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Right of Reply
“You lie!”
“This is not, and never will be,
a socialist nation.”
, the first a grossly
inappropriate outburst from a South Carolina
Republican Congressman in response to
President Obama’s address in support of health
care reform and the second a rallying cry from
the website of Freedom Works, a grass roots
conservative group working against reform,
best illustrate the frenzied reaction President
Obama’s proposal to fix America’s broken
healthcare system has engendered.
A number of Obama’s predecessors have
jumped into this political minefield to their
chagrin. Most dramatically, the call from Bill
and Hillary Clinton for reform helped cause the
Democratic Party to lose its hold on both houses
of Congress to a Newt Gingrich-led “Republican
Revolution” in . As such, Obama should be
lauded for spending so much of his own politi-
cal capital, and indeed for risking his party’s
fortunes in the upcoming mid-term congres-
sional elections, on advocating a public health-
insurance option.
But this clearly isn’t enough for Ed Moloney
(“Obama’s First Big Hurdle,” Village, September
), who can only find solace in the knowl-
edge that Ted Kennedy won’t be around to see
“Obama’s healthcare sell-out”. Moloney is abso-
lutely right when he details the myriad of rea-
sons why the American healthcare system is
in such urgent need of reform. It’s too expen-
sive, inefficient and, worst of all, inherently
unjust. However, Moloney’s expectations are
quite unrealistic and his political calculus is ill-
informed.
Unlike Europeans, Americans typically
obtain private health insurance for them-
selves and their immediate families from their
employers. The quality of the insurance plan
and the extent of its coverage are, together with
rate of pay, the central elements of any employ-
ee’s remuneration package. Going by the opin-
ion polls, at least % of Americans are happy
or very happy with their health insurance. And
why wouldn’t they be? These Americans have
first-rate quality care and have probably never
had the experience of waiting lists or other
difficulties they would likely associate with
“European socialised medicine”.
They naturally worry that any change to the
present régime would jeopardise their quality
of care. Given that insured Americans are bet-
ter educated, have more money and vote more
reliably than their uninsured fellow citizens,
there exists an immediate wellspring of oppo-
sition to any healthcare reform initiative. When
this people power is coupled with the extraordi-
nary clout of the insurance, medical and phar-
maceutical lobbies, it’s easy to understand why
previous attempts at reform have failed.
And there’s a more profound truth loom-
ing over the healthcare debate: the United
States remains a conservative country. Many
observers on both sides of the Atlantic, like
Ed Moloney, mistakenly saw the historic elec-
tion of a left of centre, African-American pres-
ident as evidence of a seismic ideological shift
there and expected fast action on Obama’s pro-
gressive vision. The ongoing vitriolic debate
on healthcare, and on other hot button issues,
proves that they were wrong. The reality is that
many Americans voted for Obama because they
were hurting economically and in other ways
and blamed George W Bush for their problems.
All things being equal, they wouldn’t have sup-
ported Obama – either because he is black or
too liberal or both.
Yet hope is definitely not lost on health-
care reform. To his great credit and notwith-
standing Moloney’s premature defeatism and
eager embrace of web-based conspiracy theo-
ries of the administration’s collusion with the
American Medical Association, Obama used his
recent congressional address to reiterate his
belief that a public health insurance option is the
optimum means of ameliorating the plight of the
forty-seven million uninsured Americans. His
opponents won’t back down and the wrangling
has only just begun, but Obama can still get a
meaningful proposal through Congress. While
compromise legislation won’t be everything that
those of us who favour the public option want, it
will be a step in the right direction and leave the
door open for further reforms in future.
Some on the left are advocating an absolutist
position, as Ed Moloney seems to. They will get
nothing if they stick to their guns. Instead, they
will hand Republican congressional candidates
a very big stick to beat incumbent Democrats
with in battleground districts next year.
My betting is that President Obama is all
too aware of this and won’t allow the hard
left to steer his presidency, and our party, off
the cliff.
Larry Donnelly, a Boston attorney and Democrat, is a Law
Lecturer at NUI Galway. He comments frequently on American
politics in the Irish print and broadcast media.
“Moloney’s
expectations are
quite unrealistic
and his political
calculus is ill-
informed”
Centrist Obama wisely seeks
compromise.
l a r r y d o n n e l l y
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
village_oct_09.indd 53 27/10/2009 15:39:18
