The "vicious" and devastating attacks on health care reform in 1993 would seem like a dream-come-true today. The enduring symbol of the anti-HillaryCare movement has been the "Harry and Louise" ads of that year, known by people who have never seen the ads but know the names. In 1993, the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) paid to produce a commercial criticizing the Clinton plan as too bureaucratic and urging viewers to call their Members of Congress. The HIAA, now called America's Health Insurance Plans, is a legitimate (and extremely well-funded) interest group. They have a necessary role in any debate about health insurance reform. Their attacks in 1993 were, at least, rooted in some semblance of policy. Harry and Louise - who today are airing ads in support of President Obama's plan - are polite and sweet as pecan pie. That's not true of the attackers in 2009.
Today, the attacks on health care are senseless, baseless, and about as "evil" as Sarah Palin believes health care reform to be. In 2009, there are no major health care lobbying groups against reform that are airing TV commercials urging viewers to call their Representative or Senator. There are ultra-right wing groups, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, former half-term governors of Alaska, and Kool-Aid dispenseries that are getting their followers to threaten their Representative or Senator and scream at him during town hall meetings.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've met a number of these opponents of health insurance reform in person. They actually oppose it, but I'm not convinced that nearly any of these avowed health care opponents really knows why. Sure, they think that President Obama wants to socialize our health care system, that he wants to replace your doctor with the postmaster, and that he wants to set up a special Congressional committee to kill your grandmother, but they don't actually oppose the health insurance reform as proposed. They don't know anything about the health insurance reform as proposed. They just want to oppose something, anything. And that's instinctual and hard to overcome. The health care debate of 1993 was before the disaterous Republican Revolution of 1994. It was before the advent of Fox News. It was before the Lewinsky saga and the fear-based administration of George W. Bush. Now it is assumed that if one party proposes something, the other party will vigorously oppose it, no matter what it is. And that really isn't all that terrible. Let a vigorous debate take place in the public arena and may the best proposal win.
But this isn't a debate, it's a shouting match and a contest of fear tactics. The right-wing is spewing lies, hate and a whole lot of crazy. We can't fight crazy with facts; that has never worked. But we cannot let this fail. It's about more than the harm it would do to the Obama administration. He has health insurance and so does everyone who works for him. But nearly 50 million Americans do not, and we cannot let them down. And as more and more Americans declare bankruptcy because of health costs and as more and more businesses close because of an inability to pay for private health insurance, we can't afford to let our recession worsen as we neglect an industry that is 1/6 of the economy.
This fight is too important to let a bunch of crazy people with 6th grade educations bring it down. They might be controlling town hall meetings in community centers, but we control the United States government, so I like our odds. And we won the election - on a platform of health insurance reform.
