http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100517/newman_attewellLearning to Love the Healthcare Bill
By Katherine S. Newman & Steven Attewell
This article appeared in the May 17, 2010 edition of The Nation.
April 29, 2010
snip//
Once American families begin to depend on the safety net--whether for retirement, higher education or healthcare--the popularity of these provisions becomes very hard to diminish, even by those committed to unraveling them. This is, no doubt, why opponents of healthcare reform are so eager to snarl it up in the courts or rally the base for repeal. They too are students of history. They know that if American families start to rely on these new forms of health insurance, to factor them into their household ledgers, the reforms will become entrenched to the point of no return.snip//
As historians like Jason Scott Smith have noted, programs like the Works Progress Administration were often embraced by people who were otherwise hostile to government expenditures. Many moderate and conservative voters adopted the reverse NIMBY view that other New Deal projects might be wasteful boondoggles but the WPA project in their district was indispensable.
We can see the modern echo of this attitude in conservative Republicans who voted against the stimulus bill as a spending orgy but were happy to hand out giant cardboard checks in their home districts for projects financed from stimulus funds.Similar objections to social programs were raised during the Johnson years. Medicare was probably the most important innovation of the Great Society, but when Johnson worked overtime to pass the original legislation, public support for the idea waffled. In 1962, 70 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of Republicans surveyed in the National Election Studies thought that "government ought to help people get doctors and hospital care at low cost." By 1964, when a historic Medicare proposal passed in the Senate, Democratic support had declined to 60 percent and Republicans weighed in with 29 percent. The same survey asked respondents if they preferred providing health insurance for the elderly by allowing them to buy private plans or if they thought government should finance a program through Social Security. In 1962, 55 percent supported the idea of government-financed health plans; by 1965, that number had dropped to 46 percent. Eventually, however, as people began to rely on the program's benefits, support began to build. Today, Medicare garners strong and steady backing from the public. Indeed, it is a "third rail" that politicians approach at their peril. Obama's Republican opponents vowed to prevent even a single dollar in cuts to Medicare, and tea party protesters shouted, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"
For some time to come we can expect the firestorm of opposition to healthcare reform that is unfolding today to persist, even from people who stand to benefit from the provisions of the new law. The rose-colored glasses through which we sometimes view the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society often obscure how contentious the debates were or how long they continued after the passage of key legislation.
We should not be deterred by the noise coming out of the tea party. The weight of history is against them.
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