Got this e-mail earlier today:
Why McMahon Must Vote for Healthcare
By Steve Harrison
March 20, 2009
I ran against Congressman McMahon in a Democratic Primary in 2008. He won. After he was elected I believed it proper to respect the vote of the people and the victory of the Congressman by my silence. Despite my differences with him, I genuinely believed that Congressman McMahon would ultimately vote for the people of this district on healthcare. It appears I was wrong, so the time for silence is past.
Congressman McMahon's looming "no" vote on the Health Care bill before Congress is an abdication of his leadership role as an elected official.The Congressman was overwhelmingly elected with a Democratic President and Congress. He had a mandate for change in many things but especially in healthcare. That's why he was elected. His failure to take this opportunity to effectuate some change breaches good-faith with the voters and will condemn our nation to do nothing for decades to come.
Doing nothing means 3,000,000 people will be priced out of the insurance market every year as insurance companies continue to deny coverage to the sick and raise premiums on those who remain insured, even as they reap record profits. This pattern will continue every year until all but the super rich are unable to afford coverage.
Who will pay for the rest of us? The government of course. There will be no alternative. Socialized medicine will become a necessity by default. The irony is that it is Congressman McMahon and the Republicans who are so frightened by socialized medicine.
The plan before Congress is far from perfect. In my opinion it does not go far enough. (This nation needs some kind of universal insurance. We are the only major nation in the world without it and we pay much more for our care than any of the others). But it's a critical step in the right direction and it simply must be passed for the good of our nation.
This bill is the signature reform of our time. It is to the 21st century what Social Security was to the 20th and the Congressman looks like he will be on the wrong side of history. Mr. McMahon should be leading and educating the good people of our district on the benefits of this plan. He should be rallying them to its support. Instead, he has fallen prey to the same scare tactics the minority leadership is using on the less informed, allowing those tactics to go unchallenged.
This is a solid bill. In addition to insuring another 30,000,000 people, it would immediately stop abusive insurance practices (no dropping sick people when they get sick, no denial because of pre-existing conditions.). You can keep your current policy if you want to.
And it is bi-partisan, the crocodile tears of the minority notwithstanding. The Republicans did not want a public option. There is no public option. The Republicans said the cost was too high. The Democrats listened. The independent budget office of the Congress confirms that the bill will now actually reduce the deficit, not increase it. If that's not good-faith bipartisanship, I don't know what is. We must never confuse bipartisanship with capitulation. The Democrats won the election. They get to write the bill.
If Congressman McMahon sees himself as politically vulnerable because of this bill, that is understandable. In a conservative district, a vote for healthcare probably means that many of the the Republicans who voted for him in '08 will not in '10. But the solution is not to abandon party and principle, either from a practical or a moral perspective.
From a strictly practical point of view, in a year where Mr. McMahon is already being targeted by the Republican machine he can not genuinely expect support from across the aisle. They will attack him despite his vote. In abandoning the Democrats who supported him, he will no longer have a rational claim to their support. So he can expect a primary and a Working Families Party challenge which may weaken him to the point of losing. His best chance for re-election lies in supporting the healthcare bill and rallying the Dems to his side.
But, more importantly, there is a moral issue here. The Congressman is not entitled to abandon his constituents to promote his own career. His re-election is secondary to the needs of his people. On healthcare, policy trumps politics.
The benefits of good change are frequently obscured by the fear of change. This leads to temporary resistence. If good policy is enacted, but the temporary resistence does not fade before the next election, well, you lose. Such is the price one pays for what I call "electoral courage." Fear of losing an election can never be an excuse for voting against the best interests of the people you represent.
Barack Obama has electoral courage. Mike McMahon does not. I will follow this President anywhere.