This New York Times story about how “New York’s professional and cultural elite” are being hurt by Obamacare must have made for rough reading at the White House. Forcing their most devoted supporters to confront the reality of their policies can’t be a good idea for the Democrats. It can lead to paragraphs like this one in the Times:
It is not lost on many of the professionals that they are exactly the sort of people — liberal, concerned with social justice — who supported the Obama health plan in the first place. Ms. Meinwald, the lawyer, said she was a lifelong Democrat who still supported better health care for all, but had she known what was in store for her, she would have voted for Mitt Romney.
That very paragraph, though, in its careless equation of liberalism with concern for social justice, points the way out of the crisis of confidence — just ignore reality. The very end of the story puts it best:
It is an uncomfortable position for many members of the creative classes to be in.
“We are the Obama people,” said Camille Sweeney, a New York writer and member of the Authors Guild. Her insurance is being canceled, and she is dismayed that neither her pediatrician nor her general practitioner appears to be on the exchange plans. What to do has become a hot topic on Facebook and at dinner parties frequented by her fellow writers and artists.
“I’m for it,” she said. “But what is the reality of it?”
Answer first, question second. This would be funny if it weren’t so sad and serious.