Health Care Debate Cements US as Can't-Do Nation

As centrist Democrats concoct yet more reasons the US can’t do what every other advanced economy has done—provide universal health care—Harold Meyerson had a disturbing thought: “Suppose our collective lack of response to Hurricane Katrina wasn’t exceptional, but rather the new normal in America,” he writes in the Washington Post. “Suppose America is now the world’s leading can’t-do country.”

Once upon a time, Democrats managed to create Social Security and Medicare over the objections of special interests and Republicans. But today’s feckless lot of centrists and “Blue Dogs” isn’t even willing to tax a fraction of the wealthiest 1% of the populace to pay for their initiative, Meyerson fumes, despite their supposed budget hawkishness: “As our former president might put it, Heckuva job, Brownies.” (More health care stories.)