In Case You Missed This... Confirmation On What Many Of Us Believed Re: The Publc Option Fight

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28. maybe you missed this....

richard kirsch...The Miracle That Is the Affordable Care Act


With all the continued controversy surrounding the Affordable Care Act, it's easy to forget that its very passage was something of a miracle. A year later, the notion that Congress could enact comprehensive legislation on anything -- let alone a major expansion of the role of government in providing economic security to Americans -- is laughable. But the Act's passage was not just a remarkable achievement at this moment in our history; it defied a century of defeat by the same forces that are working to repeal it now. On its first birthday, it's important to appreciate the miracle in itself and as a reminder that things again could change very fast in these volatile times.

For some 100 years, the American political system failed to do what every other developed nation had done: make affordable health care a publicly guaranteed right. Our uniqueness was not a glitch; it was emblematic of a society that remains dominated by an individual ethos as opposed to an ethic of collective good, of caring for each other. And it was evidence of what every political scientist knows and every lobbyist counts on: our system is designed to kill major reforms. As Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson summarized in "Winner-Take-All Politics", "In America, it is hard to get things done and easy to block them. With its multiple branches and hurdles, the institutional structure of American government allows organized and intense interests -- even quite narrow ones -- to create gridlock and stalemate."

The mountain that President Obama sought to climb was every bit as steep as the slopes that defeated presidents from Roosevelt to Truman to Nixon and Clinton in their quests to make health care a right. The nation's biggest lobbying group in 2009, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pulled out all stops to kill the bill, fueled by at least $86 million laundered from the health insurance industry. An army of other lobbyists stood in the way: the health insurance industry alone employed 2,049, almost four for every member of Congress. An angry, right-wing, grassroots rebellion aimed its ire at the most vulnerable Democrats in the nation, funded by corporate front groups like Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity and fueled by the largest and most sophisticated propaganda machine in our history, Fox News. The reactionary forces made politics as partisan as we have ever seen, requiring agreement from every Democrat in the Senate -- no matter how deep their reliance and allegiance to corporate power.

Yet somehow, this baby was born. How? What was different? As hard as it is remember now, the time was right. The revulsion at the excesses of the Bush administration created the opportunity for the election of a president who campaigned on the promises of "hope" and "change." But only if he gave it his all. And on health care, President Obama did. On the night of his election, Obama told himself that the biggest single thing he could do to help average Americans was fulfill his campaign promise to "provide affordable, accessible health insurance for every American." And at at least three crucial times during the first thirteen months of his presidency, Obama refused the entreaties of his senior staff to abandon the quest and insisted on pushing for comprehensive reform.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-kirsch/the-miracle-man-and-woman_b_839472.html