Health Reform- Full Throttle Along Party Lines

There doesn’t seem to be any hope of consensus and bi-partisan compromise on health reform. Both sides have signaled they will not give up or give in on the issues that divide us. Throwing the public option under the bus will only pull in the Blue Dog Democrats- no Republicans. The polarization of our ideologies is growing stronger, and seems to be squeezing the moderates and swing voters completely out of the picture. You can count them on one hand today. Will they turn on their party? Will they cancel each other out? It will be interesting to see where they land in the final days of the tussle to get the Senate bill through.

Why is consensus harder to achieve today? Or has it always been hard-to-impossible, but we hold out the dream that our American system of government is rooted in an ideal of fair play, doing what’s right for the people? Whose people? Your people? My people? Doing what’s right depends on where you sit in the political spectrum. One person’s sin is another’s virtue. Big government-little government, regulate-hands off, spend all the money in the world trying to catch a terrorist- but not a dime to cure a sick neighbor going bankrupt with a terminal illness.

Everyone seems to be caught in the magnetic pull of one side or the other. The more we become a bi-modal distribution of politic thought; it leaves fewer people in the middle to be the peacemakers- the negotiators. We used to have a Congress with a fringe group on the left and right, and a big moderate group in the middle. Now we seem to have a fringe group in the middle and a big group on the left and the right- and growing larger. As the middle gets pulled to one side or the other, the political poles become ever stronger and more rigid to their ideology. Cable news, AM talk radio, and lobbyists keep pouring gas in the fire, forcing politicians to take sides, denigrating those in the middle as “moles” or “turn coats”.

If we all stamp our feet and hold our breath until turn blue on every issue, unless we get our way, what’s to become of the great social experiment we call America? President Obama has said we’ll get health reform that gives us 80% of what we need. The 20% of what we’d like will be collateral damage just to satisfy the Blue Dogs- and the vote appears to be full throttle along party lines. Gone are the days when an 80% solution could be called a good thing. The magnetic pole on the left will feel they’re principles are compromised. The magnetic pole on the right will feel their principles are compromised. Did I repeat myself?