SCHIP Saga - The Permanent Republican Minority

The buzz is that the Democrats' effort to override President Bush's veto on S-CHIP will come up short. And they are coming up with a new strategy to fund children's health. But regardless of that, Thursday's vote will be brutal for Republicans, and will resonate into next November. The Democratic majority has no need to compromise further on what was already a compromise bill. Already the Republicans are scampering for cover by announcing their own universal health care proposal. It probably goes something like "Ten bazillion dollars in payouts to insurance companies in exchange for the same shitty system you have now," but that's not the point. They've been forced by this bill to play on the other team's home field. That's smrt politics that you don't normally see from the Democrats, so hopefully they'll press the advantage.

Chris Hayes has a reminder of what this is all about. SCHIP is a program designed to capture those who aren't poor enough to be covered by Medicare, but who can't afford private health insurance on their own, or who can't procure it due to pre-existing condition (which was the real issue in the case of Graeme Frost, who was in a terrible car accident). The idea is that kids had no role in the unaffordability of their own health care, and that there are social and moral benefits to ensuring their care. I don't care who pays, any kid who needs health care ought to get it, and that's not a controversial stance in this country; over 75-80% of Americans agree. Those who don't, however, are adamant about it, for purely political reasons:

It was back in 1993, as the Clintons prepared to roll out their new universal healthcare plan, that Bill Kristol wrote a memo to fellow conservatives and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill warning them that their goal must be to "kill," not amend, the Clinton plan. "Healthcare," Kristol wrote, "is not, in fact, just another Democratic initiative ... . It will revive the reputation of the ... Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests."

This is really the issue: from the New Deal through the Great Society, the Democrats dominated American politics by being first and foremost the stewards of social-democratic middle-class entitlements. In the wake of the Civil Rights Act, white southerners in particular and white middle-class voters in general, began to associate the Democrats with pursuing the interests of Others - minorities, homosexuals, welfare queens. Conservative political dominance in the post-Reagan era has rested on two pillars: preserving, at a rhetorical level, the conception of the Democrats as being beholden to "special interests" (who don't look like you) and, at the policy level, making sure Democrats never have an opportunity to pass legislation that would belie that claim.

If Democrats once again act like the stewards of the middle class, there will really be no stopping them electorally. Which is why this debate must be about rich lazy people who are "ripping off" the American taxpayer. Republicans have no choice but to demonize the very people who the SCHIP program are designed to protect (and by the way, it was designed by Congressional Republicans).

I still believe we have a shot to pass this bill, but if some intractable Republicans won't go along, they are signing their political death warrant.