Left swallows defeats to pave way for victory

Deciding whom to tax, hiding the fact that they are pushing the national debt past 100 percent of our gross domestic product, and trying to wiggle out of the political blame for Medicare cuts should keep the majority party busy through much of the fall.

An already long battle for liberals is only just beginning as the Congressional Budget Office keeps dumping boiling oil on the advancing forces of do-gooderism.

The idea that giving away health care saves money is so laughable that the phrase “bend the cost curve” may become the “mission accomplished” of the Obama administration.

The Left is already swallowing a series of small, painful defeats. Covering 47 million uninsured, regardless of where they were born? A special health tax for the rich? “Reproductive health” funding? A public option? All gone.

The country is bankrupt and still borrowing — $442 billion since July 1 — so Democrats are obliged to at least look worried. That means a health plan that appears more frugal and puts off hard choices for another day.

But the Left will take what it can get because Obama is still its man even though he is escalating the war in Afghanistan and lets lobbyists write his legislation.

With modern-day Edmund Ruffin calling the president a liar and the tea parties getting hotter, liberals will feel obliged to defend the man they made president after a half-term in the Senate.

On “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Obama said “I own” health care as an issue and “I’m the one who’s going to be held responsible.” For liberals who believe in identity politics and who once swooned for Obama, the president’s personal success will still be allowed to take priority over their agenda.

Another reason liberals will accept the final compromise that limps out of the House-Senate conference committee is that it will eventually give them what they want.

The most ambitious package that could get 60 votes in the Senate would be a federal requirement that all Americans buy insurance, with subsidies for those who can’t afford it.

All the political lines intersect at a subsidized individual mandate — the same kind of plan Obama once attacked Hillary Clinton for proposing.

Insurance companies are giddy at the thought. They get some of those borrowed billions sloshing around Washington through subsidies, and 10 million or so Americans who have money for coverage but choose not to buy it will be made compulsory customers.

In exchange, the industry will have to submit only to the regulations they proposed: coverage of pre-existing conditions and some other elements of a customers’ bill of rights.

It’s OK with liberals if “insurance reform” actually benefits insurance companies because a universal coverage mandate is the path to a government-run system.

The plan in the Senate Finance Committee calls for making a stripped-down version of Medicaid available to folks who would be hit hard by mandates, like young adults and new, legal immigrants who gamble on their health in hopes of stretching their paltry salaries.

And those are just the kinds of folks often employed by businesses too small to afford insurance or be covered by new rules designed to prevent employers from dumping workers onto the taxpayers.

Under a mandate, what would begin as a safety net would become the starting point for millions of Americans. When that system becomes an overburdened mess, we would see another round of reforms aimed at improving the risk pool by … creating a public option.

Liberals would rather stride proudly into the socialist future, but they will agree to slouch into it.

But what about moderates?

Blue Dog Democrats will like the mandate because it doesn’t have a public option, requires responsible behavior and spreads out the fiscal burden. Blue Dogs can happily fight for stingier subsidies and meaner benefits and feel as if they are fulfilling their mission.

There are plenty of moderate Republicans who would go for a mandate too. It’s what the leading contender for the 2012 GOP nomination developed as governor of Massachusetts. And even if it has been a crushing failure there, the compulsory nature appeals to the authoritarian, technocratic minority in the party — the old Nixon wing.

If “insurance reform” means more regulations and a mandate, Olympia Snowe could be just the beginning of Republican support in the Senate.

Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].