Democrats in Congress have teamed with President Obama to score the greatest legislative victory so far in this century, which is universal health insurance. It will have a primary role in whether the nation and the workforce keep abreast of the leading competitors in the new world of industrial technology and global trade.
The biggest mistake Democrats can make in the 2014 mid-term Congressional elections is to go weak on the Affordable Care Act. They must not be cowed by either their opponents or the media rabble-rousers whose health insurance comes with their contracts and who could care less about the 40 million Americans who don’t have it.
As dogged as the ACA has been by server errors in the enrollment systems, the program has met its paramount target of the first year — seven million subscribers by March 31. With all those online by the deadline, completion of their enrollment in early April could make the startup push bigger than seven million.
America now has universal health insurance, with far more than a fourth of the uninsured now not only covered but also freed from cost caps and exceptions for grave illnesses. Millions who never dreamed they could afford health insurance are now enrolled, including legions whose severe ailments denied them coverage even as many were bled into bankruptcy. These are the facts. Exceptions are gone. And there’s little doubt that enrollment will continue to surge, however long the Republican governors continue to drag their feet. History is not on their side. The USA has at last joined the league of progressive nations, whose people know that the strength of the nation, its productivity, rests heavily on the health of the people.
Any Democrat who is uncomfortable with these facts is in the wrong party. Profiting lushly as they do from controversy, the big media have been drawn too easily into the Republican game of doubt, so now it’s time for Democrats to fight back with the old Republican trick of running against both their opponents and the media. It’s time to put to rest once and for all the shaggy myth that the American press and broadcasters are always leaning liberal. Nine-tenths of the media serve Republican owners, who profit enormously by keeping the public thinking that their products have a liberal flavor. Theirs hardly a bigger lie in the history of American politics. Ralph Nader puts it so aptly, “All Americans grow up corporate.” The media effect!
The biggest challenge that Democrats face in November is not opponents who are trashing the dream of health care as a human right, which it is everywhere else in the free world. It’s the ground game of getting their faithful to the polls. Whatever war chests they can raise the rest of the year, they should be spent on making Democrats understand that the stakes have never been higher in getting to the polls. They must understand that their health depends on it — as does the health of democracy in its struggle to balance freedom and the Bill of Rights against the global greed of corporate power. As we learned from the Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court is not on the people’s side.
And, it’s high time the Democrats prove again that they are the party on the people’s side. They need not look smug in thanking Republicans for helping enact the ACA, they must by turnout ensure that it’s the 21st century right that the Bill of Rights would be incomplete without.
Frank Mensel — April 2014