Elephants and Mice,

Republicans and Change

Elephants aren’t afraid of mice – it’s a myth.

But Republicans are afraid of change – it’s a fact.

That’s the only explanation for the strident and premature Republican attacks on health care reform triggered by a Congressional Budget Office reaction to a draft not yet completely written.

The CBO said the plan it saw would cost $1 trillion over ten years and still leave about two-thirds of those without medical coverage on their own. That set the Republicans into a group moon-howl, with South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham widely quoted as saying the CBO figures were a “death blow to a government-run health care plan."

Republicans are clearly opposed to government-run anything, unless it’s something essential like torturing suspects, or spending $680 billion and more than 4,300 American lives to swap one group of corrupt Iraqi thugs for another.

Of course, we do have a government-run health plan already. It’s called Medicare, and it’s tax-supported help for those 65 and over. Medicare has been successful in keeping most retirees from having to choose between health care and bankruptcy. President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law in 1965.

Where were the Republicans on Medicare in the years prior to 1965?

Republicans were opposed, of course. It was change, and they had barely recovered from the change trauma of Social Security, which they had also opposed. Besides, Medicare would cover all alike, rich and poor, and that made it socialized medicine.

Even hinting at socialized medicine guaranteed opposition from the American Medical Association, then as now a group concerned mostly with those medical standards relating to forms of payment. But the AMA had the Republican party by the ears (or perhaps other body parts).

And private health insurance companies had little interest in upsetting a business plan that allowed them to collect premiums from the healthy until they became old and ill, at which point premiums would rise beyond reach or policies would not be renewed. They helped tighten the AMA’s grip.

All the Democrats gripped was Congress, with the 1964 elections giving them a 68-32 majority in the Senate and a 295-140 majority in the House.

And so Medicare became law on a House vote of 307-116 and a Senate tally of 70-17. Half of the House Republicans saw the light – or more probably, the next election in two years – and voted for the bill More than half of Republicans in the Senate opposed Medicare, six-year terms making votes in line with purchased principles easier.

The health care politics now are pretty much as they were in the early sixties. Republicans are opposed, screaming in horror at the costs, socialized medicine and all the other monsters living under their beds. The AMA remains concerned about the doctor/patient relation$hip, and the private insurers don’t want to compete with a government plan that might give the customers an even break.

I’ll predict a health reform victory before the end of the year, but offer this bit of comfort to the Republicans mortally afraid of change. Republicans opposed Social Security and got creamed in 1936. They opposed the reform that became Medicare and got creamed in 1964. And if they continue to oppose health care reform mindlessly, they’ll get creamed in 2010.

Which should make them feel good, because there’s no change involved.

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