democratic leadership.
If they are willing to abide by Republican demands for inclusion and an open debate, Rep. Frank and his allies may yet get healthcare reform to lower prices and expand coverage that Americans are, quite literally, dying for.