Republicans, their corporate sponsors, and the hive of thousands of angry bees that they've purposely stirred with a stick, have fanned out in fevered activity to stop or reverse health care reform.
The first effort, put in the hands of Sen. Mitch "Confused" McConnell and Sen. John "Man-tan" Boehner," was to destroy the new law with a batch of poison-pill amendments, but that fell predictably flat, since the Democrats still have a majority in the Senate. A silly, foredoomed effort.
But there are many others: There's the "Tea Party" gang, seeking to persuade politicians that they represent the majority view in the country, fighting a rear-guard action against changing times. Tea-party-goers, beware, you'll be used and tossed aside, with nothing for your efforts except perhaps a good opportunity to vent for a while. Look around the party... there's Sarah Palin, playing the Mad Hatter, but also wanting to transform herself into the Queen of Hearts, and then it'll be "off with your heads!" She's mainly interested in manipulating you for her own benefit, as are the others who work so hard to goad you into political action.
Then there are the dozen or more (who's counting?) state attorneys-general challenging the legality/constitutionality of the "mandate" - the idea that everyone must either buy health insurance or pay a tax instead. Particularly weird is the activity in my own state, Virginia, whose assembly has already passed a law making it illegal to require the purchase of insurance, and whose Attorney-General evidently hopes to make the case that state law prevails over federal. (Leave it to those boys in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederate States of America -- they haven't got over the Civil War - er, the "War Between the States" yet. This question was decided in 1865 but they're still whistlin' Dixie).
I've argued before that the legal basis for that claim is nil, but there are those who suggest it may have some merit. The Obama administration professes itself unconcerned by the constitutional challenge, but I think they have to be a little bit worried.
It's not that there's merit in the argument, but that the Roberts Court has demonstrated a precocious tendency to reach out and yank in cases no one has asked it to take on, like a frog snapping up a fly. Roberts may be thrilled at the chance to tackle this one, being presented to him on a silver platter, and his record to this point gives us a good clue as to how he might decide it. The third leg of the anti-health care trio, the companies of the health care industry, are (for the most part)lobbying furiously against the changes. Whether they manage to change any opinions in the Senate or House or not, or defeat some current members, they have a not-too-secret admirer in the Chief Justice. I fear that legal arguments will play second chair.
So: Can health care legislation be killed, or rendered ineffective, by its opponents? I'd say it could be weakened, or that some of the opposition actions could deal a mild political setback to the Obama administration (which is really the purpose of the exercise anyway). But I don't see it as having potential to destroy the core achievements of the new law.
The tea party folks are likely to be disappointed. Recently the Washington Post carried a human-interest profile of Randy Millam, an Iowan who opposes the changes and drove fifty miles to participate in a demonstration against it. He was a sympathetic enough character, sincere in his beliefs and not going to extremes of violence. "When will 'they' listen to us?" he lamented. He's made the natural supposition that if everybody he knows is against it, the whole world must be against it. It does not seem to have occurred to him that, as polls have demonstrated frequently, a majority in fact does support most of these changes. And 'they' are listening to that majority, as they should in a democracy.
The movement to declare the mandate unconstitutional may have a greater chance of success, but this wouldn't derail the reform as a whole. The same result may be achieved in different ways. In the meantime, while celebrating this "success," those who sparked it may want to reflect on the fact their actions will have made it harder to reduce the costs of health care (one of their supposed goals); will have denied the insurance companies (their allies) 30 million new customers they're eager to get their hands on; and will have restored those same companies' stranglehold over people's relationships with their physicians. It's the law of unintended consequences.
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