Senate Republicans want to vote yet another time to repeal and/or replace Obamacare.
There is a reason they are having so much trouble. The debate is not about Obamacare or healthcare.
It’s about returning healthcare to the forces of an unregulated, government free marketplace. It’s a fight they have been waging since the election of Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) as President in 1932.
Before FDR the American economy was controlled by money barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefellers, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and their industrial conglomerates.
Most of the country was poor. There was no middle class. We were a nation of two economic classes – rich and poor.
And then it all came crashing down in 1929 and the country fell into the Great Depression.
The Republican response under President Herbert Hoover and a Republican Congress was to do nothing. Nothing.
The market would recover, they said. The county just has to wait. Meanwhile millions of Americans stood in bread lines and moved from town to town looking for work.
By 1932 the country had had enough and elected FDR based on his pledge to give the American people a “New Deal.”
That “New Deal” was a practical way to seek economic justice. FDR, a wealthy man himself, believed it was morally wrong to let most Americans suffer while the wealthy waited for the market to start making them rich again.
During his first term Congress enacted programs such as Social Security, Food Stamps, the FDIC that gave people confidence their money would be protected if they put it in the bank again, the Civilian Conservation Core that put thousands to work, and the Federal Housing Authority that stabilized the home mortgage market by establishing a home financing system through insured mortgage loans.
Republicans hated FDR for his success and he knew it.
In a speech delivered at Madison Square Garden a few days before he was reelected to his second term he declared: “Never before in all our history have…forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me.”
And then he thundered, “I welcome their hatred.”
All these years later Republican hatred for “big” government has not diminished.
If anything, it has become more rabid, in part because Lyndon Johnson expanded the social network FDR started with Medicare and Medicaid, all of which worked together to create the Middle Class.
And that is what the debate in the Senate this week is about. Obamacare is just the latest flashpoint in the Republican drive to undo “New Deal” social programs Roosevelt and Johnson put in place.
We’ve been here before when it comes to people’s health. Before Obamacare the market was under the control of the insurance industry that set all the rules and prices.
The result was thousands of Americans having to file bankruptcy because of medical bills they could not pay, and 45,000 Americans dying each year because of the lack of affordable medical treatment (facts, not an opinions).
That is how we know the argument that a market based healthcare system is better than one run by the government is a lie. It wasn’t in the past. It won’t be in the future.
What is more, the most efficient and effective healthcare we have in this country is Medicare, also a fact, not an opinion.
But facts don’t matter to Republicans. They make themselves believe whatever they have to in order to avoid the truth.
People like me believe that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people must have a marketplace that functions the same way, especially when it comes to life and death as healthcare does.
Republicans don’t. They believe government should stay out of the market whatever the consequences.
We’ve seen what those consequences can be, which is why if Republicans do come up with enough votes to replace Obamacare, we can be sure its bad news for millions of Americans will be matched by its good news for the for-profit insurance industry.
And that is what this debate is really all about.
linnposts.com 
The enormous wealth of the Gilded Age barons did give some of them a degree of social responsibility. Morgan personally bankrolled the nation twice. Carnegie eventually gave away all his wealth, established (or at least supported) the public free library system. Rockefeller made huge contributions to the art world. And so forth.
This is not to say that this was the best way to act – they all wanted to maintain their ability to choose what person or cause was “worthy” of their beneficence. Rather, it is to say that there was at least a dawning of the notion that those who got needed to give back.
On another point, I can’t recall how many booms and busts there were from the end of the Civil War to the Great Depression, but there were a bunch. And the trend was that the booms were higher and the busts lower and longer. I suspect that, had Morgan been around in 1932, I would imagine that he would actually have been relieved that he didn’t have to bail out the US a third time.
Jan,
You have done a fine job of focusing on the real reason for the debate, using fact-based historical perspective to frame it all.
One dilemma today is that so many previously moderate, compassionate Republicans have migrated to the far-right, induced by the fear and hate and selfishness spewed by demagogues of wealth and privilege — most notably, the angry, feckless fool in the White House!
Thank you for reminding us again what our true values must be! Bill B.
The lack of empathy exhibited by the Republicans is what is astounding to me. And beyond that, their supporters are too blind to see it – or they are just cruel. We need a middle class uprising… a peaceful revolution! (if we could just replace the expansive apathy with a sense of urgency, we could save the American Dream. Unfortunately there are too many uninformed voters… or delusional voters).
Rollie, I share your astonishment. Jesus never spoke truer words when he lamented people who have ears, but do not hear, and eyes, but not see.
Too many people don’t know or understand history, I hope this reaches a few of them.
We can only hope it does, Liza.
Another on-point observation, Jan. And I echo RollieB’s call for a middle class uprising. I believe we’ll see it in our lifetimes and I wouldn’t be surprised if it starts with a low-key event, maybe in healthcare or the financial world. However, I *would be* surprised if it’s entirely peaceful…
Dirk, at this point with Donald Trump as president, I believe anything is possible, especially things I once believed could not happen. I think the bet “uprising” is to use the power of the vote better than people do, but that may not be enough the way things are going.
Preach on brother, even when it feels like nothing more than a feeble candle blowing in the breeze – still – the darkness has not – and won’t – overcome it.
if we could just get FIX (Fake) News to run linnposts.com as part of their coverage the whole country would be healthier!
David, you are more than generous in your assessment of what I write, but it always helps me to know good minds and hearts like yours hold views I share that mean we stand together at this time in our nation’s history. Justice needs that to have any chance. Thanks for commenting.
I appreciate the historical perspective, Jan. If going backward 75 years as this administration is doing doesn’t wake up the apathetic voter I don’t know what will. Almost too discouraged to hope but have to find something to hang on to.
Wilbur, the hope I have is that 2018 is going to change the Washington landscape. If it doesn’t, there may not be any.
I think it goes back further. I love what you’ve lifted up here. FDR is my favorite president!
I’ve finally picked up the Hamilton soundtrack and was struck. The argument that founded our nation has never ended. Hamilton is a federalist (centralized government) who argues over Jefferson and Madison who are anti-federalists (states rights). That was never solved. We’re still dealing with this tension. Now it’s gotten ugly.
Luke, you are exactly right. A few years ago I read the Federalists Papers and the argument Hamilton, Jay, and others made sounded much like what we hear today between conservatives and liberals. Distrust of a centralized government runs deep in the American psyche. But it was FDR’s administration that confirmed the suspicions conservatives had of “big” government, ignoring as they always do the power of “big” money and “big” corporations to control the market they fantasize about being “free.” Thanks for the comment.
Interesting paper if you want to know more about the history of employer based and group health insurance in the US http://www.nber.org/papers/w14839.pdf?new_window=1