A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Chad Rubel
This is the year. Finally.
This is a theme that carries on inside the heads of baseball fans as the season opened up this week. Regardless of how well your team did in the off-season in getting new players, or how much the other teams in your division spent on players, there is optimism.
Well, E.J. Dionne Jr. has renewal and spring on his mind in a different realm. The first sentence from his column yesterday in The Washington Post:
"Yes, this is the year Congress will finally give every American access to health insurance."
For years, this is the equivalent of Chicago Cubs fans saying "This year, the Cubs will win the World Series." For the record, if the Cubs don't win it all this year, this will be the 101st season in a row where it hasn't come true. But this year might be the year. The Cubs have been to the postseason two years in a row, first time that has happened in 100 years. Of course, the Cubs have lost 9 straight postseason games.
As Dionne said about health care: "Getting there won't be pretty." Cubs fans can relate.
But maybe Dionne is right. The Boston Red Sox snapped an 86-year championship-less stretch in 2004. The Chicago White Sox, the Cubs' hated rival on the South Side, ended an 88-year string in 2005 with only two trips to the Series in between, one of which they were accused of intentionally losing.
After all, if those two famous streaks could be snapped, what about health care?
Opening Day in baseball comes at a time of spring and renewal, even if most baseball fans root for a team that has no chance of coming close to the playoffs. It's the one time of year to have optimism.
But it's difficult to have optimism over health care. We already have the experience of seeing other countries be our guinea pigs -- we know that it works, yet "socialized medicine" and other bogeyman terms get in the way.
Dionne invites us to "feel free to be skeptical." But he does point out why this time is different:
But this conclusion misses almost everything that has been happening. It's not just that the public (including business) is frustrated with the status quo. And it has little to do with the details that policy wonks are necessarily hashing over.
What matters is that members of Congress have quietly been preparing the ground for reform since the Democrats took over two years ago. And the competing interest groups seem more inclined to get what they can out of reform than to stop the enterprise altogether.
Should we be optimistic about health care? Is this the year? Are we going to get universal health care before the Cubs win the World Series? Can we get both in the same year?
The Cubs did win their opening game last night 4-2 over Houston. And the team is predicted to make the postseason for the third year in a row. Can we pray for two miracles -- universal health care and the Cubs? Might happen: after all, many thought we couldn't elect a black man as president.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
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