ON JUNE 28, THE U.S. SUPREME COURT DID A GREAT THING FOR AMERICA.
The court’s landmark ruling approving the Affordable Care Act cleared the way for a solution to one of the nation’s most shameful social failures. This modest national health care plan finally allows America, richest of the developed nations, to stand alongside poorer but more enlightened countries that have managed an efficient way of securing the welfare of their citizens, particularly their poor and disenfranchised. America has now taken that small but important step toward blunting the harm caused by the increasing divide between the rich and the shrinking middle class.
The court’s approval of the ACA is as significant as the great 20th-century domestic milestones of the Social Security Act of 1935, the Civil Rights Act and Roe v. Wade. And it will impact the nation just as powerfully as those watershed events.
President Obama can now say that he has succeeded where many other presidents failed. It is another major accomplishment in what is a historically successful first term. Not only did the president and his brilliant Secretary of State Hillary Clinton manage to repair our severely damaged relations with Europe and Asia, he and Ben Bernanke also pulled the nation out of a potential depression. And in one quiet, anxious moment of the kind that often defines a presidency, Barack Obama muscled up and set loose the SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden. In the aftermath of that daring raid, his drone attacks wrapped up most of the other leaders of the terrorist group behind 9/11. Now he is extracting U.S. forces from Iraq and winding down the war in Afghanistan.
Obama has certainly proved his mettle as commander in chief. Add to that his recent executive order on immigration, and against an obviously flawed Republican presidential candidate the odds tilt in favor of the president’s re-election.
Both the Affordable Care Act and the president’s re-election will go a long way to mend a divisive nation burdened with a dysfunctional political system brought to its knees by a neverending stream of conservative hatemongering. America’s narcissistic opposition party would rather see the nation suffer than compromise or cooperate to solve its problems, causing enormous suffering to our body politic.
But despite the vindictive floggings of a few super-rich conservative oligarchs via special-interest groups and “super PACs,” history is not on their side. History — and voters in November — will prove the demonization of President Obama and the health care act wrong.
Creating a national health care system, even one as minimal as the Affordable Care Act, will revitalize the worth of individuals, particularly those teetering on the edge of financial ruin because of a lack of insurance. It will restore a sense of dignity to an ever-increasing number of patients who are trapped in today’s health care labyrinth, who might otherwise be forced to sell homes and other assets to cover critical or long-term care needs.
By allowing youths up to 26 to be covered by their parents’ insurance and ending forever the concept of “pre-existing conditions,” the ACA will go a long way to ameliorate several social problems. It will improve the health of poor children and reduce the costs of emergency care.
Probably the one least mentioned and most important impact the ACA will have is on American business. For better or worse, American capitalism operates under the harsh premise that workers, when laid off from jobs in industries that decline based on free market drivers like cyclical needs or technological advancements, are on their own. That will now change.
American workers, as my economics professor taught in the late 1960s, were once the most flexible and transient in the world. If an industry failed or fell out of fashion — think of the horse and buggy industry — workers would be retrained for other industries — think automobiles. Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t be retrained fell into poverty. This “survival of the fittest” view, he lectured, was key to keeping the economy vibrant and dynamic.
Of course, this period of flexible and adaptable labor was before health benefits became so expensive and so critical. In our modern world, workers and families cannot survive without health care. Today, workers cling to underpaying jobs if those jobs offer access to health care. It is a particularly difficult predicament for those who have a pre-existing condition, or the self-employed, who, I know, often struggle with health care providers or insurers who try to drop coverage or raise premiums.
Fortunately, all that will go away now. Which leads us to the startup world in which I have been toiling these last several years.
America’s entrepreneurial peak correlated with the information technology revolution, roughly from 1980-2001. It was the greatest economic and technological boom in human history, blending academic research, genius inventors, dynamic business and marketing people and venture capitalists who were pushing to discover new ideas and new companies, and who were not afraid to gamble on American products and ideas.
Since 9/11, that dynamic economic powerhouse has slowly withered, for many reasons — war, recession, bad public policies, etc. However, as I realized when I jumped into the second wave of the startup world in 2005, the folks who had the skill set to be entrepreneurs were now a lot older than the kids who powered the first wave. With maturity come families and health and welfare issues. Basically, you couldn’t work in a startup if your spouse didn’t have a job that included health coverage, or if you had coverage from another source.
It was a simple fact of life in the second-wave startups: The startup life was harder than ever, and money was scarce for unknown and untested business ventures. And if it was hard enough to launch a startup, try doing it without health coverage, putting your children at risk.
From then on, the argument against national health care from the pro-business folks baffled me. As a nation, we were wasting enormous intellectual and creative capital as bright workers hung onto jobs they should have given up only because they had to have health insurance. Young, dynamic and creative folks who should have leaped from the corporate heap into the startup world weren’t going to make that move — not because they lacked the creativity or intelligence or were inherently risk averse, but because they couldn’t solve the health insurance problem. We lost a whole generation of new ideas and new and improved products because of misguided national policies that failed to understand what was needed to propel the U.S. economy forward.
Recessions force numerous industrial dislocations, and in a complex modern economy workers need to be able to move to emerging industries. Frankly, it’s dangerous public policy for a wealthy democracy not to facilitate fluid labor transition from a declining industry to an emerging one. And here again the Affordable Care Act will have a major impact.
That impact will be felt in California more, perhaps, than in any other state. The ACA will provide billions of dollars in federal funds to bolster MediCal and will provide health coverage to millions of California’s poor. Most importantly, it may rekindle the stagnating California Renaissance — the cultural revolution, begun in the mid-1960s, that saw an explosion of creativity in art and music bleed into science and technology and spark, eventually, the kind of inventive genius that became the hallmark of the digital age.
The marvels of the information/digital revolution created a whole new modern world. At the same time they made California into an economic powerhouse: At one point the state’s GDP hovered around the fifth largest in the world. This era of prosperity and creativity was driven by the imaginations of those in the entrepreneurial world. For the most part, they were young kids who didn’t require health care.
Now, California again stands at the beginnings of a huge industrial surge. The state is on the brink of the Green Industrial Revolution, which offers California a resurgence unlike any in world history. Simply expanding energy efficiency and renewable energy generation, constructing green smart grids, developing hydrogen fuel and pushing additive manufacturing — joining materials to make objects from 3D model data — will provide the state with untold resources and tax revenue.
But the Green Industrial Revolution, like the information technology surge, needs drive and creativity. It needs a new wave of bright, young, dynamic and robust entrepreneurs who are not afraid of new ideas and who will work hard to turn dreams into reality. And it needs workers who don’t have to worry about health care for themselves and their families.
With a national health care plan in place, a major pall over the startup world has been lifted. Now California is poised to get the new wave of entrepreneurs it needs to drive the Green Industrial Revolution and the next prosperity cycle. Thanks to President Obama and an enlightened Supreme Court chief justice, we may see it.
Grant Cooke is a long-time Benicia resident and CEO of Sustainable Energy Associates. He is co-author, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Woodrow Clark, of “Global Energy Innovation: Why America Must Lead,” published by Praeger Press.
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Really terrific Grant, as always. Eloquent, and persuasive. I hope it comes to be.
We had to read the whole article to get to the last paragraph to really know what this article is all about. Another Enviro Greenie advertisement. Here comes the name calling attacks, duck your head.
“….had to read the whole article….” There is a first time for everything.
I do understand Obamacare and know it is not good. There two very good things in it. The healthcare for folks that do not have the money to pay for it, about 11 mil. and the clause to not deny healthcare for pre existing conditions. Both needed. California is going to see a cost that will knock their socks off on the medical increase in enrollment. Government will pay 90% in 2012 and beyond. The estimates are that it will cost Califo9rnia an additional minimum of one mim. That is a very low estimate and the state knows that. When was the last time you ever saw a government program that did not up the cost to the folks that are in it. Take a look at medicare cost per month and then look at the cost just ten years ago. You will be surprised at the increase. Do any of you think your present doctor is going to stay in the medical program if in fact they are excepting medical now. The answer is no. The dream that is being presented in this article is just what it is a dream. .
Well said, Grant. It is refreshing to read intelligent and articulate words.
Renee it was well written. Does that mean that is what is going to happen?
I keep reading this touchy feely article and keep looking for the facts to support what the writer thinks is going to happen. There are no facts. He does make it sound easy and it is going to happen without facts supporting his conclusion. Just how many people in California that he is talking about are going to buy into the Obamacare solution. No they will not, they have not even bought into medical which is available to them. The state of California as created an entitlement society that it is going to have a very hard time getting out of. The folks the writer is talking about are not going to buy into Obamacare unless it it totally free and then expect it to be free for the rest of their life. Bad situation and no way out. Just stop the give-away programs and the population may change. That is easy to do. No more give-away programs. Sound easy, it is.; Just stop it. .
wow Bob, you are a real Debbie-Downer. 😉
No! Ann Coulter on a date with Bill Maher and his date!
Grant,
I like and respect you personally. While I may not agree with you politically, I do want to try to read what you have to say to better understand your opinions. Usually they are new and unique. However, that being said, it is hard for me to get past the negative introduction. I would additionally assert that you paint your president’s “successes” with more singular credit than is merited. The combination of the two build a pretty thick wall at the get go.
“…a divisive nation burdened with a dysfunctional political system brought to its knees by a neverending stream of conservative hatemongering. America’s narcissistic opposition party would rather see the nation suffer than compromise or cooperate to solve its problems, causing enormous suffering to our body politic.”
I’m not an editorial writer, but as a reader, it would be so refreshing if opinions and persuasive arguments of ALL parties weren’t so heavily peppered with snarky insults and divisive language. It just gets old and the paper’s pages get folded up and thrown in the recycling bin…unread.
You picked it up real quick Susan. Good job
*pat on the head*
Thanks, Mike. Your *pat on the head* just exemplified the patronizing attitude that I was referring to. Whatever happened to manners and respectful dialogue?
My thoughts exactly Susan. The *pat on the head* referred to Bob’s patronizing and condescending need to provide affirmation for every like-minded comment. Your ire is misdirected.
If I misinterpreted the comment, Mike, my sincere apology. I don’t want to engage in unproductive banter. I thought it was directed at my post.
Very good Susan
Hahahahaha!
Excellent comments Susan.
I guess I could be one of those folks that does not hold back in telling it is how I see it. Yes I am a Conservative and have no problem with it at all. Was my intent to rain on the writers parade? Yes. I felt very strongly that his intent was to promote his own personal Enviro Greenie agenda by trying to hold Obamacare as the answer to his driven agenda. Well Obamacare in California is the not the answer to his agenda driven Enviro Greenie advertisement. The cost to California for the part of the Obamacare that the wrtiter thinks will change the green agenda is so costly it may never happen. Thirty percent increase in enrollment and only a fifteen percent increase to contributions of total by the government. Sorry doctors are going to flee. Granted fees will be upped to medicare fee standards. Now just who is going to pay for this. A cash strpped California. I do not think so. Obamacare as the savior for the advancement of the green agenda is very flawed. It will not happen.
OK Bob that’s seven comments by you. We know how you feel (and no one cares). Now shut up and let someone else have a say.
I do believe you will find out that know one cares about the writers agenda. There is plenty of space and time to make a comment. I know you are a teacher but what gives you the right to tell anyone to shut up.
As long as your into censorship you may want to take a look at your total comments on Ginsburg. Try 27 or 40 percent of total. Think before you speak. I do not care how many times anyone comments. I do believe all are good. The more the better for the article. But censorship?
That’s Nos. 8 and 9. Suggesting you shut up is not censorship. It’s common sense. Making you shut up — which I sadly do not have the power to do — is censorship. Get it right.
The Ginsburg comments were part of a back and forth. This is you talking to yourself because you’re desperate to distract from Grant’s excellent piece, which I think you know is right on the mark.
Oh, and I’m not a teacher.
The article is pure propaganda and not at all on the mark. I knew you were not a teacher, but notice how I got you to admit it. I love the back and forth but I would like to see your ideas on why the article is right on the mark. Then we all can have some comments on your right on the mark explanation. It could be very interesting. Think about it. Looking forward to your explanation on right on the mark.
Bob, I am a teacher, I was lying before.
I don’t owe you an explanation, and one isn’t needed. That’s why I used the phrase “right on the mark.” Grant said it well enough.
That’s 10 comments. Let other people comment. No one cares what you think.
There goes Mike again. Giving orders that no one pays any attention to. Just hide behind your first name. I guess you will now call everyone else that does not agree with you stupid also. By the what college would let you in with an expired fishing licence?.
way
Superb article, Mr. Cooke, truthful and positive; perhaps the best so far on this issue in our Forum pages. You give us the benefit of sagacious balance and capacious breadth of knowledge and experience. Well done. Thanks.
This article gives new meaning to the word “Pollyanna”. Maybe this guy works in PR. A car crash is “a propitious meeting of two strangers.” if the author had been a headline writer when Kennedy was assasinated, the headline would have been “VP Johnson given chance at Presidency”. When the Titanic sank, he would have put “Titanic sea trial goes well — 705 survive!”
Earth to Grant: There is not going to be any green, red, purple, blue, or charteuse Industrial Revolution. And certainly the reason it has “not happened yet” has nothing to do this absurd contention about not having health insurance. There are many reasons why tech fixes are not the way of the future, unless you consider sharpening a plow and digging a well “tech fixes”.
The course of the future is a massive downsizing — a systemic collapse away from high-tech, complex, global “solutions” towards localized economies that could well degenerate into gang and tribal warfare, at least until a new equilibrium is reached. The only question going forward is how devastating the next 100 years will be to humans and the environment as we go through the turmoil caused by global warming, oil getting scarce and expensive, and the worldwide economic collapse, which are all tied together in various ways.
And to end on a positive note, after this 100 years of misery, the few humans left should be able to pick things up and move forward, hopefully in a more balanced and sustainable way. But then again, maybe not!
Bob Shelby please explain why this article is truthful and positive. It may be. But could you just explain to the followers why. Bob I do like your comments but I would like some explanations. Please Bob no negative comments just an explanation
Thank you all for your comments. However, I’m afraid a couple of my points were not immediately obvious. The first is that the ACA will help blunt the growing divide in this country between the rich and the poor. Since 1980 and the decline of the US manufacturing there has been a steady shift in wealth from the middle class to the rich–Bloomberg says about 5% of annual national income. This, unfortunately, is a by product of an economy shifting from production to a knowledge/finance based economy, coupled with a steady decline in resources for eduction.
Secondly, the ACA should be viewed as a huge support for small business, entrepreneurs, and those with critical care issues. Just like Social Security, the ACA will provide a minimal level of care for the very poor, the aged, and those who can’t afford health care for employees. Sadly, I have seen too many tragedies involving the elderly and critical care costs. For small businesses this will give them a chance to shift assets and maintain employees who are desperate for health care. For entrepreneurs it will reduce the risk factor a bit and perhaps prompt more of us to pursue an innovative product or service.
To Susan North, I’m sorry my descriptors seemed excessive and snarky, and I appreciate your call for a more temperate political discourse.
Since when has healthcare been a factor for innovation? Never has and never will. The elderly and disabled do have medicare which is very good. The Obamacare is an addition to with the same reimbursements as medical for California. The rolls will go up and the cost will go far beyound what is being given to the state by the government. It it was not going to cost the states an arm and a leg why did they try to buy votes by promising state the full cost of doing Obamacare. Mark my word this is going to break some states. keep the parts I have said were needed and start doing something that will be helpful to the others. Some might find out that their new costs could be higher than they were paying. There are many other ideas out there that you will hear about as this moves toward being overturned. Healthcare means innovation that is the strangest thing I have ever heard.