Democrats must find their voice on healthcare reform

For the history, turn to two healthcare losers -- presidents Harry Truman and Bill Clinton. After their plans went down, the two men chose very different directions -- at precisely the fork in today's political road.

Truman submitted his healthcare plan in 1946 to mighty cries of "socialism!" So many groups lined up to blast the proposal that Congress extended its hearings and then buried the plan. The Democrats lost their congressional majorities, and Truman went into the 1948 reelection campaign polling below 30%.

If ever there was a time to retreat on healthcare, this was it. Instead, Truman (who had been, as he put it, "a dub of a speaker") found his voice. He passionately embraced the policies he cared about, especially national health insurance. Fifteen times a day on his long, famous whistle-stop tour he would rise and scorch the medical lobbies and their congressional pals. Truman, of course, won that election. He never came close on healthcare reform, but he kept on fighting. As a result, he left his party a legacy, an ideal to fight for.

When Medicare passed, 15 years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would fly to Missouri and sign the bill in front of Harry. Nervous aides fretted about echoes of "socialism," but LBJ brushed them aside. There would be no Medicare without Truman, he insisted. As Johnson put his pen to the paper at the Truman Library in Independence, he looked at his predecessor and said: "Many men can make proposals, [and] many men can draft laws. . . . But few have the courage to stake reputation . . . and the effort of a lifetime upon a cause."

Contrast the Clinton effort in 1994. That legislation got a lot further than Harry's. And Clinton was no "dub" of a speaker -- most people have forgotten how eloquent he could be about healthcare reform. "Forty years from now, our grandchildren will find it unthinkable," he said before a joint session of Congress, "that there was a time in this country when hardworking families lost everything . . . because their children got sick."

Republicans privately expressed alarm that the program might reconnect the Democrats with the middle class. After considerable debate between the old guard and the young rebels, Republicans united and killed the reform (Clinton had 56 votes in the Senate and couldn't, in the end, woo any Republicans to break the filibuster). Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) famously quipped: "We've killed healthcare reform. Now we've got to make sure our fingerprints are not on it."

Packwood did not need to worry. The Democrats dropped the issue and walked away. In his autobiography, "My Life," Clinton wrote only that he "felt bad for Hillary" and that he should have tried welfare reform first. What about the families that lost everything because a child got sick? Forgotten.

When Democrats abandoned the cause, the opponents controlled the historical spin. Today, everyone "knows" that the Republicans saved America from Clinton's maladroit mess. Three months later, in the midterm elections of 1994, Republicans won their widest political victory in the 20th century, and the prospect of healthcare reform vanished along with Democratic majorities.

And here we are again. Democrats contemplate scaling back or walking away. Instead, they ought to channel their inner Trumans. Find a voice. Explain why they believe in reform. After all, why would people vote for a party without a cause?

Which brings us to the story line. The Democratic leaders have not gotten credit for running this difficult reform through the daunting congressional gantlet. It hasn't been pretty -- Democratic leaders are talking ruefully about sausage-making -- but they played the inside game brilliantly.

But they forgot to tell their story to the people. Every big piece of legislation is a contest of ideas about what the nation needs. The Republicans told their story with exquisite skill. "Death panels," socialism and "government takeover" were all colorful ways to opt for private markets over government policy.