Category | Op Ed

Afganistan and health care: Obama’s quagmire

Published on August 31, 2009 by Noah Solomon

The health care debate continues to rage on, fueled by angry protestors at town hall meetings around the country and annoyed liberals insisting these protestors are misinformed.

Even President Barack Obama took to a campaign trail of sorts a few weeks ago to try to encourage support for the impending legislation. The standstill the debate seems to have reached is not unusual, and  it was anticipated as people saw the opposition picking up.

Were it the only issue to be solved, the length of the health care debate wouldn’t be a significant problem. However, President Obama has another looming problem that will surely need attention soon: Afghanistan.

Since the beginning of his presidency, President Obama has repeatedly stressed the importance of the war in Afghanistan, shifting the focus to it, instead of the war on terror in Iraq, where it had been during the Bush years.

The troop surge to Afghanistan in February proved President Obama’s commitment to the war there, and he continues to uphold the significance of winning. In recent months, though, polls have shown the public’s support of the war, however bolstered it was by the president’s opinion, has dropped, with the most recent results showing that fifty-one percent of adults believe the war in Afghanistan is no longer worth fighting.

Left to itself, public opinion on the war will continue to fall until it reaches Iraq-worthy levels. This puts President Obama in a dilemma. He wants the health care legislation to pass, and if he had his way, there would be a government option. But with public opposition to the public option mounting, it looks like those in favor of it are in for a long and arduous debate.

With public support for the war in Afghanistan falling and the impracticality of the administration attempting to tackle both issues at once, President Obama will surely have to hurry along the health care bill if he wants to get to Afghanistan as an issue while he still has the chance to turn the tide of public opinion in its favor.

Of course, the main issue with the health care bill is the idea of a public option. As the recent town hall debates have shown, more people are becoming frustrated with the idea of a government-run health care initiative. The congressional Republicans almost universally oppose this idea, and many moderate Democrats have expressed apprehension at the notion, especially those who come from districts that voted for John McCain in the 2008 election.

The future of a health care bill including a public option is uncertain, and with the need to move Afghanistan to the forefront, President Obama is going to have to accept cutting the public option out of the bill. President Obama and his allies in Congress want the public option to remain in, as they believe it is a necessity for all Americans to be insured by any means possible, but voices of dissent are starting to be heard across the nation.

President Obama will have a long and tough road ahead of him if he continues to push the public option, as nearly all GOP and even some Democratic congressmen and senators are, at the very least, extremely wary of how their constituents might respond to their vote on a health care bill containing the proposal.

If President Obama did not have Afghanistan to deal with, he could take more time on the health care issue and thus have a better chance of convincing enough people to quell the dissent and get a public option passed.

Unfortunately for him, Afghanistan is a very real problem he has to deal with. With the public in a furor over any government-run health care initiative, any health care reform bill that has any chance of passing, before the public opinion on Afghanistan becomes unsalvageable, will have to drop any idea of a public option.