So Much For Health Care Reform

At this point, I think I can officially announce that health care reform in the United States is again dead. It will not happen; millions will continue to lack coverage, with millions more under-covered, and the costs to our nation will keep escalating. And the fault belongs entirely to the majority Democratic Party.

Let's start with President Obama, for it was he who, out of hand, rejected the notion of a single-payer system, thus immediately shifting the debate rightward and eliminating as a possibility the surest method to expand coverage, control costs and improve outcomes.

Mister Obama, as President, has given up thinking big for some hope of bipartisanship. But the Republicans have no interest in being bipartisan; they wish only to muddy the waters and score inside-the-beltway political points. So why give up policy for a pipe dream? And isn't making good policy really what politics is all about?

And then there are the conservative Democrats, the Blue Dogs. Whether you consider it fortunate or unfortunate, as the G.O.P. has devolved into a party at the margins of political thought, the Democratic Party has become the refuge of serious politicians, be they liberal, moderate or conservative. At this point, the debate within the party has come to matter far more than the debate between parties.

And the Blue Dogs are very concerned about the cost of health care reform. What they fail to deal with, though, is the cost of failing to enact serious change. At this point health care eats up over 17% of GDP -- that's more than $2.7 trillion -- and those costs are going to continue rising exponentially if we do nothing. We already pay the costs of health care, and will continue to do so; it is just a matter of how, and how intelligently, we decide to do so.

Also telling is the amount of money that is flowing into our lawmaking process from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and the results that it buys. That political finance in the U.S. is nothing more than a system of legalized bribery can no longer be reasonably argued -- but this is an issue that neither party seems particularly interested in addressing (I guess that is where you can find true bipartisanship in Washington).

This mess, caused by the corruption that is Washington, D.C., means that our elected representatives will essentially do nothing to meaningfully change our current broken system, even if a bill somehow makes it through the process. What I fear is that we will end up with an individual mandate for insurance while failing to control costs or improve care -- in other words, a massive giveaway to insurance and drug providers at public expense.

And if it happens, the fault will lay directly at the feet of the Democrats.

And This Is Why I Can't Be A Democrat

Over the last week or so, details have begun to emerge concerning the knowledge that Congressional Democratic leadership -- and particularly Nancy Pelosi -- had about America's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (read: torture) in the period immediately following September 11, 2001.

Sadly, after much dissembling and backtracking by the Speaker, it has become apparent that, at the very least (and despite her knowledge), she failed to raise any meaningful objections to these techniques until it became politically expedient for her to do so. Or, as 2004 candidate John Kerry might have said, Pelosi was "for torture before she was against it."

This is exactly why I can never be a member of the Democratic Party, why I could not bring myself to vote for John Kerry, nor for Al Gore before him, nor for Bill Clinton before him. Too often, too many Democrats (even on occasions when their inclinations may be correct) tend to take the path of least political resistance and ignore their principles. Or what should be their principles, were they not almost as corrupted by power and special interests as are their Republican rivals.

And what I find almost as disturbing is the willingness of many on the left to act as mere shills, to be apologists for the dereliction of duty practiced by Pelosi and her ilk. If she failed in her responsibilities to America, then let her face the consequences. She -- and all Democrats -- must be made to understand that enduring American ideals matter far more than the latest opinion poll, far more than the fleeting popularity of a Republican administration, far more than the next electoral cycle.

And, if they cannot understand this, then they do not deserve to maintain their current positions of power.

*****

That said, let us take a look at a point of emphasis about which the Left is currently obsessing: torture investigations and prosecutions. To me, there could be no worse idea. The President is correct; there is little of value that can come from such an endeavor.

Yes, I recognize that the Bush Administration lost sight of the ideals that make our nation extraordinary, and, yes, they may have violated both U.S. law and our international treaty obligations. But, I beg you, let us look back to the days after 9/11, to the desperate fear that gripped much of the country. Another attack was inevitable, went the conventional wisdom -- and soon. (And, many feared, in their own backyards. You narcissists know who you are.)

Was the Bush Administration torture policy morally right? No, I do not believe so. But was it borne of a sadistic desire to break the law -- or of a fervent inclination to protect America from further catastrophe? I must conclude that it was the latter.

We must learn from the pseudo-legal darkness into which we, as a nation, willingly descended. But to further descend into a spiral of retribution and bitterness could serve no good of which I can conceive.