Texas Republicans are the advance political guard of a health insurance industry that’s sucking the lifeblood from our state and nation. Texas has more uninsured citizens – close to 6 million of our 24.3 million people. Our health insurance premiums rose 92 percent from 2000 through 2009. From 2003 through 2006, health insurance industry profits rose 170 percent to $12.6 billion.
If you attribute a share of those profits to Texas, proportionate to the state’s 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, it means Texans saw $1.5 billion of their hard-earned money disappear into pockets of insurance executives. The people who made this possible, largely the Texas Republican leadership, were paid handsomely for their service to big insurance. As we’ve noted, Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst together received $1.7 million in contributions from the insurance industry over the last decade.
In other words, Texas Republicans have been paid millions by the insurance industry so the insurance industry can steal your money and ruin your health.
And that’s just one reason why Texas Democrats will win in 2010.
Okay, it’s way to early for predictions about 2010. As I’ve mentioned before, no one can say with any certainty what the political landscape will look like in 2010. But we also can’t leave the prognosticating to those who won’t admit the level of uncertainty. So here, in part, is how I see it.
Will health care reform pass, and what will the final bill look like? If it passes, it will pass over nearly unanimous Republican opposition. The public’s concern today appears directed more at the uncertainty than at any specific proposals. Health care reform enjoys strong public support. Remaining public unease will decrease post-passage, leaving Republicans to explain why they tried to block reform.
The popularity of health care reform will increase after passage. Votes against reform will be big liabilities after a bill is passed. As was the case with the creation of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, supporters of reform will benefit at the polls, now and always.
However, if a handful of conservative Democrats assist Republicans in blocking passage, 2010 may be bad for Democrats. The irony here? It is anti-reform Democrats in Congress who are the most likely to get beaten if reform fails. They’ll wake up to this sooner or later. That’s why I think we will see passage of health care reform.
What about the economy? Clearly, unemployment numbers indicate something of a jobless recovery. If there is buoyancy in the economy, Democrats might fare well in the mid-term election of 2010, or at least they won’t fair poorly.
These issues will probably be the two biggest determinants of the 2010 election outcomes up and down the ballot. State-level politics is more vulnerable to national political winds than ever before, largely because voters get heavy doses of national news and not much state news. This gives an advantage to state-level incumbents, including Rick Perry.
But Perry has thrown in with his flapping right wing and, if he wins his primary, he’s going to have a hard time tacking back to the left. Post health care reform, the teabaggers will look like bigger losers than they already do. Perry may be left holding the teabag.
Trends in Texas are clearly headed in the Democrats’ direction. This isn’t speculation. It’s based on election outcomes from 2004 through 2008. Districts won by Democrats by razor-thin margins in those years are more Democratic every year. So is the state as a whole. Republicans will have to run against this headwind. They have the power of incumbency, they have a crazy base to incite, and they have the big dollars on their side.
But they are also fighting what will ultimately be a losing battle against health care reform, and I believe they will pay a penalty at the ballot box in 2010. In Texas, that could make for a very surprising year, surprising at least to the conventional wisdom-mongers.
I’m just tossing out a plausible scenario. It’s a saltine; you can’t swallow it without the grains of salt. But that should apply to all the predictions your hear. Be very suspicious of those who say, “This is what will happen.” We don’t know what will happen, any more than we know where storms will make landfall in the 2010 hurricane season.
At this point, what health care/insurance reform finally passes (assuming something does, and I’d guess it will) is unclear. Maybe what is finally in the bill won’t make any difference in mid-terms, since whatever changes are made aren’t going to kick in until several years later. Which means no one will really know what to expect in terms of health care, though I’d bet we can safely expect the same scare tactics to be used in mid-term Republican campaigns.
Unless something changes, dramatically, I doubt we will get anything like the bold steps of Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. I hope I’m wrong. But maybe that won’t matter in 2010, or if they push it out as far as has been discussed, maybe it won’t even matter in 2012. Maybe voters will see the passage itself as a good enough reason to support the party and/or individual legislators who voted for it.
I find the disconnection with reality in this post to be remarkable. Do you not realize that the health care bill was basically written by lobbyists for the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies? To accuse the Republicans of being the front men for these groups is laughable when the Democrats have brought them on board wholeheartedly for this reprehensible bill which is basically nothing but a bailout for the insurance and pharma monopolies on the backs of the American taxpayer. Good Democrats ought to be up in arms against the way their party has sold the people out.
Dave
To a very large extent, both Democratic or Republican legislators are “front men” for the health industries, as they are for the petroleum industries. And more. This is nothing new, and not unique to either party.
My arms are up against both parties.
DogCanyon vs Texas Broadside…In this opinion poll there is no competition. Thanks Glenn, for a very entertaining and illuminating place in the webosphere.