Success Comes Only with Defeat: Republican Strategy 2009

I’ve been thinking about Republican strategy the last few days, unsure about whether to say anything or not --- but as the health care reform bill moves ever closer to final passage in the US Senate, it is worth noting the all or nothing strategy the R’s have adopted. The R's are the most risk averse people you have ever met and that is why it surprises me they have rolled all the dice on a strategy aimed at total defeat of health care reform.

No compromise, no consolation prize, no joke. Only nothing will do.

I am surprised. And it is hard for these people to surprise me.

If they are right and the health care bill turns out to be the worst new law to pass in decades, the Democrats will pay the price next November and again in 2012. But if, as I suspect, the law will actually move health care reform forward in an overall positive way, the R’s will pay the price by being relegated to the back bench for a long, long time, having demonstrated fully and completely that they are not interested in solving problems, only in playing an obstinate role, a naysayer role. In other words, the opposite of what the founding fathers intended when they set up a republic that would send representatives to Washington to govern with an eye always toward making tomorrow a better day through the sheer force of new ideas if nothing else.

The R’s have clearly stated they have no new ideas and don’t intend to come up with any anytime soon. The substantive policy defeat the Democrats are about to hand the R's will last for decades.

Why health care reform WILL become law this year

As the debate on health care reform approaches the day of final reckoning in the Congress, health insurance companies continue to increase their premiums -- even for federal employees -- in double digits. Last week, I heard from a federal employee whose agency announced proudly that it had been able to negotiate a lower rate with BCBS Carefirst of the National Capital Area. Now, instead of a 25 percent increase in premiums for 2010, federal employees under the plan would only pay an increase of 9.5 percent. Mind you, our nation's inflation rate has been less than 2 percent for the past year. Gall? No. Nerve? No. There is another name for it.


Health insurance companies have for the past 20 years imposed ever increasing premiums on a public that generally has paid little attention because they don't pay the premiums, "my agency (or my company) pays them." Of course, you and I know that is not true. Indeed we all pay. Because products and services for all other sectors of our economy must go up to feed the appetite of the health insurance industry....and sooner or later, those goods and services become non competitive with those produced by others, e.g., Mexicans, Chinese, Koreans, etc. And jobs go overseas to produce those things we need.


Meanwhile, back home, we just continue to complain about it all and keep on paying the higher and higher premiums which have nothing to do with the laws of supply and demand. They have everything to do with .....greed. Republicans who want to protect such a system are either ignorant of how the capitalist system works or are intentionally turning a blind eye to the problem. I choose to think they are ignorant rather than intentionally acquiescing to those who keep their campaign coffers full.


And so, to the health insurance companies, work with your government, get costs under control, because if you don't, to paraphrase the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, "The government will be back." Would you like me to tell you what comes next IF the current version of health care reform doesn't pass? I didn't think so.


Thank you for your attention. You may now return to counting the deposits your health insurance company will make in the bank today.