Progressive Hero

I tend to forget how much I admire Bill Moyers. He was interviewed on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight, and I was once again impressed with his dedication to progressive values. He said many things that rang so true but two of his statements were particularly accurate expressions of my own current frustration with President Obama's loss of control of the health care debate.

One of the things that has troubled me the most about Obama's approach to this effort has been the lack of focus on the importance of health care reform to the overwhelming majority of Americans who do have some form of health insurance or other coverage (i.e., Medicare or Medicaid). They are the ones that have to support reform or it will never happen. The 47 million without health care coverage are collectively powerless and will never be able to force a program through to fruition. The others must be convinced that some form of universal health care coverage is a moral imperative for the United States and that failure to control medical costs (including health insurance premiums) will ultimately place their own coverage financially out of reach and in serious jeopardy. Moyers said that "some things, like health care, are not just about money but are instead about values". That is not a message that will resonate for Republicans -- to them everything is in fact about money. But that is the message. It can appeal to Democrats and independents. Health care as a moral right rather than a privilege has been a key plank in the Democratic Party platform for years. Unfortunately, centrist moderate Democrats have become almost as beholden to money interests as Republicans and are drowning out progressives. Somehow, we need to recapture our dedication to a system of values which provides safety nets for the less fortunate and discrimination victims rather than a system of values which provides only bootstraps to pull up on and which do no good to those with no boots to attach those straps to in the first place. After all, it is "safety nets" vs. "boot straps" which has traditionally defined the difference between Democratic progressives and Republican conservatives. We progressives believe in boot straps too but there are always going to be some groups of folks who depend on that safety net for support while they grab onto those boot straps. Most conservatives believe the boot straps alone are enough -- even the ones who themselves relied on that safety net but don't acknowledge its importance for others (Clarence Thomas comes to mind).

Moyers posed the question that perfectly summarizes our collective frustrations. "How did we get so quickly to the point where the conservative movement which was so thoroughly discredited and the Republican party which was so dramatically defeated in the last election are setting and driving the agenda in this country when the majority of the electorate voted for change and elected an exciting young and intelligent president to make that change happen. They even elected large majorities in the Congress so there is no excuse not to do it. He argued, and rightly so, that a half a loaf (i.e., a health care bill without a public insurance option to control costs which probably will not accomplish the promised objectives) is not acceptable.

I agree. I hope Barack and Rahm were watching and listening. They could use a Bill Moyers. Correct that, they could use the Bill Moyers.