Obamacare: It Is 1936 All Over Again

I was listening to a recent* exchange on the problems surrounding the rollout of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) web site between two politicians, Democrat Jane Doe who supports the program and Republican John Doe, who opposes it.**

The exchange was moderated by Upton Something (I didn’t catch his last name) on the left and Freddy Something (Sorry, didn’t catch his last name either) on the right.***

The following are a few somewhat paraphrased — I could not clearly hear every word of the exchange on my scratchy radio — and abbreviated excerpts of comments made both by the commentators and by the two politicians.

Upton Something on the left: After many months of planning, President Obama’s breakthrough Affordable Car Act designed to provide all Americans with affordable health care insurance began taking applications on the new ACA web site. Freddy, I think it’s a milestone for a civilized nation. After all, many countries already have systems of government supported health care insurance on the books. Can’t you concede that morality, not to mention the survival instincts of the ruling class, requires a decent society to offer such a program to provide decent health care to all Americans?

Freddy Something on the right: Spoken like a communist out to weigh the economy down, Up. Don’t you lefties see that your taxing and spending will put us on the road to serfdom?

Upton: Catchy phrase, Fred — might want to hold onto that for a book at some point. Let’s bring in our guests. Mr. Doe, here’s what you said about the Affordable Care Act during the House debate over the legislation: “The lash of the dictator will be felt, and 25 million free American citizens will for the first time submit themselves to a fingerprint test.”

One of your Senate colleagues said the new program would “end the progress of a great country and bring its people to the level of the average European.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with the average European. But isn’t this rhetoric a bit over the top?

Mr. Doe: Not at all, Upton. This is simply the reality. As another Republican in our caucus says, “Never in the history of the world has a measure been so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery, to enslave workers, and to prevent any possibility of the employers providing work for the people.”

Freddy: Mrs. Doe, you don’t look convinced.

Mrs. Doe: It’s always the same sob story from the party of wealth. The sky is falling, the lights of freedom are being extinguished, blah blah blah blah blah.

Mr. Doe: Plus, under the darn thing, millions of Americans will lose their existing health care plans.

Mrs. Doe and Upton: What?

Mr. Doe: In 2010, the chief actuary at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that 14 million would lose their health insurance.

Mrs. Doe: So your beef with a program you want to kill is that it doesn’t do enough for enough people in need?

Mr. Doe: Well, that, plus it’s very complicated and hard to sign up for. Have’nt you been to the ACA website? People have no idea what to do — even when the web site is not down…

Upton: You can’t blast a program for initial problems with the enrollment process.

Mrs. Doe: Sure you can, Upton, if you’re a Republican. But my real problem with the GOP is different. More than 47 million nonelderly Americans are without health insurance. You see them in overwhelmed emergency clinics every day. These poor souls have nowhere to turn. They can’t afford medicine. And Republicans say there’s nothing the government of a great nation can do.

Freddy on the right: Congressman, what say you?

Mr. Doe: Isn’t this socialism, Mrs. Doe?

Mrs. Doe: Absolutely not.

Mr. Doe: Come, Mrs. Doe. Isn’t this a teeny-weeny bit of socialism?

Mrs. Doe: It’s a load of common sense and decency, is what it is.

Mr. Doe: It will discourage people from saving for their own health care needs. And it creates incentives for employers to drop health coverage they offer now. They’ll assume everyone can just be dumped into the government system.

Mrs. Doe: No, congressman, it’ll save companies money by letting them tailor any health care insurance they offer to work along the coverage ACA provides. Some basic level of government supported health care security is good for business.

Mr. Doe: Then why does every thinking businessman in America oppose it?

Mrs. Doe: Don’t throw oxymorons at me, Mr. Doe. Mark my words: The Affordable Care Act will end up bigger than anyone today can imagine, even as America grows much, much richer — proving that social insurance and capitalism are mutually reinforcing, not mutually exclusive.

Freddy on the right: Such poetry, Mrs. Doe — such misguided but lovely-sounding poetry!

*The “recent” exchange took place on December 1, 1936, in the program “The Crossfire,” at a time when Americans began signing up for FDR’s new “Social Security” program.

**Supporting the program was Frances Perkins (Mrs. Doe), secretary of labor at the time, and opposing it was Daniel Reed (Mr. Doe), Republican Representative from New York at the time.

***Moderators were Upton Sinclair (Upton Something) on the left and Freddy Hayeck (Freddy Something) on the right.

Except for replacing the then-new Social Security program with the now-new Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and for replacing some Social Security statistics and attacks with ACA statistics and attacks, the excerpts above pretty much follow the transcript of the December 1, 1936 debate.

My thanks to Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Washington Post columnist, for writing the original column so appropriately titled, “Déjà vu on Obamacare.”

CODA:

Miller’s column ends with:

Upton: After the break — some Democrats are urging FDR to go big on basic health coverage for every American, too — but the president says we can come back and address that question in a few years. Who’s right? Answers just ahead — when Crossfire returns…

And we did, 75 years later.