BloggeRhythms

Yesterday, Drudge linked an article by Jonathan Martin, national political correspondent for The New York Times. Titled, “Democrats Confront Vexing Politics Over the Health Care Law,” the piece discusses reasons for the law’s continued unpopularity.

 

The item’s interesting because it clearly points out in a well-written newspaper column several huge issues underlying not only the law itself, but beyond that, what the entire political system’s become.

 

The first key point’s a quote from Stanley B. Greenberg, a Democratic pollster: “It was sold as small, minor change because of the need to pass it through Congress and assure the vast majority of people that it wouldn’t disturb their existing health insurance. But why defend it, why mobilize behind it if it’s just small change?"

 

Consequently, as is quite well known by now, the founding premise was a flat out lie by the incumbent from the very beginning. Otherwise, as he knew clearly then, the law never would have passed to start with.

 

Farther on came a comment from David Axelrod, presidential backer and political hack who said, “I think it is viewed more as a social welfare program than a social insurance program, but that’s not right because it is social insurance.”

 

However, the program isn’t social “insurance” at all, as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s a tax.  Which is why, as Mr. Martin points out, “That contrasts sharply with Medicare and Social Security, which remain popular because almost everyone who benefits paid something into the system. “That was done because it sat better with the American cultural idea of self-reliance,” said David M. Kennedy, a Stanford University historian.

 

And that leads up to what’s been done, especially by this administration, to change the perception of government by most citizens. Because, writes Mr. Martin, “But when Medicare was passed in 1965, Americans had more faith in the federal government. Just 2 percent of those surveyed in a recent Quinnipiac Poll said they trusted Washington to do what is right almost all the time."

 

“In the ’60s, we felt like we could do anything,” recalled Joseph A. Califano Jr., a top domestic aide to Johnson. “We could feed the hungry, cure disease and clean the air. Now there’s just a lot more skepticism.”

 

However, today, “Conservatives say that skepticism is well founded. “Systems that would have worked 30 years ago don’t work now,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker. “Outside the military and air traffic control, tell me a large bureaucracy that functions. It’s not that the country has changed. It’s that the country’s experience with systems has changed.”

 

Which brings me to the same place I’ve been typing about daily for the last four years. And in that regard, Newt Gingrich, has done me a great service I truly appreciate. Because most often I list all the things the administration’s done miserably, which takes hundreds and hundreds of keystrokes. But, doing it Newt’s way, listing what’s been done correctly and well, takes almost no keystrokes at all.

 

That’s it for today folks.

 

Adios