Let the States Tackle Healthcare

(first published in "Brooklyn Daily Eagle"

Today in Washington, D.C., we have the phenomenon of a Democratic president, a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate unable to come together a healthcare bill that was approved, in different versions, by both the House and the Senate.

Maybe the president, Congress and the Senate are too scared or too incompetent. Maybe they want the Republicans’ love and cooperation (or what President Obama calls “bipartisanship”) so much that they’re willing to bend over backwards for it — and it still doesn’t work. In any case, if you compare Obama’s campaign promises with his unwillingness to fight for his goals, the results are shocking.

But, thankfully, this country does not only consist of an all-powerful federal government and powerless local governments. Even though the power of the federal government has steadily expanded since the 1930s, the states still have substantial power.

So why not have the states take the lead on healthcare?

There’s plenty of precedent for the states starting their own social programs. Long before the federal government began to institute welfare programs, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then the governor of New York state, started such a program (then called “relief”).

Also, several years before the federal government passed unemployment insurance, the state of Wisconsin, in 1932, began its own unemployment insurance program.

Even when one looks at healthcare reform, there are several state-sponsored programs worth looking at today. Vermont passed its own universal healthcare legislation in 2008. Massachusetts, under conservative Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, also passed its own plan, although that plan has come under its share of criticism. Hawaii has a plan very similar to those found in European nations.

Instead of lamenting the dismal state of affairs in Washington, D.C., perhaps it’s time for advocates of universal healthcare to take matters into their own hands in state governments.