BALANCING HEALTHCARE, PUBLIC POLICY AND POLITICS:Massachusetts Leads A New American Revolution -- What it Means for Health Care and the 2010 Elections

Sunday, January 24, 2010

BALANCING HEALTHCARE, PUBLIC POLICY AND POLITICS:Massachusetts Leads A New American Revolution -- What it Means for Health Care and the 2010 Elections

Balancing Healthcare, Public Policy and Politics with Linda De Seife

On January 19, 2010, the citizens of Massachusetts once again fired a shot heard ‘round the world – or at least across the United States. The election of Scott Brown, a Republican, to fill the vacancy left by the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, should send a strong message to Washington, and to Democrats in particular, that the movement for smaller government, less federal intrusion into the lives of its people, and reductions in spending and deficits is not the creation of Fox News, right-wing nuts, and tea party extremists as Democrats in the Congress and the White House have tried to spin it.

I say, “should” because until now this group has been so arrogant and out of touch with what the people believe, I’m not sure that they still will “get it.” The results in New Jersey and Virginia were the first signal, but those events were rationalized away by some. Anyone who tries to rationalize Massachusetts, on top of the other two results, is simply delusional. As moderate Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana said, “If you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call, there’s no hope of waking up.”

So, what does the Massachusetts result mean for health care reform? As I write this, speculation is rampant, and the Democrats are still trying to figure out their game plan. The bills (House and Senate) in their current form may be dead, but I do not believe that health insurance reform in general is dead, although it will take longer and look different.

When I first started to write this Nancy Pelosi had just announced that she does not have the votes to pass the Senate bill in tact.

Now two weeks and the State of the Union have passed, and the President is calling a bi-partisan health care meeting to be televised from Blair House. The Republicans are considering boycotting the meeting, if the President refuses to start from scratch on a health insurance reform bill.

By the time you read this who knows what the state of the health care reform debate will be. So let’s look at what the Massachusetts results mean for November 2010.

America is basically a center/slightly right leaning nation. The election of 2008 was a vote against the recent past, not a mandate for far left, big government as the Democrats believed. The change that was promised has not been delivered. Scott Brown won by running against Obama, not Bush. So blaming Bush for everything doesn’t work any more; it’s their record now.

In December I discussed recent poll results showing the Democrats losing the Independent voters, the young voters who showed up in 2008 not turning out, and older voters being alienated by their policy positions. Those trends seem to be continuing. In a current Washington Post/ABC News survey just released (1/20/10), 62% of the American people said that the country is on the wrong track. This is down from November results which showed 55% saying wrong track. And the numbers are worse among Independents – 66% wrong track. Similarly, a post-election poll of Massachusetts voters by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health shows 63% saying that the country is seriously off track. As of February 4th, these numbers remain pretty stable at about 62% saying the country is on the wrong track.

But, the Republicans also need to be careful. It’s about the message, not the party. The American people are “mad as hell and not going to take it any more,” to quote the movie Network. That could impact both parties, but the Democrats have more to lose. Remember, all politics is local; however, there are consistent messages that can be adapted to local conditions. Scott Brown probably could not win in South Carolina, but Jim DeMint could not win in Massachusetts. So Republicans need to focus on their principles of fiscal conservatism, small government, and national security, and let the local political environment determine the rest.

Early last year, the Republican party was written off, and some suggested that it lacked strong leadership. Today, the apparent lack of strong leadership seems like a good thing. Let each Republican candidate run the campaign that works for him or her in each state or district. The only time the parties are at all national is in presidential campaigns. What the Republican party looks like, the mosaic, will come to light only after 2010. And that’s okay. I believe that the attempt at the RNC meeting at the end of January to impose a litmus test on Republican candidates is a mistake.

Perhaps more telling from the post-election Massachusetts poll is that the 2008 Obama coalition splintered the same way it did in Virginia and New Jersey. There was significant erosion among whites, independents and working-class voters. Could we be seeing the re-emergence of the Reagan coalition?

Two days after Massachusetts, the U.S. Supreme Court fired another round into the 2010 election season by striking down campaign spending limits for corporations and unions. This has caused much hand wringing and the Administration is vowing to put forth legislation that would “correct” this, declaring that the decision will only increase special interest spending and influence.

My personal opinion is that this is just more grandstanding, trying to re-take the populist ground. Corporations are in business to return profits to shareholders; so there is a self-imposed limit on how much they will spend on political advocacy. And, private sector labor union membership is at a record low, meaning fewer dollars available for them to spend also. So, as the Court found, this is just an upholding of the First Amendment right to free speech; the market and good business practices will determine the spending limits.

Before we get too caught up in bashing the interests of big business, we need to remember a couple of things: a) the millions of Americans that are employed there; and b) the millions who have 401Ks, IRAs and pension funds invested there. It is in almost everyone’s best interest to see business succeed. Even unions should be interested in seeing their employers remain healthy; they sometimes forget that without the companies there would be no unions.

To come back to the analogy of politicians and brands, advertising agencies and media planners know that there is a saturation point. All sides will be spending a lot of money; that will increase competition and help the economy. So, let the games begin!

Quote of the Month: “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude.” -- George Washington

For more information, please visit Linda's TNNW Bio.