We frogs have been in hot water for decades. As the water reached this decade's boiling point we reset the thermometer, chucked "liberal" for "progressive," and let our brains get too sizzled for us to remember how to measure progress in anything other than economic terms.
That's why a reminder that Hillary's healthcare plan is somewhat less generous than Richard Nixon's is instructive.
Nixon introduced his Comprehensive Health Insurance Act on Feb. 6, 1974, days after he used what would be his final State of the Union address to call for universal access to health insurance.
"I shall propose a sweeping new program that will assure comprehensive health-insurance protection to millions of Americans who cannot now obtain it or afford it, with vastly improved protection against catastrophic illnesses," he told America.
Nixon said his plan would build on existing employer-sponsored insurance plans and would provide government subsidies to the self-employed and small businesses to ensure universal access to health insurance. He said it wouldn't create a new federal bureaucracy.
The top three Democratic candidates' 2007 healthcare proposals seem so look-over-your-shoulder modest and timid. According to a number of polls, a vast majority of Americans of both parties are wary of anything which contains "unfunded mandates." States and local authorities struggle with an imperious federal government which has the gall to mandate that others -- states, individual citizens -- spend their money to meet some Washington ideal. On the other hand, having fully-shared responsibility healthcare is increasingly acceptable. Just keep Washington (and its influential corporate supporters) out of it .
Clinton's plan, like Nixon's, calls for building on the existing private-sector health-care system and using government subsidies and tax credits to get all Americans under an umbrella of health coverage. Like Nixon, Clinton said her plan "is not government-run. There will be no new bureaucracy."
Nixon's plan didn't require all Americans to purchase health insurance, as Clinton's does, something that's known in health-care parlance as an individual mandate. Clinton's rival Edwards also favors government-mandated purchases of health care. Obama would mandate only that all children be insured.
When (if?) we finally get universal healthcare, perhaps the left should ask its physicians and therapists to help us figure out how we got so weak, why we haved stuttered for so long when confronted with clear moral issues like helping to keep our fellow citizens safe and healthy. Where did all our political muscles go?
