It’s turning out to be a long, hot summer in the Northern Hemisphere.  No, not the dreadful sort of heatwave that Europe remembers from six years ago, when thousands of the elderly died from withering heat in their homes or at shelters or even hospitals that seemed incapable of providing necessary relief.  This year the summer heat is of the political kind, generated by a high pressure system hanging over Washington and covering the North American continent with hot air.  As voters confront politicians, there are reports of stormy encounters over the Democrats’ health care plans.  So far, no clearing of the air.

Health care is now a red hot issue in the United States, which is a pity, because complicated issues like how to pay for expensive health care require sober, reasoned, open-minded debate.  Those who have inflamed this debate — a large part of the Republican Party — have done so knowing that hyperbolic rhetoric is something they can gin up but then can’t control.  Sarah Palin, the ex-governor of Alaska, has called the Obama Administration’s plans on health care “downright evil.” Rush Limbaugh, a radio rabble rouser and the country’s best known Republican, compares Obama to Hitler:

One of Hitler’s major domestic priorities was to complete and politicize the process of nationalizing all aspects of German health care.  And a good friend of mine, Andy McCarthy, sent me a long article today published in November 1993 by a US doctor who saw the health care issue as a perfect example of the inevitable pattern of socialism: Taking something that was initially the province of individual choice — guided by, of course, the individual Judeo-Christian notions of charity for the poor. You take something initially the province of individual choice, you move it to the ambit of state responsibility on the welfare state theory that it is government’s responsibility to redistribute resources to ensure everyone’s needs and you finally get the dictatorial control.

For 75 years, America has had a modest social safety net of government pensions for the elderly and the physically incapacitated.  For almost 50 years, America has had a system of federal support for medical care for the elderly and the poor.  The last President, Republican George W. Bush, actually expanded this system to help cover expensive medicines for the elderly.  None of these popular government programs turned the U.S. into a socialist state.  The current proposals to expand the U.S. government’s role in regulating insurance payments for health care may be imperfect, even ill-advised, but they are hardly the start of national socialism in America.

Yet this is the state of play in domestic American politics this summer. Members of the U.S. Congress who gamely sought to engage their constituents in dialogue about paying for health care found that

Seeing Red

addressing a town hall meeting was like hitting a hornet’s nest.  Will they come back to Washington next month wary of taking any action, lest they be accused of being Nazis or Communists?  Since Obama made reforming health care in the U.S. a top priority of his Administration, how would a failure on health care affect his ability to be effective on other issues, including foreign policy?

The fairest arguments over the Democrats’ health care plans have to do with the cost of reform.  Obama has claimed that his plans will eventually pay for themselves.  Americans have trouble remembering any time such a promise from Washington has been credible.  And, because they are economically vulnerable, Americans today are fearful of incurring any new costs.  Ironically, in such circumstances they are more likely to lose their current health insurance, which is precisely why further government efforts to ensure coverage are warranted, no matter how hot the summer.