GoldbergBlog

Obama’s Health Reform Approach: Declare Victory and Get Out

“He didn’t get into the details,” said Bingaman. “His message was: This is a very important thing to do for the country. A lot of people will benefit if we enact health care reform. It’s been a longtime in coming and we need to get it done.”

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), a member of the Finance Committee’s conveyed this message to reporters after Obama held a speech (after which he did not allow questions) to the senate Democratic caucus.  The Huffington Post also said that Joe Lieberman came out of the meeting elated that the President hadn’t said anything about the highly vaunted public option.  Of course, even if he had, at this point the public option barely exists.  It was a compromise on a never-offered single-payer system, then it was ripped down to an opt-out system by states, wouldn’t come into effect until 2013-2014, and now they’re talking about a “trigger” or maybe a “hammer” or a variety of other gun parts, which will all be pointless since they’ll never load the damn bullets anyway.

Has our President forgotten what reform even means?  Yes, I agree it’s important to enact health care reform.  But that means you must actually reform health care.  He’s been waging this battle for most of the year and at the end it will be a meaningless achievement beyond Obama saying they got it done even if the “it” is nebulous and benefits hardly anyone (except the private health insurers who get to carry on business-as-usual for at least the next decade after having taught our government that it would do wise not to tangle with the big boys).

If any senator could have asked only one question, here’s what it should have been: “Mr. President, what qualifies as a victory in health care reform?”  Because without any specifics and just framing it in a historical context of which every senator, no matter how callow and craven they may be, understands, Obama should’ve just had Larry the Cable Guy go instead and just shout his signature catch phrase.

At some point this President is going to have to understand that true governance is not like a sports movie where a big, motivational speech rallies the team and wins the game.  Leadership is not a pep talk and just passing a bill isn’t health care reform.

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