Financial Times Editorial Comment: US healthcare reform falls ill

Financial Times Editorial Comment: US healthcare reform falls ill
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: January 24 2010 19:49 | Last updated: January 24 2010 19:49
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f666ffda-091f-11df-ba88-00144feabdc0.html


Last week’s loss in Massachusetts has stunned the Democratic party and caused panic. One likely consequence is that healthcare reform – Barack Obama’s signature initiative – will go down to defeat. This is a reform that the US badly needs, and which is decades overdue. Must the effort be abandoned?

Democrats could press on if they chose. The loss of their super-majority in the Senate is not decisive. The party still controls the House of Representatives. If the House simply passed the bill which the Senate has already approved, the measure could go directly to the president’s desk.

But many Democrats in the House do not like the Senate bill. Liberals find it too timid. Moderates in swing districts, worried about November’s midterm elections, find it too radical, and fear it will lose them votes. The party is not being forced by parliamentary arithmetic to abandon this measure; out of lack of conviction, it is choosing to surrender.

The Democrats are looking at other options. As they know, these are likely to yield little or nothing of meaningful reform. This project has an all-or-nothing aspect. You cannot insist on guaranteed availability of insurance coverage, for example, without an individual mandate to buy insurance: this would cause premiums to soar. Then, in turn, the mandate requires subsidies. Once you start to cherry-pick the Senate bill, it will unravel. The president and his party seem ready to let this happen.

Of course, the Democrats must show they are listening to voters. It would be wrong to pretend that the Massachusetts result had not happened. But popular opposition to healthcare reform is easy to misinterpret.

Though they ended up with a decent proposal, Mr Obama and his Democratic allies made a remarkable hash of getting there. The process was gruesome and the marketing was non-existent. Voters have reason to be confused and fearful, and this is driving the polls. But there is no solid opposition to change. Mr Obama, after all, was elected on the promise of comprehensive healthcare reform.

Sadly, it now looks too late for the president to exercise the leadership that was missing this past year – in guiding the effort, in uniting his own party around a plan, and above all in assuring the public that it all made sense. Despite everything, Mr Obama came close to his goal, but close will not do. This defeat, if it happens, will be a momentous failure and a bitter disappointment.