As debate in the U.S. Senate finally got under way last week (over the unanimous objection of Republicans, who see this issue as a weapon with which they may hack their way back into the glorious land of committee chairmanships and lobbyist-love – perhaps even to the White House in three years), health care is becoming the single most profitable lobbying activity ever to appear in Washington.

With just the reported totals known, the dollar-lobbying tab is already approaching $400 million, and Time magazine reports that the drug industry alone is employing 2.3 lobbyists for every member of Congress. In addition to those hard-charging souls paid by druggies – think about the doctors, visiting nurses, therapists, hospitals, terminal care, hospices, receptionists, dribble houses and, above all, your HMO and corporate insurance mouthpieces by the Cadillac-load.

The spending of special interests over the pot of gold that health care represents makes the totals of lobbying for national defense (including the military/industrial complex) – even corn in Iowa – seem bush league.

If those figures don’t make you ill at ease, you need a brain transplant. You need not go all the way to Denmark to find something rotten.

Health care is clearly the property of Mr. Obama and the Democrats, so the issue was first seen as a flag around which dispirited Republicans could be rallied. Their leadership announced during early pep rallies, “If we can kill this bill, we’ve finished Obama.” But the size of spending indicates that the ante has been raised. Its defeat has become more than a cynical political ploy. It threatens one of the legs of the GOP stool – unfettered corporate benefits.

At first the strategists relied on plain old Limbaugh/Palin “death option” rhetoric – along with manipulation, misrepresentation and legislative legerdemain. But time is showing those tactics to be insufficient. With the Democrats finally able to bring the question to the floor – when the proposal finally reached the bar of public opinion and town hall meetings were exposed for the staged nonsense they were – GOP defense became desperate: “Faustus, make us an offer. Our soul is for sale!”

But the devil could not deliver – 38 to 60 – so Republicans are now reduced to argue like the maiden who promises eventual capitulation, but who has no intention of delivering. The tactic now is: “Let’s think it over,” “there’s no hurry,” “not tonight, darling” and “later, I promise.”

But delay for more talk also seems doomed to failure, mostly because health care is nothing new. The idea has been around almost as long as the Republic. The very first exponent of public health was (believe it or not) the father of today’s Republican party, John Adams, who levied a tax against ship owners for a fund to provide for indigent, sick and injured sailors.

Even though little happened for a time since flinty old John showed his soft side, health care is by no means a new issue that needs more talk. The issue has been proposed and seriously discussed since at least 1912 (the same year England began its own universal health), when a group of economists that included Louis Brandeis, Jane Addams and Woodrow Wilson, urged its adoption. Unfortunately, this initial effort was given the deep six by the U.S. entry to World War I. (Can one see any ghosts of Christmases past in our current wars?) Then, with the 1920s as a decade of the Elephant, the next effort had to wait until FDR. Unfortunately, it also fell victim to a world war. In the ‘50s, a Democratic Congress actually enacted a plan, but was overcome by Eisenhower, who said, as he took up his veto pen, “I do this to prevent low quality socialized medicine.”

Ike, otherwise a perceptive man, apparently did not realize that since he first saw Army doctors at West Point as a young boy, during his entire life he had enjoyed nothing but “socialized medicine” himself. But, in health care, as in many other fields, perception is reality.

A casual review reveals further additional efforts in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and, of course, Clinton’s near miss in the ‘90s.

Therefore, to imply, hint, pretend, or even imagine that national health care needs more thought, or more research, or more discussion, is to ring a cracked bell. Universal health care is an idea whose time has more than come.

Even as the maiden continues to cross her legs in desperation and cry, “Can’t we wait just a little bit more?” the horse continues to clop clop clop toward the barn.

This time he’ll get there for sure.

Rodney Quinn, who lives in Gorham, is a former Maine secretary of state. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.

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