As the summer begins to cool down, the heath care debate in Washington has heated up. The liberal wing of Congress continued to press hard for a health care bill that includes universal health insurance as a right of citizenship. Meanwhile, President Obama appears unconcerned about the on-going debate by taking a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard.

A major problem with passing the landmark health care reform has been wooing the moderate Democrats, such as the Blue Dog coalition. President Obama, thus far, has been unsuccessful in courting the moderate wing of his party. He let the liberals within the party in Congress direct the debate and craft the bill. The anticipated price tag of $1.2 trillion (according to the Congressional Budget Office) scares away the moderates.

Douglas Elmendorf, director of the CBO, said in an interview with The Washington Post that such a bill fails to promote ‘the sort of fundamental changes’ needed to cut the rising cost of health care in the United States.

Obama’s approach of letting Congress in control of health care reform is in contrast to a failed attempt at health care reform in 1993-94 during the Clinton administration. ClintonCare was more or less presidential initiative with Congress going along for the ride. Obama over-learned the lesson of the Clinton health care bill being submitted to Congress. This approach is the antithesis of Clinton’s reform effort and may lead to Obama’s own Waterloo.

Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary under President Clinton, admitted in an interview on ABC’s ‘This Week’ that Obama ‘over-learned the lesson of the Clinton years,’ by allowing Congress to control the healthcare debate instead of using his position as president. George Stephanopoulos, the host of ‘This Week’ agreed with Reich’s assessment of Obama’s current position. Stephanopoulos was a senior political adviser in the Clinton campaign and became the White House Communications Director.

Both advisors were close at hand to see the collapse of the health care initiative of the Clinton years, and have critiqued Obama’s position. Reich stated ‘the worry here is that the President may have, and the White House staff may have, overlearned the lesson of the Clinton health care plan ‘fiasco,’ which was: don’t deliver a package to the Hill, let the Hill take ownership…right now the president has got to get involved, twist arms.’

Obama needs to use the bully pulpit of his presidency to reach out to moderate Democrats and Republicans. He needs to compromise on parts of the bill in order for health care to happen in 2009. Health care reform is necessary now, but at a reasonable cost to the American taxpayer and with bipartisan support.

Andrew Swab is a sophomore Magazine and International Relations major. His columns appear weekly. He can be reached at ajswab@syr.edu

Published on August 31, 2009 at 12:00 pm