In the current health care debate, Democratic Members of Congress representing swing districts have often (though not always) been among the most cautious when it comes to supporting President Obama's proposals for health care reform.
In many ways that is understandable. They often come from districts that are more conservative than those of their colleagues. They have the least margin for error if they cast a vote that causes swing voters to shift their electoral allegiance. They are the targets of ad campaigns from groups trying to influence their votes. They hear the most from conservative advocacy organizations and interest groups.
But in fact, history shows that these swing district Democrats have the most to lose if Congress fails to pass President Obama's sweeping health care proposal -- and for that matter the other major components of his economic agenda.
The reason is simple: Obama's success in passing his agenda will have an enormous impact on his approval rating with the American people - and the approval rating of Congressional Democrats as well. When Swing District Democrats face the voters next year, those two factors will have a massive effect on whether they return to Congress.
History demonstrates that just as a rising tide lifts all boats, the boats left grounded when the tide goes out are the ones in the shallowest electoral water.
In elections, people do indeed vote for the personal qualities of the candidate. But every election campaign begins where people are -- with a particular mix of predispositions toward one party or another that is impacted by how they think the respective parties are doing standing up for the things they care about.
In America today, Barack Obama is the symbolic embodiment of the Democratic Party for most Americans. His success at passing health care reform, energy legislation, bank re-regulation and achieving an economic recovery will have a big impact on how they think Democrats are doing -- whether they start out with an inclination to vote Democratic, or to take another bet on the Republicans.
In the first four years of his Presidency, Bill Clinton never had job approval ratings comparable to Barack Obama's. But in early 1994 he had a positive rating of 48% and a negative of only 39% -- a net positive of 9% in the CBS-New York Times poll. By the time Senate Majority leader George Mitchell declared Clinton's health care reform proposal dead in September 1994, he had slipped to 42 positive and 49 negative -- minus 7% net negative. He had suffered a 16% swing in the polls. By mid-term Election Day in 1994 he still had a net negative of 5% (43% positive, 48% negative).
Congressional approval ratings followed the same negative path, falling almost 10% during 1994 to just above 20% right before the cataclysmic 1994 election when Newt Gingrich's Republican majority took power for the first time in 40 years.
The Republican special-interest attack on the Clinton health care reform plan certainly had an effect on these numbers. But just as important was the failure of the President and Congress to pass his program. People support winners. Obama's campaign exploded when he won Iowa -- had he come in second that wouldn't have happened.
Everything we know about psychology tells us that we like people when they win, we don't like them as much when they lose. We are more likely to follow them when they win. We're more likely to think they know what they're doing when they win.
What's more, if they lose a legislative battle, we are more likely to believe that the proposal they were promoting was a loser too -- a bad idea, a dog.
That goes for the voters in swing districts like anywhere else. A President, a Congress, a Democratic party that wins, that successfully makes change to improve people's lives, is simply more likely to get voter support than one that fails to make change, fails to deliver the goods, or looks disorganized and powerless -- and promotes policies that "lose."
In addition, losing demoralizes the hard core. They are less likely to work hard, and to turn out to vote.
That is exactly what happened in the 1994 elections. Democrats lost 54 seats. Of those, 36 were incumbents. It wasn't the members from strong Democratic districts, who had fought hard for health care reform, who lost. It was mainly members from swing districts, rural districts and southern districts.
The Clinton health care bill never came to a vote in the House, but only 11 of the 36 incumbents who lost had co-sponsored the bill. Many of the 23 others had opposed the Clinton health care plan. Didn't matter; they were the biggest political victims of the failure of health care reform.
Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) was one of the leaders of the opposition. He left the House to run for the Senate in 1994 and lost.
And it wasn't just that swing voters lost faith in Democrats. Base Democratic voters failed to turn out. Republican base voters -- smelling Democratic blood -- turned out in record numbers.
Of course none of this should come as a surprise. Look at our recent political history. The principal political victims of the disastrous Bush legacy were not mainly hard right Republicans from strong Republican districts. They were often Republican "moderates" like Connecticut's Christopher Shays. That's why New England no longer has any Republican Members of the House. That's why the Republican Caucus in the House is now mainly composed of members from highly Republican districts and the South.
So the next time a Member of Congress tells you that he'd love to vote for the President's health care reform package but he represents a tough swing district, remind him about all the ex-members of Congress who said the same thing in 1994 and were retired by the voters to resume their careers selling insurance or practicing law.
They are much better off taking the political risk of helping a Democratic President be successful in passing health care reform than they are taking the political risk of opposing a Democratic President who then fails to pass health care reform.
The odds are very good that if they choose the latter course, it will be their political bodies on the gurneys being rolled into the political emergency room.
Robert Creamer is a longtime political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com.
Contact these members of Congress and urge them to support the public plan option! These are the Democrats holding us back from the best health care plan possible.
Key people to contact - view the entire list of the 56 Blue Dog Democrats here!
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Administration
Rep. Baron Hill (IN-09), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy
Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA-03), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications
Rep. Heath Shuler (NC-11), Blue Dog Whip
Rep. Mike Ross (AR-04)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The List of Democratic Senators not directly supporting the public plan health care option
Call and email them, telling them to support President Obama's public plan option!
You create a government program (like Medicare, or even expand on Medicare) to pay for your healthcare, if you choose to participate and fund it with tax dollars. And, if you choose not to participate, you can pay huge premiums for your own "private Insurance" policy, (and pay your taxes to pay for those who choose to participate), to get the same health care as those who do participate.
But I'm afraid that so many will drop their "private Insurance" policy, that suddenly it will drive the insurances out of business. After all the money we used to bail out AIG, that would be a waste, and our government will never let that happen, oh wait, I almost forgot about Chrysler and General Motors.
So a $200 aspirin still cost $200, but it just comes out of a different pocket, so we really havn't reformed "Health Care", we merely reformed "Health Care Financing".
Oh bother, guess I really don't understand after all.
Then you have those who have inherated their money, not to say that is wrong but are they really due any special consideration.
There is a feeling in this Country by some that they think they deserve more because they are worth more and those born under different circumstances are somehow lazy if they haven't been able to attain the same wealth. Well people are just wrong who think that and if those who expect the most because they have the most don't want to pay the most then I suggest that they move somewhere where they will be treated better.
Their COMPENSATION LAWYERS are smarter and more wily
than some other executive's and were able to
GET that salary agreement FOR the executive that hired them.
People FORGET that these executives have compensation agents who
work for them. THAT'S WHO has been hiking up the salaries via
aggressive negotiation.
HEARD THAT BLUE DOGS ET AL!. You may very well be on your way to your last "ruff ruff", Just you keep up your me over my party attitude.
The arrogance and self-importance of those who simply do not care about their fellow human beings will be the collapse of this country.
I work for a small privately owned home health service that employs Registered Nurses. We are not able to care for patients that have Medicaid, DHSH/Molina, Tricare (military) etc., because our company is not contracted with them. (We ARE contracted with most major insurance companies). These Medicaid, etc. patients must be admitted to the hospital (costing about $1000. per day) rather than have our nurses provide this service for about a QUARTER OF THE COST. Our patients are newborn babies and families love our service because they can stay home during the average 2 to 5+ days of treatment. The alternative is inconvenient trips back and forth to the hospital, plus the emotional stress of these families being separated from their newborns. In addition, we are the ONLY company in our region that provides this unique service.
In order for us to obtain Medicaid certification, plus hire a consultant to help with the mounds of paperwork and government "hoops"; it would cost close to $25,000. per each county we serve. And we serve three counties... so $75,000.!!! This is absolutely not an affordable option!
It is SO FRUSTRATING having to refuse these patients and especially military families that would SO benefit from our care.
This is a prime example of how poorly the government works and how much more COSTLY health care would be once the government gets involved.
No to Obamacare!!!
As for your situation, did money exchange hands between your agency and the private insurers? I would interested in hearing your answer.
As with the current debate, the private insurance industry blames the government for everything that goes wrong in healthcare, and refuse to be accountable.
My prediction is that the 2010 elections will be characterized by a backlash against the party that passes bills before they are written, much less read, citing useless polling data on general sentiments as a basis to justify a horrific pile of words that become law in the most un-democratic (small "d") process ever seen.
The "We pay for your health care, therefore we can rule your lives" mentality is inconsistent with any idea of freedom. The answer is LESS welfare-based health care.
Love
Bette
Why should the half that exercises, spends money on gym memberships and health food have to pay for the other half who watch 10 hours of TV everyday and stuff their face with unhealthy food with no self control whatsoever? If you call that fair - then you're a blind supporter of the Democrat party and everything you say should be questioned and scrutinized for motive.
When you have a child who is 42 years and still living his parents. Has no job, no money and gets an $1k per week allowance from his parents and pays no rent or utilities. What reason does he have to EVER go and do something with his life? Who's fault is it that he is not challenged with LIFE?? His parents enable him. I see it every day. Same with the Government - only now the child is DEMANDING his allowance and this is called ENTITLEMENT. And he's not demanding it from only his parents, but the neighbors as well and everybody else in the country.
Right now with all the issues facing America and the new American president; America still remains the most powerful nation on earth. America still has the world's most productive workers.
Why then is the question not: how could such a great nation not insist on the provision and access to quality health care for each and every one of her citizens?
Healthy workers are the engines of wealth creation - why is making this possible such a conflict driven issue?
Please take a look at how many nations with much less than half of America's wealth, resources and position in the world still manage to provide access to quality health care to their citizens.
Should there still be an American debate against universal access to health care, or should a strident and committed walk towards universal health care for all Americans be taken and achieved ASAP?
Americans are known worldwide for your generosity, is it not time to turn this generosity inwards to the provision of access to quality health care for all Americans?
It does/doesn’t matter if all AMERICANS have to pay to make universal health care for all AMERICANS possible.
Either way it would be a worthy purchase because you would be making a generous contribution to the preservation of good health for all AMERICANS.
Talk about exploiting the working man.....
Love
Bette
This plan is not "socialist" any more than the most office, the military, education etc. are. Every country in the entire world recognizes the need for some government run programs because some needs of citizens do not lend themselves well to free market private enterprise.
Lets just take the military for example. If we had a private "free market" military it would be forced to act on economic not strategic objectives. That could well mean eliminating entire cities where insurgency is taking place (much cheaper than trying to discern who is and who is not the enemy, just blast the lot of them!)
In the same way health care as a "for profit" industry does not work. I am lucky enough to have experienced several health care systems other than the current USA one. They have their strengths and weaknesses but the overriding principle is that health care is a right and not "for profit". They ALL work better than in the USA.
The insurance companies using a market principle of maximizing profits as the only objective, cherry pick only healthy people, charge outrageous premiums or flat out deny coverage to anybody with a "pre-existing condition" (code word for not 100% healthy!). They also determine - against doctor's wishes - which treatments they support and which they do not.
It is the insurance companies that are exploiting the working man ...
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” Quote Benito Mussolini.
The free market is the answer however it will not work as long as we allow our government to be bought and paid for servents of the power elite.
So expecting any type of sollution from our fascist government is nieve at best.
Peace!
What I would like to see is real reform and regulation of Wall St. before we rush into all these other areas that seem to be set up to be gamed by the same folks that got us into this financial mess. They are never ask to pay more. They are never really ask to pay off what they owe without bailouts. We are just told our 401k funds evaporated. I just don't buy that someone didn't end up with that money.
Our ivory-towered democrat public relations and communications experts do not get the impending failure which will be as a direct result of their seeming lack of ability to communicate, in simple terms, the essential facts, figures, and processes which citizen supporters and sympathizers require.
The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself - FDR
Yes!
Love
Bette