Obama's Health Reforms and the Limits of Public Reason

Abstract

Edward Kennedy, the great liberal senator from Massachusetts, has died at 77 and with him an era of American politics that was marked by bipartisanship and by a less strident tone, when the GOP had not yet succumbed to the fundamentalist right. He was, as most commentators know, a man who was committed to universal health reform and determined to provide health insurance for all Americans as part of the American dream and 'the cause of his life'. Immediately following, it was not clear whether Kennedy's death would propel, delay or derail the proposed health reforms. Some argued that Obama has over-estimated the public's reception of Truman- or Roosevelt-style government intervention. The actual substance of the reforms is not my real concern here.