As Congress stumbles toward a final deal, the process is a reminder of the disheartening political climate in which we live today.
No one will really be happy with the final result. How could they be? In a world where human considerations are swamped by partisan posturing, the bottom line, if anyone can figure out what it is, will not be how much better or worse it makes our society but who wins and who loses. At heart, it will be a collection of poor compromises.
Here, for example, is Harry Reid, the worst Senate Majority Leader in memory, after reading the opinion polls, trying to hold on to his sliding-away seat with a last-minute conversion to a half-baked semblance of the public option to erase his months of indifference until now.
On the left, whatever remains of the public option will not satisfy those who, with good reason, resent the grip that insurance companies have on their health and well-being, yet Paul Krugman manages to be relatively exuberant:
"(I)f the Massachusetts experience is any guide, health care reform will have broad public support once it’s in place and the scare stories are proved false. The new health care system will be criticized; people will demand changes and improvements; but only a small minority will want reform reversed."
On the right, Olympia Snowe, the Republican heroine of the Finance Committee is sliding away from bipartisanship because the crippling of the public option by an opt-out for states is not as effective as her trigger proposal to delay it altogether.
A month or two or three for now, Congress and the President will be able to claim a historic accomplishment in health care reform, but how much heart will be left in it?
Showing posts with label public option. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public option. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Reform to Ruin Eyes and Make Us Crazy
The medical specialists most likely to benefit from the health care debate are optometrists as the Senate Finance Committee releases its 1502-page text and mental health professionals as a new poll shows a national mood swing from August rage against a public option to 57 percent of Americans in favor of it.
Max Baucus' masterwork can now be read as a sequel to the 839-page tome by the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, with which it will be merged into a doorstop of legislation to reconcile with the distillation of three House versions that Pelosi Publishers are touting as a discounted alternative.
Beyond the eye strain on Congress and its followers, the emotional toll is rising as the Wall Street Journal concedes that "a government-run health-insurance plan, once on life support in the Senate, is making a recovery among Democrats writing health-care legislation."
Now the best-selling author in the White House is charged with somehow melding these messy narratives into a coherent story of future American health care. Long past the audacity of hope spawned by dreams of bipartisanship, Barack Obama would do well to emulate John F. Kennedy, who took a speed-reading course in the Oval Office, and after digesting all this, suggest some simpler story lines.
In preparing for final publication, the President may want to recommend that Congress start by lifting a line from Dr. Spock's all-time best seller to tell Americans, "You know more than you think you do."
If they don't, look out for the bad reviews next November.
Max Baucus' masterwork can now be read as a sequel to the 839-page tome by the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, with which it will be merged into a doorstop of legislation to reconcile with the distillation of three House versions that Pelosi Publishers are touting as a discounted alternative.
Beyond the eye strain on Congress and its followers, the emotional toll is rising as the Wall Street Journal concedes that "a government-run health-insurance plan, once on life support in the Senate, is making a recovery among Democrats writing health-care legislation."
Now the best-selling author in the White House is charged with somehow melding these messy narratives into a coherent story of future American health care. Long past the audacity of hope spawned by dreams of bipartisanship, Barack Obama would do well to emulate John F. Kennedy, who took a speed-reading course in the Oval Office, and after digesting all this, suggest some simpler story lines.
In preparing for final publication, the President may want to recommend that Congress start by lifting a line from Dr. Spock's all-time best seller to tell Americans, "You know more than you think you do."
If they don't, look out for the bad reviews next November.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Now for the Ugly Part...
The assembly line in the Congressional sausage factory is ready to roll, to stuff what Max Baucus' butchers have hacked up into a casing with scraps from four other committees in the Senate and House.
Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the "Bill Blenders" start work today in a process that will make the past few months look like the Lincoln-Douglas debates as lobbying groups across the spectrum flood Washington with "a torrent of spending and grassroots activity" to influence what gets into the final product.
Underlying all the din will be the central question: How much control over American health care will remain in the hands of the profiteers who have made it the most expensive and one of the worst systems in the world?
The White House, after months of trying placate the implacable, is finally framing the issue openly as Obama's deputy communications director puts it: "The insurance industry has decided to lead the charge against health reform, and everyone recognizes their motives: profits, We are going to make sure they can't sink this effort at the last minute."
The saddest part of the spectacle in the coming weeks will be the near-impossibility of a rational public conversation about the issue in a time when TV ads will make "Harry and Louise" look like "The Waltons" and the staged public outrage will make the Tea Parties look like tea parties.
The Wall Street Journal fires its first salvo at "ObamaCare" with a scare editorial about cost controls in Massachusetts and a promise to explain what the Senate Finance Committee did yesterday that its members fail to understand. "You know," it warns, "who wins when the interests of government conflict with those of patients to choose a doctor or treatment."
The only consolation for all this bilge is that it has finally reached the stage where individual voices can be heard with letters, phone calls and emails to Senators and Representatives, urging them to stand up for the public interest, and some form of the public option, against the privateers who have held American health care hostage for more than half a century.
Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the "Bill Blenders" start work today in a process that will make the past few months look like the Lincoln-Douglas debates as lobbying groups across the spectrum flood Washington with "a torrent of spending and grassroots activity" to influence what gets into the final product.
Underlying all the din will be the central question: How much control over American health care will remain in the hands of the profiteers who have made it the most expensive and one of the worst systems in the world?
The White House, after months of trying placate the implacable, is finally framing the issue openly as Obama's deputy communications director puts it: "The insurance industry has decided to lead the charge against health reform, and everyone recognizes their motives: profits, We are going to make sure they can't sink this effort at the last minute."
The saddest part of the spectacle in the coming weeks will be the near-impossibility of a rational public conversation about the issue in a time when TV ads will make "Harry and Louise" look like "The Waltons" and the staged public outrage will make the Tea Parties look like tea parties.
The Wall Street Journal fires its first salvo at "ObamaCare" with a scare editorial about cost controls in Massachusetts and a promise to explain what the Senate Finance Committee did yesterday that its members fail to understand. "You know," it warns, "who wins when the interests of government conflict with those of patients to choose a doctor or treatment."
The only consolation for all this bilge is that it has finally reached the stage where individual voices can be heard with letters, phone calls and emails to Senators and Representatives, urging them to stand up for the public interest, and some form of the public option, against the privateers who have held American health care hostage for more than half a century.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
President Baucus Prevails
The man who received 345,937 votes (and $11.6 million of health lobbyist donations), has overruled Barack Obama, the choice of 69,498,215 Americans, who presented his proposals to a joint session of Congress last week.
President Baucus' plan, which omits a public insurance option and other key elements favored by the occupant of the White House as well as other Congressional committees, is seen as holding together "the fragile coalition of major industry leaders and interest groups central to refashioning the nation's $2.5 trillion health-care system."
According to the Washington Post, evidence that Baucus will control the final bill is "the calm emanating from organizations that have criticized House health-care bills and a version approved by the Senate health committee" and that drugmakers and hospitals "had little to say" about the plan he announced yesterday.
Their silence may be traced to the fact that their money has already done the talking with nearly $170 million in contributions to federal lawmakers in the past two years.
Even so, the Wall Street Journ complains that the Baucus plan "remains a public option by other means, imposing vast new national insurance regulation, huge new subsidies to pay for the higher insurance costs this regulation will require and all financed by new taxes and penalties on businesses, individuals and health-care providers."
We have reached the point in the debate where the fine print in the reform proposals is no easier to read and understand than the vaunted insurance contracts for consumers that Republicans are fighting so hard to protect.
"Given reservations expressed Wednesday by members of both parties," the New York Times reports, "the Baucus bill is likely to be modified as it lurches through the committee to the Senate floor and then, presumably, on to negotiations with the House."
In the end, we are not likely to get what opponents deride as Obamacare but some bastardized version of Baucuscare, which will be much worse.
President Baucus' plan, which omits a public insurance option and other key elements favored by the occupant of the White House as well as other Congressional committees, is seen as holding together "the fragile coalition of major industry leaders and interest groups central to refashioning the nation's $2.5 trillion health-care system."
According to the Washington Post, evidence that Baucus will control the final bill is "the calm emanating from organizations that have criticized House health-care bills and a version approved by the Senate health committee" and that drugmakers and hospitals "had little to say" about the plan he announced yesterday.
Their silence may be traced to the fact that their money has already done the talking with nearly $170 million in contributions to federal lawmakers in the past two years.
Even so, the Wall Street Journ complains that the Baucus plan "remains a public option by other means, imposing vast new national insurance regulation, huge new subsidies to pay for the higher insurance costs this regulation will require and all financed by new taxes and penalties on businesses, individuals and health-care providers."
We have reached the point in the debate where the fine print in the reform proposals is no easier to read and understand than the vaunted insurance contracts for consumers that Republicans are fighting so hard to protect.
"Given reservations expressed Wednesday by members of both parties," the New York Times reports, "the Baucus bill is likely to be modified as it lurches through the committee to the Senate floor and then, presumably, on to negotiations with the House."
In the end, we are not likely to get what opponents deride as Obamacare but some bastardized version of Baucuscare, which will be much worse.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Fate of the Public Option
What used to the key element of Obama health care reform is ready to be chloroformed by the President with Sen. Olympia Snowe standing by to assist him in the procedure.
The anesthetic is Snowe's "trigger mechanism" that would give insurance companies a defined period to make changes to cover more people and drive down costs. But if changes failed to occur, the "trigger" would be pulled, creating a public option to force change on the insurers.
In the Senate Finance Committee, Snowe is the last Republican straw the White House can grasp for the appearance of bipartisanship as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel promises the President will be “more prescriptive than he has been to date” in his address to Congress next week.
But with opposition rising and approval ratings falling, the new politics of Barack Obama is looking more and more like the usual Washington game of settling for half a loaf or less with both sides declaring victory.
Meanwhile, the beat of the public debate goes as a 65-year-old backer of Obama health care is disqualified from expressing an opinion on the trigger mechanism by having his finger bitten off by an opponent during a rally in California. No word on whether Medicare or private insurance will pay the medical bills.
The anesthetic is Snowe's "trigger mechanism" that would give insurance companies a defined period to make changes to cover more people and drive down costs. But if changes failed to occur, the "trigger" would be pulled, creating a public option to force change on the insurers.
In the Senate Finance Committee, Snowe is the last Republican straw the White House can grasp for the appearance of bipartisanship as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel promises the President will be “more prescriptive than he has been to date” in his address to Congress next week.
But with opposition rising and approval ratings falling, the new politics of Barack Obama is looking more and more like the usual Washington game of settling for half a loaf or less with both sides declaring victory.
Meanwhile, the beat of the public debate goes as a 65-year-old backer of Obama health care is disqualified from expressing an opinion on the trigger mechanism by having his finger bitten off by an opponent during a rally in California. No word on whether Medicare or private insurance will pay the medical bills.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Yes We Can...What?
Team Obama is in full campaign mode, firing off e-mails and organizing events to push ahead for health care reform, but nobody knows exactly where the goal line is.
According to the Washington Post, "President Obama's supporters hope to recapture the energy of last year's triumphant election campaign in a bid to regain control of the health-care debate, planning more than 2,000 house parties, rallies and town hall meetings across the country over the next two weeks."
The trouble with such exertion is that the object is not pulling the lever in a presidential election or urging a simple affirmative Congressional vote but influencing thousands of pages of still-shifting legislation in both Houses.
Yes, we can...what?
In the morass of issues involved, only the public option has come into focus to be distorted by lobbyists and loons into a future of government control and death panels, Big Lies that have to be answered with long and convoluted explanations
The demagoguery level is so high that Paul Krugman today resorts to nostalgia for the Unindicted Co-Conspirator, arguing that "Nixon’s proposal for health care reform looks a lot like Democratic proposals today. In fact, in some ways it was stronger."
On the other side of the ideological divide, George Will asserts, with some justice, that on health care reform "our ubiquitous president became the nation's elevator music, always out and about, heard but not really listened to, like audible wallpaper."
All this puts Obama supporters in the position of rushing around in all directions, trying to contain the flames of opposition in the equivalent of a Chinese fire drill.
As the Right revels in its newfound voice and the Left indicts the President for losing his nerve, health care reform is evolving beyond a crucial political and economic issue.
In many ways, it is becoming a test of how well American democracy can let rational voices be heard in a 21st century Tower of Babel--of whether Obama's new politics has enough power to revive and revitalize the best of the old.
According to the Washington Post, "President Obama's supporters hope to recapture the energy of last year's triumphant election campaign in a bid to regain control of the health-care debate, planning more than 2,000 house parties, rallies and town hall meetings across the country over the next two weeks."
The trouble with such exertion is that the object is not pulling the lever in a presidential election or urging a simple affirmative Congressional vote but influencing thousands of pages of still-shifting legislation in both Houses.
Yes, we can...what?
In the morass of issues involved, only the public option has come into focus to be distorted by lobbyists and loons into a future of government control and death panels, Big Lies that have to be answered with long and convoluted explanations
The demagoguery level is so high that Paul Krugman today resorts to nostalgia for the Unindicted Co-Conspirator, arguing that "Nixon’s proposal for health care reform looks a lot like Democratic proposals today. In fact, in some ways it was stronger."
On the other side of the ideological divide, George Will asserts, with some justice, that on health care reform "our ubiquitous president became the nation's elevator music, always out and about, heard but not really listened to, like audible wallpaper."
All this puts Obama supporters in the position of rushing around in all directions, trying to contain the flames of opposition in the equivalent of a Chinese fire drill.
As the Right revels in its newfound voice and the Left indicts the President for losing his nerve, health care reform is evolving beyond a crucial political and economic issue.
In many ways, it is becoming a test of how well American democracy can let rational voices be heard in a 21st century Tower of Babel--of whether Obama's new politics has enough power to revive and revitalize the best of the old.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Obama's Benign Betrayal
Inevitable as it was, news of the President's caving in on the public option brings sad confirmation that the sellout of true health care reform was inevitable.
"The White House," reports the New York Times today, "facing increasing skepticism over President Obama’s call for a public insurance plan to compete with the private sector, signaled Sunday that it was willing to compromise and would consider a proposal for a nonprofit health cooperative being developed in the Senate."
Only yesterday, the President was OpEding on the same pages, "We have broad agreement in Congress on about 80 percent of what we’re trying to do," but the ground he is ceding to the Congressional Establishment and lobbyists is the difference between repair to a bad system and real reform.
After months of insisting that a government plan was needed to "keep the insurance companies honest," the President is backing off by telling a Colorado town hall yesterday, "The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform. This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it. And by the way, it's both the right and the left that have become so fixated on this that they forget everything else."
Not so. This rhetorical sleight-of-hand may reflect the President's conviction that half a loaf or three quarters is better than none, but it's Bill Clinton-slippery of him to label it a right-and-left issue, sidestepping the fact that Max Baucus, recipient of $3 million from the industry over five years with a platoon of former staff members working as lobbyists for them, is prevailing in the Senate Finance Committee, to gut the legislation of its crucial elements.
In the face of the ideological madness that has been stirred up on the subject, Obama's backing off is understandable for the pragmatists in the White House but bitterly disappointing for an Administration that promised to overcome politics as usual and fight for real Change.
The patchwork legislation to emerge will leave Democrats claiming victory and Republicans denouncing a government takeover of health care, but both will be trading politically on what will be a betrayal of the long-term public interest on a critical issue.
"The White House," reports the New York Times today, "facing increasing skepticism over President Obama’s call for a public insurance plan to compete with the private sector, signaled Sunday that it was willing to compromise and would consider a proposal for a nonprofit health cooperative being developed in the Senate."
Only yesterday, the President was OpEding on the same pages, "We have broad agreement in Congress on about 80 percent of what we’re trying to do," but the ground he is ceding to the Congressional Establishment and lobbyists is the difference between repair to a bad system and real reform.
After months of insisting that a government plan was needed to "keep the insurance companies honest," the President is backing off by telling a Colorado town hall yesterday, "The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform. This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it. And by the way, it's both the right and the left that have become so fixated on this that they forget everything else."
Not so. This rhetorical sleight-of-hand may reflect the President's conviction that half a loaf or three quarters is better than none, but it's Bill Clinton-slippery of him to label it a right-and-left issue, sidestepping the fact that Max Baucus, recipient of $3 million from the industry over five years with a platoon of former staff members working as lobbyists for them, is prevailing in the Senate Finance Committee, to gut the legislation of its crucial elements.
In the face of the ideological madness that has been stirred up on the subject, Obama's backing off is understandable for the pragmatists in the White House but bitterly disappointing for an Administration that promised to overcome politics as usual and fight for real Change.
The patchwork legislation to emerge will leave Democrats claiming victory and Republicans denouncing a government takeover of health care, but both will be trading politically on what will be a betrayal of the long-term public interest on a critical issue.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Honesty Option for Health Care
The debate is heading for rock bottom.
"If you like your plan," Barack Obama promises for the umpteenth time in the Rose Garden yesterday, "you'll be able to keep it. And each bill provides for a public option that will keep insurance companies honest, ensuring the competition necessary to make coverage affordable."
At tonight's press conference, will someone please ask the President why, half a century after handing over health care to profit-making private insurers, it should be necessary now to keep them "honest"?
Meanwhile, the industry that gave Americans one of the worst medical systems in the world at the highest cost is busy lobbying for more of the same with the legislative watchdogs like Sen. Max Baucus, who are negotiating the details of how to reform their ways.
In the House, we are in Joe the Plumber territory, as Democrats propose to pay premiums for the poor by taxing the very wealthy, couples making $500,000 a year or, as Nancy Pelosi is now hinting, perhaps $1 million.
This would affect only a tiny fraction of the richest Americans but, in their Joe-the-Plumber fantasies, the working class can empathize with Republican outcries. "Tax is a four-letter word" with voters, says conservative Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, pointing out that even families not in the top 1 percent "hope they're going to be there someday."
In the Wall Street Journal, one of the last rising Republican stars still standing, Bobby Jindal accuses Obama of a "fundamentally dishonest approach to reform," contending that "Democrats disingenuously argue their reforms will not diminish the quality of our health care even as government involvement in the delivery of that health care increases massively.
"For all of us who have seen the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to hurricanes, this contention is laughable on its face. When government bureaucracies drive the delivery of services--in this case inserting themselves between health-care providers and their patients--quality degradation will surely come."
When the GOP sinks to using Bush's Heckuva-Job Brownie to beat up on Democratic health care plans, the debate must be nearing low tide.
"If you like your plan," Barack Obama promises for the umpteenth time in the Rose Garden yesterday, "you'll be able to keep it. And each bill provides for a public option that will keep insurance companies honest, ensuring the competition necessary to make coverage affordable."
At tonight's press conference, will someone please ask the President why, half a century after handing over health care to profit-making private insurers, it should be necessary now to keep them "honest"?
Meanwhile, the industry that gave Americans one of the worst medical systems in the world at the highest cost is busy lobbying for more of the same with the legislative watchdogs like Sen. Max Baucus, who are negotiating the details of how to reform their ways.
In the House, we are in Joe the Plumber territory, as Democrats propose to pay premiums for the poor by taxing the very wealthy, couples making $500,000 a year or, as Nancy Pelosi is now hinting, perhaps $1 million.
This would affect only a tiny fraction of the richest Americans but, in their Joe-the-Plumber fantasies, the working class can empathize with Republican outcries. "Tax is a four-letter word" with voters, says conservative Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, pointing out that even families not in the top 1 percent "hope they're going to be there someday."
In the Wall Street Journal, one of the last rising Republican stars still standing, Bobby Jindal accuses Obama of a "fundamentally dishonest approach to reform," contending that "Democrats disingenuously argue their reforms will not diminish the quality of our health care even as government involvement in the delivery of that health care increases massively.
"For all of us who have seen the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to hurricanes, this contention is laughable on its face. When government bureaucracies drive the delivery of services--in this case inserting themselves between health-care providers and their patients--quality degradation will surely come."
When the GOP sinks to using Bush's Heckuva-Job Brownie to beat up on Democratic health care plans, the debate must be nearing low tide.
Monday, July 20, 2009
The Politics of Attention Deficit Disorder
Six months of scrambling on all fronts--bank bailouts, economic stimulus, climate change--have brought the President lower approval ratings from a public suffering from crisis overload and left him needing a Hail Mary pass to score on his key issue.
"With skepticism about the president's health-care reform effort mounting on Capitol Hill--even within his own party," the Washington Post reports, "the White House has launched a new phase of its strategy designed to dramatically increase public pressure on Congress: all Obama, all the time.
"Senior White House aides promise 'an aggressive public and private schedule' for Obama as he presses his case for reform, including a prime-time news conference on Wednesday, a trip to Cleveland, and heavy use of Internet video to broadcast his message beyond the reach of the traditional media."
This test of presidential clout, coming up on a complex issue against the background of other trillion-dollar commitments that have still to bear fruit, leaves him exposed not only to Republicans with their simple-minded message of tax phobia and deficit fear but increasing anxiety among 2010-vulnerable Democrats who now sense a potential lack of visible progress on all fronts by next fall to keep them in office.
In this kind of ADD political climate, health care legislation lends itself to demagogues' cover on all sides, with providers "promising" non-binding new efforts to cut costs as Republicans line up with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus to "back" a future public option for health insurance with trigger mechanisms that will never be pulled off.
This leaves the President having to resist the temptation to settle for small gains that can be claimed as victory but will leave the failed health-care system fundamentally unchanged.
As he embarks on this week's campaign, to get him into "Win one for the Gipper" mode, he may want to take to heart Ted Kennedy's valedictory in Newsweek, "The Cause of My Life," which retells the medical consequences from generations of the "Kennedy curse" and makes a passionate plea for universal health care now.
"With skepticism about the president's health-care reform effort mounting on Capitol Hill--even within his own party," the Washington Post reports, "the White House has launched a new phase of its strategy designed to dramatically increase public pressure on Congress: all Obama, all the time.
"Senior White House aides promise 'an aggressive public and private schedule' for Obama as he presses his case for reform, including a prime-time news conference on Wednesday, a trip to Cleveland, and heavy use of Internet video to broadcast his message beyond the reach of the traditional media."
This test of presidential clout, coming up on a complex issue against the background of other trillion-dollar commitments that have still to bear fruit, leaves him exposed not only to Republicans with their simple-minded message of tax phobia and deficit fear but increasing anxiety among 2010-vulnerable Democrats who now sense a potential lack of visible progress on all fronts by next fall to keep them in office.
In this kind of ADD political climate, health care legislation lends itself to demagogues' cover on all sides, with providers "promising" non-binding new efforts to cut costs as Republicans line up with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus to "back" a future public option for health insurance with trigger mechanisms that will never be pulled off.
This leaves the President having to resist the temptation to settle for small gains that can be claimed as victory but will leave the failed health-care system fundamentally unchanged.
As he embarks on this week's campaign, to get him into "Win one for the Gipper" mode, he may want to take to heart Ted Kennedy's valedictory in Newsweek, "The Cause of My Life," which retells the medical consequences from generations of the "Kennedy curse" and makes a passionate plea for universal health care now.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Health Care Fallbacks
The Obama White House is waffling on the public option and making piecemeal deals with providers, as hospitals now agree to sacrifice $155 billion over 10 years toward the cost of insuring 47 million Americans without coverage.
With the Administration conceding it "won't draw a line in the sand" and citing the Bush prescription-drug benefit in 2003 as a precedent, real health care reform is receding into a politics-as-usual charade to give the illusion of Change while making marginal improvements.
Now, the catch phrase is "trigger mechanism" that would let a public plan come into play when "competition was judged to be lacking," an evasion of breathtaking vagueness.
With Ted Kennedy on the sidelines, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is weakened in its efforts to push for an immediate public plan, but rhetoric is still strong.
Sen. Chuck Schumer is emoting: "If it's not there on day one, those of us who support a public option have a real problem with it."
Not exactly "We have just begun to fight," but with true reform approaching critical condition, the vital signs are growing weaker. Those who want to rage against the dying of the light had better make their voices heard soon.
With the Administration conceding it "won't draw a line in the sand" and citing the Bush prescription-drug benefit in 2003 as a precedent, real health care reform is receding into a politics-as-usual charade to give the illusion of Change while making marginal improvements.
Now, the catch phrase is "trigger mechanism" that would let a public plan come into play when "competition was judged to be lacking," an evasion of breathtaking vagueness.
With Ted Kennedy on the sidelines, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is weakened in its efforts to push for an immediate public plan, but rhetoric is still strong.
Sen. Chuck Schumer is emoting: "If it's not there on day one, those of us who support a public option have a real problem with it."
Not exactly "We have just begun to fight," but with true reform approaching critical condition, the vital signs are growing weaker. Those who want to rage against the dying of the light had better make their voices heard soon.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Left, Right and Wrong on Health Care
If you doubt that liberal and conservative have lost all meaning in the health care debate, consult the New York Times' columnists of those persuasions.
On the left, Paul Krugman predicts reform "will be undermined by 'centrist' Democratic senators who either prevent the passage of a bill or insist on watering down key elements...
"What the balking Democrats seem most determined to do is to kill the public option, either by eliminating it or by carrying out a bait-and-switch, replacing a true public option with something meaningless. For the record, neither regional health cooperatives nor state-level public plans, both of which have been proposed as alternatives, would have the financial stability and bargaining power needed to bring down health care costs."
On the right, David Brooks insists: "We’ve built an entire health care system (maybe an entire government) on the illusion of something for nothing. Instead of tackling that basic logic, we’ve got a reform process that is trying to evade it."
Brooks argues for a plan by Democrat Ron Wyden and Republican Robert Bennett to repeal tax exemptions for insurance premiums and provide universal coverage. "The Wyden-Bennett bill has 14 bipartisan co-sponsors and the Congressional Budget Office has found that it would be revenue-neutral," he claims, but Senate Committee leaders of both parties are concentrating instead on "grand rhetoric and superficial cost containment."
The political hot air on Capitol Hill is filled with nonsense from both sides of the aisles, and so far the White House has been unwilling to make them stop the political blather and face reality.
On the left, Paul Krugman predicts reform "will be undermined by 'centrist' Democratic senators who either prevent the passage of a bill or insist on watering down key elements...
"What the balking Democrats seem most determined to do is to kill the public option, either by eliminating it or by carrying out a bait-and-switch, replacing a true public option with something meaningless. For the record, neither regional health cooperatives nor state-level public plans, both of which have been proposed as alternatives, would have the financial stability and bargaining power needed to bring down health care costs."
On the right, David Brooks insists: "We’ve built an entire health care system (maybe an entire government) on the illusion of something for nothing. Instead of tackling that basic logic, we’ve got a reform process that is trying to evade it."
Brooks argues for a plan by Democrat Ron Wyden and Republican Robert Bennett to repeal tax exemptions for insurance premiums and provide universal coverage. "The Wyden-Bennett bill has 14 bipartisan co-sponsors and the Congressional Budget Office has found that it would be revenue-neutral," he claims, but Senate Committee leaders of both parties are concentrating instead on "grand rhetoric and superficial cost containment."
The political hot air on Capitol Hill is filled with nonsense from both sides of the aisles, and so far the White House has been unwilling to make them stop the political blather and face reality.
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