President Obama unveiled his healthcare plan during his first hundred days as part of his promise to bring about sweeping change. In my view, he demonstrated both transformational and transactional leadership to get in done.
He recognized that Americas is the only nation in the developed world without a national healthcare system and that 32 million Americans lacked affordable healthcare. He then demonstrated transformational leadership by holding forth a vision and honing a healthcare plan that would address this. At the same time, he provided the transactional leadership—wheeling and dealing with Congress to garner the votes to make it happen.
The personal anger and even hatred directed at the President by Republicans and the insurance industry, and his ability to let it role off him like water off a duck’s back reminded me of a speech FDR made at the 1933 Democratic convention where he spoke about how much big business and Republican members of Congress hated him for promising a new deal. The President, who had been crippled by polio, raised himself by his arms at the lectern and bellowed, “Ladies and gentleman let me assure you, I welcome their hatred.”
Though a titanic battle was fought over the issue of healthcare, the Senate completed its work Thursday night on the broadest social legislation in almost a half-century, as the House capped the year-long legislative saga over health reform by signing off on a package of fixes to the newly minted law.
The only drawback was the bill was passed with a Democrats-only vote to approve the nearly $1 trillion redesign of the healthcare system, and with not a single Republic vote for it. Obama made many attempts to pass a healthcare bill in a bi-partisan way, but in the end, needed to use executive muscle and depend on partisan votes to get it done.
It’s my belief that Obama became a very different President in the whole process of getting the bill passed. After a first year in office that promised consequence but never quite delivered on it, he had done something huge. The comparisons with Jimmy Carter would abruptly come to an end.
He was now a President who didn’t back down, who could herd cats, who was not merely intellectual and idealistic, but also tough enough to force his way. This is bound to change the landscape of American politics. It makes significant progress on other issues – financial reform, immigration, perhaps even the reduced use of carbon fuels – more plausible.
While Republicans leaders like John McCain and Sarah Palin have said it’s time to “retreat and reload” in order to stop healthcare and other reforms in the next election, Obama seems unfazed. Standing tall in his victory, the President has said, “If Republicans want to campaign in November on the basis of taking people’s healthcare away, I am ready for that, bring it on.”
The comment suggests a newly emboldened President who is unafraid to provoke a confrontation with the minority party, even as he insists he still hopes to work in a bipartisan way.
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