Universal Health Care, Round II

Thomas Frank lets the cat out of the bag in today's WSJ...

He points out that the GOPs visceral reaction to any proposed plan to provide universal health care is based upon two bedrock beliefs, one of which they have proven to be quite willing to cave on, namely big government spending. Conventional wisdom tells us that the GOP opposes universal health care because they can't stomach the idea of big government programs and favor the magic of the free market. This is a bit tough to swallow considering the debacle we are wading through at the moment.

The other, more critical opposition comes from a much deeper place, however. As Frank points out

Still, conservatives have always dreaded the day that Democrats discover (or rediscover) that there is a happy political synergy between delivering liberal economic reforms and building the liberal movement. The classic statement of this fear is a famous memo that Bill Kristol wrote in 1993, when he had just started out as a political strategist and the Clinton administration was preparing to propose some version of national health care.

"The plan should not be amended; it should be erased," Mr. Kristol advised the GOP. And not merely because Mr. Clinton's scheme was (in Mr. Kristol's view) bad policy, but because "it will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests."

Historian Rick Perlstein suggests that this memo is "the skeleton key to understanding modern American politics" because it opens up a fundamental conservative anxiety: "If the Democrats succeed in redistributing economic power, we're screwed."

Frank's piece places this thought in the context of the Clinton administration's failure to realize that embracing a "liberal" approach to the issue would not only be popularly accepted, but could become a game changer for the Democratic party, but perhaps that was another time and place. At this point, it is irrefutable that the country resoundingly supports a comprehensive universal health care plan, and that the GOP understands the existential threat that such a plan may represent.