The Political Stakes of Health Care Policy
The Politico has a solid article out today on the political stakes of health care reform. Democrats seek nothing less than a fundamental reorientation of the citizen-state relationship, taking us towards an increasingly expansive role for government, not only in the health care sector, but in the economy as a whole. Americans should be concerned:
The real stakes of health care reform are ideological. They revolve around starkly different bets Democrats and Republicans placed on the success or failure of Barack Obama’s presidency, and the success or failure of a newly expanded role for government in the lives of Americans.
On the left, the bet is that health care reform, even a version most liberals see as flawed, will give the middle class and those clamoring to break into it a greater sense of personal security—enhancing the reputation of and popular support for a dynamic national government.
In this light, health care reform would become a latter-day equivalent of Social Security—a program that quickly evolves into a politically untouchable federal commitment and which fundamentally alters voters’ relationship to Washington in ways that benefit the party of activist government.
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