Friends, it’s time to take up a collection so
we can seek a cure for a tragic disease. The disease is PTS —
political timidity syndrome — and it’s epidemic among
congressional Democrats. The latest to show the telltale symptoms of this
heartbreaking scourge is Hillary Clinton. The New York senator and
Democratic contender for the presidency announced that she’s going to
take on the issue that affects a majority of America’s families,
small businesses, corporate competitiveness, and our nation’s very
notion of the common good: health care. Good for her! This is a big issue,
a winning issue, a defining issue that calls for America’s boldest
thinking and most principled politics. But — uh-oh — suddenly Clinton was struck
by PTS, and boldness shriveled to meekness. Rather than propose and fight
for a straightforward plan of universal care that would rally the public, a
plan that would work and even be less costly than the system of privatized
profiteering we now have, Hillary succumbed to PTS. She is cautiously
suggesting a minimalist, incremental, convoluted approach that would
subsidize insurance policies only for low-income children who are not now
covered. Clinton’s plan would leave some 40 million
Americans without health care, do nothing about the low quality and high
cost of America’s system, and dump additional billions of tax dollars
into the pockets of the insurance giants. Explaining her business-as-usual
timidity, Clinton says she can only “do what the political reality
permits me to do . . . what the body politic will bear.”
Hey, the political reality is that two-thirds of
Americans believe it is the government’s responsibility to ensure
health care for everyone! What the body politic will not bear are
politicians who lack the guts to stand equivocally with the people to
demand health care for all.
This article appears in Jul 6-12, 2006.
