A Hitch in Time: Reflections Ready for Reconsideration by Hitchens Christopher

Author:Hitchens, Christopher [Hitchens, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Politics, Anthologies
ISBN: 9781538757659
Amazon: 1538757656
Goodreads: 145624963
Publisher: Twelve
Published: 2024-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies… is a foolish idea. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people could throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. The policies that are vital and necessary for America are no longer subjects of significant disagreement, but are disputable only in detail, procedure, priority or method.

Quigley was alluding principally to the durable consensus on grand strategy, military alliance and trade, but his argument applies with equal force to the home front. Here, the Clintons only ever made one challenge to the status quo. Inspired by the obvious popularity and also the electoral potential of the idea, they proposed a system of universal healthcare. Now it may be true (as I think) that nothing could have saved George Bush in 1992. But the change in the political tempo began with a remarkable Democratic triumph in Pennsylvania, orchestrated by James Carville and based like all good campaigns on the ceaseless iteration of a single note. There were forty million Americans without health insurance. No comparable society except South Africa lacked a health system. (Or, as Carville put it with a clever appeal to a different kind of populism: “If a criminal has the legal right to a lawyer, working Americans should have the legal right to a doctor.”)

Of course, the cry of “socialized medicine” is one of the hoariest slogans of the American right, so it had to be expected that there would be a political confrontation. But for once, the all-important opinion polls were aligned solidly and consistently with reform. There was expertise to spare among specialists on the subject. One group in particular, based at the Harvard Medical School, proposed the equivalent of a Canadian “single payer” or National Health plan, combining a wide repertory of benefits with a range of choice between different physicians. The Congressional Budget Office furthermore certified such a plan as the most cost-effective, not least because it would end the fantastically wasteful duplication and competition spawned by America’s insurance racket. At an early White House meeting between the Harvard group and Hillary Clinton, the case for a straightforward National Health Bill was put by Dr. David Himmelstein. As he recalls the exchange:

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