Republican No-vote on Health Reform Could Hurt Party’s Electoral Chances

October 15, 2009 | No Comments

Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign demonstrated an unprecedented level of achievement for organizing new voters and winning donations from lower-income voters, then mobilizing millions of supporters to fan out across the country and disseminate the campaign’s message of positive change. Republican opponents of healthcare reform are engaged in a high-stakes political gamble, banking on the likelihood that the massive numbers of uninsured will not organize against them if they vote against healthcare reform.

They should be very wary. Obama is motivating the Democratic Congress to do the people’s work, working through the arduous process of passing comprehensive healthcare reform. The Republicans have not, however, apparently, been considering what might happen if healthcare reform comes to a full vote in both houses and they vote against it.

Essentially, the Republican party will have gleefully declared the irrelevance of its members to the process of effective and responsible service, with the added vulnerability of having opposed something that is a solution to a life or death quality of life problem for millions. Reports this year found that over a two-year period —2005-2007— more than one-third of the American population spent at least some time with no health insurance coverage.

Voting against a solution to that problem, however imperfect the solution, is to openly oppose an improvement to the wellbeing and household security of that one-third of the population. Today’s younger generation is projected to face a situation, without action to reform the system, in which half will spend significant time without insurance. The Republicans hope that generation will never hear that news, even if it comes to pass, because their stiff opposition to any of the pragmatist solutions that would rescue them from such risk could lose them that gneratiim’s support.

Personal bankruptcies are at an all-time high, with unprecedented numbers owing in part to the massive and escalating costs of healthcare — as much as 65%. How many of those families will base their vote in 2010, 2012, and beyond, on the experience of having one of the two major parties treat them like their travails and losses are of no importance whatsoever, or even a green light to malign them?

Democratic party supporters and those who support meaningful healthcare reform should and will begin organizing public awareness of the healthcare no-vote. It’s not hard to imagine enthusiastic young supporters of the Democratic agenda, motivated by Obama’s call to action and a generational shift that has seen interest in public service, volunteering and online networking, economic hard times and chronic vulnerability to the flaws of the health insurance system, decrying Republican no-voters for “voting to deny your children protection from the insurance cartel”.

The modern Republican party has made its way lying down with heavily monied interests, relying on large donations almost exclusively to fund it’s campaigns, and therefor doing the bidding of some of the least savory elements of mainstream society. It’s hard to imagine the party won’t have learned from Obama that you need to reach, take seriously, listen to and mobilize small donors and new voters, but then the Republican National Committee just launched its new website with no Spanish-language translation, just as momentum starts gathering for a new round of debate on immigration reform.

Is the GOP so reckless in its treatment of these very real problems of real Americans, because it’s out of touch? Maybe. But the party must worry more about the other interpretation that is more tempting to young, idealistic voters: that the Republican party is cynically calculating that it can deliberately undermine the interests of so many millions without them ever noticing. The uniform no-vote says that one of these two interpretations is true, and that will be a gift to the massive grassroots organizing of Democratic supporters in search of new voters.