How Will History Judge Us?

One recent night I laid awake thinking about the passage of President Obama’s historic healthcare bill. I found myself torn between rejecting the needlessly expensive, future generation-burdening entitlement expansion, or embracing the historical legislation as something of a natural progression toward helping the least of our neighbors in such a way that is so very fundamentally simple, yet has remained senselessly out of reach since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. My mind wandered to how history would judge our audacity in expanding the national debt by over $2 trillion during a time of soaring deficits and sagging economies. Whether or not one agrees with the current legislation, one must admit that to expand government so dramatically during such a depressed time in our country is undoubtedly a bold undertaking.

Part of me wonders if the Obama Administration is failing to see the forest for the trees. Indeed, there was/is a crisis, and to waste such a crisis would be shame, according to Rahm Emanuel. But was healthcare the most immediate crisis on the minds of most Americans? My gut feeling, and the extensive polling that has been done on the subject, says no. Surely the lack of access to affordable healthcare was a crisis, but not one that demanded the immediate attention it was given. With the national unemployment average above 10% and much higher in many parts of my state it seems to me that job creation and economic development should have been, and should still be, at the forefront of the Administration’s agenda, and I am not alone in this thinking. Although much of the backlash against the agenda has been ill-informed and poorly organized, it is evident that there exists dissatisfaction with the way our government is being run. I find that it is easy to place too much emphasis on the negative emotional reactions to the implementation of the Democrats’ agenda. I mean sure, the policy process is in shambles and each party seems to be preparing for war, but this is not the first time that our two-party system has disagreed on social policy (see civil rights).

The other part of me, the far-more empathetic side, wonders why this backlash even exists. Is not providing coverage to 30 million more Americans a good, or even great, thing? For fear of oversimplifying a very complex issue, I’ll say this. Isn’t it about time the richest country in the world takes care of its own citizens in the same way as we would other countries in times of crisis? Remember FDR, who famously declared that when your neighbor’s house is on fire, you don’t haggle of the price of a fire hose; so how about when your neighbor is sick or dying, and cannot afford the very meds that could save their life due to lack of coverage, what to do then? Therefore, this expansion of healthcare coverage is certainly a big F*ing deal, Joe Biden, in that it will indefinitely change America’s social psyche in regard to how they think of healthcare. Whether or not we like they current bill, affordable healthcare will from now on be available to each and every one of us, indeed it will be mandated.

My stream of consciousness then caused me to wonder what the backlash was like for other leaders who brought about great social change. I was reminded of Lyndon Johnson and his vicious fight in the Senate to bring about civil rights for African Americans. When FDR fought to bring about social change to establish social security for retirees, he faced fierce opposition in Congress and in the Supreme Court. Abolitionists fought to end slavery and were rewarded with Southern secession. My point is, the country has certainly been split-before, during and after times of great social change- and history tends to be pretty nice to those who brought it about.

I realize that a paradox exists within our culture in that while being opposed to most new social change (healthcare, civil rights, gay rights?), almost all of our national heroes are those who achieved change in spite of the tremendous opposition against it. Consequently my question is, will history be kind to President Obama for his decision to move forward with healthcare reform during such a precarious economic period in the health (no pun intended) of our country, and against such hostility? Obviously, the jury is still out; I hope that within the next ten years the dependable resilience of the American entrepreneur will force our economy to bounce back with veracity, of which kind we are not as familiar as we should be. Liquidity will once again flow into the market and lending will resume to small businesses and major corporations. Along with the hopeful recovery will come a change of focus and a swapping of the lens through which we judge past events (To be sure, the failure to address the coming fiscal crisis would upend this, but I assume that even the callous children in Congress won’t let things get that bad).

I suspect that with the economy in better shape, historians will laud President Obama’s actions of late. As an agent of change, he has succeeded marvelously and changed the way we will forever view healthcare in America. That is not to say that I supported the bill that was passed because, in fact, I did not. However, I do support what he did and I think the country will ultimately be a better place for it. I just hope that now we can pay for it…