The Senate Republican leader is channeling a couple of GOP golden oldies to oppose a public option in the health care reform pending in Congress.
Unlike Harry and Louise in the 1993 TV commercials to torpedo the Clintons' initiative, Mitch McConnell's protagonists are real people--sort of--Bruce Hardy of England and Shona Holmes of Canada, who have been brought out to personify the horrors of "socialized medicine." But their stories have been as edited as a TV commercial to make the point.
Hardy had to pay for a new cancer drug for two months before it was approved. McConnell's take: “The government bureaucrats who run Britain’s health care system denied the treatment, saying the drug was too expensive...that Bruce Hardy’s life wasn’t worth it.”
About Holmes, who paid for her own surgery in the US as she could have in Canada, the GOP leader finds this lesson: "Here’s how Shona described her plight: ‘If I’d relied on my government, I’d be dead,’ Shona’s life was eventually saved because she came to the United States for the care she needed.”
This Harry-and-Louise flummery is part of a last-ditch effort to persuade Americans that the choice of a public plan to, in President Obama's words, "keep the insurance companies honest" is no less than a takeover of the entire industry.
As Paul Krugman notes, there are two lessons in the current debate: "(1) Don't trust the insurance industry. (2) Don't trust the insurance industry...The insurance industry will do everything it can to avoid being held accountable."
Including manufacturing a new generation of Harrys and Louises.
Showing posts with label Harry and Louise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harry and Louise. Show all posts
Friday, June 05, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Health Care on the Back Burner?
Some Democrats are still gun-shy about health care reform, dating back to the Clintons' fiasco in the early 1990s, according to House Majority Whip James Clyburn who, in a C-Span interview Sunday, said he doesn't anticipate comprehensive healthcare legislation in 2009.
Despite President Obama's campaign promises of universal coverage, Clyburn pointed to recent expansion of S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) and proposed additional spending on community health centers as going "a long way to building a foundation upon which to build a universal access healthcare program.
"I would much rather see it done that way, incrementally, than to go out and just bite something you can't chew. We've been down that road. I still remember 1994."
Clyburn's reticence is an echo of what now seems like ancient history--the early incompetence of the Clinton White House, the health insurers' "Harry and Louis" TV commercials and the debacle that gave Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America control of Congress in the midterm elections.
If health care reform is to survive in the economic stimulus debate, Tom Daschle and the Obama Administration will have to depend on the Senate where Ted Kennedy and others seem more determined to keep Americans from suffering and dying "incrementally."
Despite President Obama's campaign promises of universal coverage, Clyburn pointed to recent expansion of S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) and proposed additional spending on community health centers as going "a long way to building a foundation upon which to build a universal access healthcare program.
"I would much rather see it done that way, incrementally, than to go out and just bite something you can't chew. We've been down that road. I still remember 1994."
Clyburn's reticence is an echo of what now seems like ancient history--the early incompetence of the Clinton White House, the health insurers' "Harry and Louis" TV commercials and the debacle that gave Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America control of Congress in the midterm elections.
If health care reform is to survive in the economic stimulus debate, Tom Daschle and the Obama Administration will have to depend on the Senate where Ted Kennedy and others seem more determined to keep Americans from suffering and dying "incrementally."
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Democrats' Sickly Approach to Health Care
Even as their presidential candidates debate differences between plans for universal coverage, Congressional Democrats are waving white flags in the coming battle to get anything done.
Leaders of the party that should gain decisive control in November, according to The Hill, are busy explaining the expected defeat of health care reform.
“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” says Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Finance Committee member and an Obama backer. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.”
New York's Chuck Schumer, who is for Hillary Clinton, agrees, saying he is “not sure we have the big plan on healthcare...not sure that we’re ready for a major national healthcare plan.”
Translation: The health insurance corporations, the drug companies and their Harry-and-Louise lobbyists will still be draining one out of every three dollars spent to cure and heal Americans for their own profit and drowning out any voices for change with loud chants about "socialized medicine."
The lawmakers cite the Clintons' failed attempt at reform in 1993 and even George Bush's defeat in trying to privatize Social Security as precedents for going slowly or, more accurately, glacially in expanding health-care coverage.
Under a Democratic President, we will likely get the expansion of SCHIP coverage that Bush vetoed and more funding for stem cell research, but not much else.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus predicts an uphill battle on health-care reform. “If they try to solve all the problems," he says, "it’s going to be difficult." And possibly unhealthy for their campaigns in the next election cycle.
Leaders of the party that should gain decisive control in November, according to The Hill, are busy explaining the expected defeat of health care reform.
“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” says Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Finance Committee member and an Obama backer. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.”
New York's Chuck Schumer, who is for Hillary Clinton, agrees, saying he is “not sure we have the big plan on healthcare...not sure that we’re ready for a major national healthcare plan.”
Translation: The health insurance corporations, the drug companies and their Harry-and-Louise lobbyists will still be draining one out of every three dollars spent to cure and heal Americans for their own profit and drowning out any voices for change with loud chants about "socialized medicine."
The lawmakers cite the Clintons' failed attempt at reform in 1993 and even George Bush's defeat in trying to privatize Social Security as precedents for going slowly or, more accurately, glacially in expanding health-care coverage.
Under a Democratic President, we will likely get the expansion of SCHIP coverage that Bush vetoed and more funding for stem cell research, but not much else.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus predicts an uphill battle on health-care reform. “If they try to solve all the problems," he says, "it’s going to be difficult." And possibly unhealthy for their campaigns in the next election cycle.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Harry and Louise's Golden Years
In the early 1990s, they were on TV all the time, a middle-aged, middle-class American couple named Harry and Louise, sitting around the kitchen table, worrying that Hillary Clinton’s health care plan would get between them and their doctor.
Today, that Clinton woman will be back again with her radical ideas about insurance for everyone, but will Harry and Louise still be worrying about socialized medicine?
Not Harry. When his company went bankrupt a few years later, he and Louise lost their insurance and couldn’t get new coverage because of Harry’s asthma and coronary history.
They lost the family doctor they loved so much, too. He switched his practice to “concierge care,” but Harry and Louise couldn’t afford the $2000 annual dues to stay on his roster of patients.
Louise can’t be sure but, if Harry had been getting his annual checkups and follow-up visits, he might have avoided or survived the heart attack that killed him at the age of 60.
As a widow, Louise has now reached the age of being eligible for Medicare. She is still free to see any doctor she chooses, but it bothers her that the government is involved in her health care and she is waiting with some annoyance to see what mischief Hillary is up to now.
Today, that Clinton woman will be back again with her radical ideas about insurance for everyone, but will Harry and Louise still be worrying about socialized medicine?
Not Harry. When his company went bankrupt a few years later, he and Louise lost their insurance and couldn’t get new coverage because of Harry’s asthma and coronary history.
They lost the family doctor they loved so much, too. He switched his practice to “concierge care,” but Harry and Louise couldn’t afford the $2000 annual dues to stay on his roster of patients.
Louise can’t be sure but, if Harry had been getting his annual checkups and follow-up visits, he might have avoided or survived the heart attack that killed him at the age of 60.
As a widow, Louise has now reached the age of being eligible for Medicare. She is still free to see any doctor she chooses, but it bothers her that the government is involved in her health care and she is waiting with some annoyance to see what mischief Hillary is up to now.
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