Montpelier
Years ago, in ROTC class, the instructor posed this situation: OK, you’ve got a 75-foot flagpole to put up, and all you’ve got to do it with are a sergeant and three men. What’s the best way to do it?
The answer, which none of us greenhorns tumbled to, was quite as simple as it was brilliant: You say, “Sergeant, get that flagpole up. I’m going for coffee.”
This past week, as the day approached for the momentous vote to replace the Affordable Care Act with the so-called American Health Care Act, it became blindingly obvious that this is exactly what President Trump had done to House Speaker Ryan. Uninterested in the grinding work of producing coherent legislation — not for nothing is the process compared to that of making sausage — Donald Trump instead jetted off to his Florida Xanadu while Ryan wrestled simultaneously with the details of the legislation, with his fractious right-wing caucus, and with the prospective vote count. That count, as the hour of calling the roll came near, did not add up to enough to pass the bill. The speaker was forced, like a British prime minister who’s lost his majority, to trek to the boss’ office to deliver the bad news.
The situation has, predictably, devolved into what’s popularly known as a circular firing squad. The president, whose name would have been attached to the program had it been enacted, wants nothing to do with it, and blames Ryan — probably accurately — and the Democrats — inaccurately — for its failure. Ryan blames the members of the Freedom Caucus, who refused to compromise their ideology to vote for it. And almost all the rest of us, their primary employers, are heaving a vast sigh of relief. Pandora’s box had nothing on this legislation.
The Affordable Care Act is not the “absolute disaster, believe me” that the president claims it to be. But it is a bit of a mess — like the proverbial camel created by a committee trying to design a horse. There are too many vested interests incorporated into its details that are obviously the result of vigorous lobbying. The prohibition against the government negotiating lower drug prices (something the Department of Veterans Affairs is permitted to do) directly harms the very people the act is supposed to assist, and it’s no stretch to imagine whom it helps.
The president and even Speaker Ryan (the latter frustrated by the intransigence of the Ayn Rand wing of his party) have hinted their willingness to “work with the Democrats” to craft a bill that they both can support and pass without the help of the right-wing Ebenezers. The Democrats, for their part, are not exactly leaping to let bygones be bygones for seven years of obstruction and star chambers. There’s no way to find a middle ground that works well without the current mandate requiring membership, which is anathema to conservatives. (“Mandate,” come to think of it, is almost an anagram for “anathema.”) What’s left to do? It may be difficult to work on insurance plans with Speaker Ryan, who seemed amazed, two weeks ago, that older people, who need more, and more expensive care, would be sharing the pool with healthier younger folks.
It occurred to me, a couple of days ago, that besides the obvious influence of millions of dollars of corporate and private money being showered upon Washington, the two major obstacles to our getting along are principles and ideology. With that in mind, I asked my companions at coffee time after church on Sunday how they were different. There was a lot of thrashing around, but we finally sort of agreed with Webster’s that principles were things we fundamentally believed, with regard to, for example, capital punishment, abortion, aid to the poor and weaponized drones. Ideology was harder-edged: the policies to which our principles inevitably lead: drug tests for welfare recipients, trickle-down economics and immigration rules. At the end of that discussion, it seemed that the opposing ideologies in our current Congress could never be reconciled.
I once had a student in Outward Bound — a loud, cheerful extrovert from New Jersey whose favorite expression was, “That’s what made America great, and don’t you forget it, pal!” He comes to mind as we face the obvious need for medical insurance that’s at least the equal of that of our Canadian and European friends; it’s been said that we Americans can be counted upon always to do the right thing, after we’ve exhausted every other possibility.
Before I reached the age of 65 in 2000, my wife and I paid $11,000 a year for medical insurance: $8,000 in premiums and $1,500 apiece per year in deductibles. I’d been told that Medicare was a morass and a delusion: a product of socialization, and we all know what an awful thing socialism is. I see that a lot on Facebook from my conservative “friends,” who would have Bernie Sanders wear a Mao cap with a red star, if they could. But I’ve been surprised and delighted at the painless efficiency with which my health care has been covered. I pay a modest amount by deduction from my Social Security check, and another $180 a month for the recommended complementary insurance. I suspect I’m far from alone; the Freedom Caucus and their ilk will find they’ve grabbed a high-voltage wire if they ever try to touch it. It, too, needs minor tweaking in order to remain solvent into the future. Sen. Sanders is all over that one, too.
Applying labels to each other and sniping from opposite sides is a lazy way to govern or think. We all, after all, want pretty much the same things. If the Republicans and President Trump were bold enough to pass Medicare now for all Americans, who would care who got the credit?
Willem Lange can be reached at willem.lange@comcast.net.
