WASHINGTON – Armies of “tea party” conservatives who rallied in town halls last month to oppose President Obama’s $1 trillion health care plan are taking their protest movement to the Capitol on Saturday to call for its defeat. .
Those who thought the hundreds of tax day rallies that took place across the country on April 15 were a flash in the pan better think again. It’s a grassroots movement that has been gaining strength ever since, fueled by newly pending bills in Congress that seek to historically expand government power over the nation’s private health care system.
The tea party’s march on Washington comes three days after Obama appeared before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to save his troubled health care plans from deeply divided Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, threatening the centerpiece of his domestic agenda and possibly the future of his presidency.
But if you listened to the president’s partisan, Labor Day campaign-style speech to union workers in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Monday, you’d think it’s not Democrats who are the problem – it’s Republicans who are blocking his agenda. Obama says they’re not just blocking it; they block it without proposing any alternatives of their own.
That will be news to Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, who are struggling to get the votes within their own party to bring the bill to a vote despite huge supermajorities in both chambers.
In fact, Republicans have unveiled plans that would expand coverage among the uninsured and also lower medical costs.
Like what? Well, like allowing self-employed people to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums from their taxable income, just as businesses and their employees can now do; providing additional tax incentives and regulatory relief that would encourage diminutive businesses to offer plans to their employees; and offering needed tort reform (which is nowhere to be seen in the Democrat bills) that is contributing greatly to escalating health care costs and has driven many physicians out of their field.
To say that there are deep divisions among congressional Democrats over the president’s call for a fully government-subsidized health insurance system that would unfairly compete with private sector plans (and put many of them out of business) is like saying that the Grand Canyon it’s a huge hole in the ground. House Democrats are moving to implement a public plan, despite concerns from many in their caucus about its atmospheric costs. However, in the Senate, Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Finance Committee, has prepared a bill that completely bypasses the public option. In its place will be quasi-private, not-for-profit insurance cooperatives that would ostensibly be established with one-time federal start-up funding, but would most likely last forever.
Thus, the White House faces the hazardous prospect of two legislative trains hurtling toward each other – a public option plan in the House and a non-public option in the Senate.
However, these competing bills are about more than just a public option. Costly mandates are being imposed on the insurance industry. Americans who are uninsured will be required to obtain coverage. Small businesses will be required to offer it. New taxes, fees and penalties will be imposed. Government entry into the health care industry would be massive, harmful, and comprehensive.
Well, Americans have had a lot to say about this over the past month, storming hundreds of town hall meetings to air their grievances. Most Democratic lawmakers remained unmoved, with many turning against their party’s plan and some going into hiding and canceling town meetings altogether.
But most got the message that the president had lost the majority of Americans’ support for his signature.
Now, Tea Party protesters are marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in a show of force touted as the largest gathering of conservatives in history.
The Tea Party Express bus caravan is slowly making its way across the country, from the West Coast to the East Coast, on an ambitious 17-day, 34-rally tour that has seen thousands come out to join the protest movement. Organizers say between 25,000 and 50,000 demonstrators are expected to gather in Washington to demonstrate their opposition.
“The health care issue and the town halls really galvanized them and brought everyone together. People who come to our rallies believe very strongly that they (the administration) are trying to shove it down people’s throats,” Levi Russell, a spokesman for Tea Party Express, told me.
There are three essential things happening in all of this. The president and his party are learning a needed lesson about overreaching. The once-destroyed Republican base has found its voice again. And participatory democracy is alive and well in America.
