Myths of the middle class

There are three critical elements standing in the way of healthcare reform in the United States that have thus far been ignored: the ghost of McCarthyism and anti-communism; a middle class that will not accept its lack of financial security; and a lack of curiosity about alternative healthcare systems elsewhere in the world.

Long after the words "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" broke the back of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communism, his ghost has haunted the US. From the Cuban missile crisis and the fear of a atomic cloud, to today's enduring mistrust of government, communism remained the country's bogeyman. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan battled the Soviet Union while also reducing taxes for the wealthy, destroying unions and rolling back social welfare payments. It was Reagan who introduced the term "welfare queen", a term that stereotyped black women as making a good living by milking the government. Bill Clinton continued Reagan's war on the welfare queens and all but dismantled the US welfare system.

Somewhere along the way, social welfare had turned into socialism, which to the American imagination meant supporting the lazy and freeloading at the expense of the hard working middle class. But who was in the middle class? In a 2003 Washington Times article, What is Middle Class?, author Chris Baker wrote: "There is no real definition of the middle class in the United States, assert economists and sociologists, who say "middle class" always has been more of a state of mind than an actual economic status."

President Obama is right in arguing that what is at stake in the debate over healthcare reform is the very heart of the "American character". Will it be defined by a "rugged individualism" or a belief that, as a collective, we have a moral responsibility to each other?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/13/healthcare-reform-middle-class