Our Decrepit Democracy Can't Fix Health Care: Klein

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 30, 2009 11:52 AM CDT

(Newser) – Powerful special interests are killing health-care reform, which is par for the course in Congress, writes Joe Klein of Time. “We’ve gotten rusty at legislating,” says one Tennessee Democrat. That’s overly kind, Klein retorts. The only bills that pass these days are essentials like budgets and “cotton-candy giveaways.” The best of the health-care proposals, Ron Wyden’s, is doomed because no special interests are backing it.

Economist Mancur Olson once argued that as democracies mature, their special interests become entrenched, trumping the needs of society as a whole. Sound familiar? Throw in the advent of the 20-second ad—which simultaneously forced lawmakers to take money from special interests and guard their votes against attack spots—and you have a poisonous recipe for conservative governance. “Doing nothing," Klein laments, "is the easiest thing.”

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President Barack Obama participates in an AARP tele-town hall on health care, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Joe Klein of Time Magazine appears on NBC's 'Meet the Press' during a taping at the NBC studios March 6, 2005 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

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One of the most difficult things to do in a democracy is react to a problem that is real, but not immediately threatening. - Joe Klein

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