Democratic exultation at the passage of the Senate version of President Obama’s health plan sounded a bit hollow.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the bill passed Sunday night the “reform the American people want.”
Like the president, she assumes that the only reason people reject liberal policies is because fear and ignorance produce bitter resistance to change. What Pelosi meant was: “This is the reform that Americans would want if only they knew better.”
Obama and Pelosi believe that when Americans are properly educated as to the genius of their plan, massive resistance will turn into quiet acceptance and, eventually, gratitude.
Maybe. Or maybe Americans will come to hold Washington in even greater contempt.
After watching the president force through an unaffordable, unpopular plan that benefits the few at the great expense of the many, burned-out members of the country’s productive class will make a silent vow to themselves: “I’ll never vote Democrat again.” And many will keep that promise.
Obama and Pelosi sounded like the parents of a girl being forced into an arranged marriage: Americans may hate Obamacare now, they’ll learn to love it later.
What else could you say to win over someone like Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota, who’s suddenly facing a tough election? Well, in Pomeroy’s case, you could also say: “We’ll exempt your state bank from new student lending rules.”
But even with sweeteners, the president still needed to argue that passing his bill wasn’t a total suicide mission. And it’s not as if Obama had a resistant audience in Democrats. This is something the party has sought for 75 years.
The plan creates two new entitlement programs — one for long-term care and another for health insurance subsidies. By 2019, the Congressional Budget Office expects the government to spend $216 billion a year on the new entitlements.
Forecasts from economists not obliged to accept the laughable promises of Congress about future spending cuts say the plan will add $562 billion to the national debt in the first decade alone, even after imposing $497 billion in new taxes.
But there’s still another reason for liberals to whoop it up. By declaring victory so loudly, Democrats hope to portray the long battle ahead as Republican sour grapes.
House Democrats want their Senate counterparts to immediately ratify the House-written changes to the underlying health bill. But if the Senate makes any change to the House counterproposal, Democrats would have to again pass the plan through the House, where more changes could be made.
If it’s too hard or gets too close to November, senators may just stiff House Democrats and let their own bill stand.
As the Senate is grinding out this last leg of the health care marathon, the legal battles in the states will already have begun.
The most constitutionally dubious part of the legislation is the mandate that all individuals must purchase private insurance or pay a fine. While the plan provides free insurance for the poor, it depends on the working poor and the middle class being forced to buy private insurance, with fines for families earning as little as $19,000.
The Constitution gives the government the power to take your money, but not the power to force you to give it to Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Many states, already including Virginia, Idaho, South Carolina, Texas and Florida, are ready to file suit as soon as one of their citizens is compelled to purchase insurance. The Obama Justice Department may end up facing 38 state attorneys general in the battle over whether or not Americans can be forced into the system.
And given the originalist bent of the Roberts Supreme Court, justices might knock down the individual mandate, and Obamacare along with it. That battle will be taking place just as congressional Democrats are facing voters.
An administration at war with its own citizens and a Democratic majority trying to hide from its only significant accomplishment — that’s a recipe for electoral disaster.
Before he was president, Obama argued that you couldn’t govern the country on a 51 percent basis, a slap at the narrow majorities in the Bush years. Obama lost his knack for centrism in a tidal wave of presidential hubris, but his point was still on target.
If governing a 51 percent country was hard for George W. Bush, just wait until Obama tries doing it with less.
Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected]
