RALEIGH – To the extent U.S. Senators from Massachusetts have ever played much of a role in North Carolina politics, it’s been as useful foils for Republicans. Ted Kennedy certainly showed up in more than his share of fundraising mailings by Jesse Helms and other conservative candidates. John Kerry picked John Edwards as his running mate in 2004 in an attempt to compete for Carolinian and Southern votes, a tactic that ended embarrassingly for all concerned. The GOP loved it.
But state Sen. Scott Brown’s improbable, spectacular election Tuesday night to fill out the remainder of the late Sen. Kennedy’s term has ripple effects that will reach all the way to North Carolina.
The Brown victory cannot credibly be spun as a contest settled by local issues or personalities. Everyone knows that the Senate race between Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley was a referendum on President Obama’s agenda for health care reform and other issues. The president certainly recognized it. That’s why he went to Massachusetts over the weekend to campaign against Brown and to link his political fate to that of Coakley.
By giving Brown the thumbs-up, voters in one of America’s most liberal states gave ObamaCare the thumbs-down.
Congressional leaders and the president have vowed to pass the plan, anyway. It is the act of fanatics determined to ride a sinking ship to the bottom of the ocean. Now we shall see how many rank-and-file Democrats are as willing to become martyrs to the cause of government-run health care as their leaders are.
Here in North Carolina, two Democrats in swing House seats, Larry Kissell of the 8th District and Health Shuler of the 11th, abandoned the doomed vessel months ago, along with Mike McIntyre of the more Democratic-leaning 7th. By voting against the original House plan, they signaled either sincere concerns about the legislative monstrosity, an unwillingness to sacrifice their seats, or both. Now attention will turn to the future votes to be cast by Reps. Bob Etheridge and Brad Miller, two incumbents who represent Democratic-leaning districts that, according to historical voting patterns, will only flip Republican under extraordinary circumstances.
The election of a Republican senator in Massachusetts qualifies as extraordinary circumstances.
As for freshman U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, she won’t stand for reelection until 2014. A vote for the final version of ObamaCare may not end her political career. But it will mark Hagan as a Democrat of the left, not the center. She’d be the John Edwards of 2008, not the John Edwards of 1998. Again, Scott Brown’s victory in an election so clearly defined by the health care issue should serve as a clarifying moment for Hagan. North Carolinians oppose the plan in far greater numbers than do the voters of Massachusetts. Does she really want to present herself to the electorate as someone so far outside the mainstream?
The ideologues who still cling to ObamaCare insist that its demise will mean an end to health care reform. Their claim is idiotic. While significant disagreements persist about the merits of government-run insurance, the application of market principles to health care delivery, and the extent to which health plans should price risk accurately or simply redistribute income, there remain some areas of broad agreement that could serve as common ground for a truly bipartisan reform initiative.
For example, most health policy analysts across the political spectrum recognize that the current system does not give patients the information, tools, and incentives they need to be more active participants in medical decisions. Reforming state and federal laws to encourage the publication of medical prices, the coordination of care, and the widespread adoption of flexible spending and health savings accounts would allow providers, health plans, and patients to experiment with new ways to improve both the quality and efficiency of medical care without imposing new taxes or mandates, or forcing anyone out of current health care relationships they like.
Most analysts also recognize that some state laws and regulations needlessly prevent patients from using the medical care they would freely choose, such as natural childbirth or low-cost clinics. Let’s junk these rules.
Most importantly, most analysts realize that our current tax code is unfair to lower-income workers by offering full income- and payroll-tax exclusions for health insurance obtained at the workplace but not for those who buy health plans as individuals. Equalizing the tax treatment of all health-financing arrangements is good tax policy as well as good health care policy.
Nervous North Carolina Democrats don’t need to abandon health care reform to save themselves from Martha Coakley’s fate. They just have to abandon the sinking ship.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation