Democrats: Hang together or hang separately

He recognized the Democrats' notorious lack of party discipline when they gain a majority. The Democrats have always had problems keeping moderate and conservative members, especially Southerners, marching to the music of their party's northern and west coast composers. The Democratic split over national health care reform is the glaring example of the moment.

Democrats on the Senate's Finance Committee, chaired by Max Baucus of Montana, illustrate this bad habit. The committee's bill includes no government insurance plan. Two amendments were offered last week to add such a public option, one by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WVA, and the other by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY.

Democrats split on the vote, giving the unified Republicans a majority "no" vote on both amendments. The wavering Democrats seemed to have forgotten the debates last year in which every major Democratic presidential candidate campaigned for some form of government health care reform. The big difference of opinion in those debates was over universal health care, not whether the government would have a role in national health care.

Voters wanted a change and they voted for Barack Obama in a clear majority because he promised a change, especially in the country's expensive and exclusive health care system.

It is worth repeating for the slow learners that the country's current system costs are far higher per capita than any other similarly industrialized nation. People here—you and I—spend from 44 to 100 percent more than people there. And we're going to spend 9 percent more next year if nothing changes.

And what do we get? Lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and quality of care ranked 37th in the world. And industries rendered uncompetitive globally by high, employee medical benefits.

This past summer's noisy opposition to health care and to President Obama in particular scared some Democrats. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-AR, was cowed by these rude and raucous crowds in her town hall meetings, and she was one of the Finance Committee Democrats to vote against the public option amendments. She is running for re-election in 2010.

The angry YouTube celebrities' sound and fury is abating. A recent New York Times/CBS poll showed a quiet majority still in favor of not just a public option but universal health care. The non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation poll last week showed 57 percent consider national health care reform more important than ever. Democrats who retreated from the town hall protesters believe they can appease such opponents. They can't. The more disciplined Republicans will vote against any plan by President Obama and those summer soldiers of Rush Limbaugh will vote against any Democrat in 2010. So will all those voters who wanted national health care in 2008 and who continue to want it in 2009. And they are a really big crowd.

Nervous Democrats who don't recognize that dynamic will, as Benjamin Franklin famously warned, hang separately in next year's elections if they don't hang together on health care now.