Health Care Questions
August 18, 2009
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Posted by Michael S. Langston
As with any debate, negotiation, discussion, training… pretty much anything were one person or group is attempting to signal to other people or groups what they are looking for, it’s always important to ensure that any promises given verbally are also written.
Of course with legislation, the written part will be completed. The important part then becomes – does the rhetoric match the bill? IE – do the claims being given by leaders of both parties and the WH themselves match what is currently happening?
First, with current reports, I think it’s fairly safe to say that the bill as is will not be signed into law. I’m not saying this because I believe the overall opposition to be effectively strong at this point, I say this because of the myriad of reports coming from current Congressional leadership and POTUS.
Through the President’s recent town hall meeting in Grand Junction Colorado, we heard great answers to difficult questions (read whole thing here). When answering a question about the fact this debate seems to be dividing the country, Mr. Obama responded:
Well, look, let me — let me just — let me address this. You know, health care is really hard. I mean, this is not easy. I’m a reasonably dedicated student to this issue….
…there is no perfect, painless silver bullet out there that solves every problem, gives everybody perfect health care for free. …
…What I can do is try to sort through what are all the options available, be realistic about where we’re going on health care, say to myself, if we keep on doing what we’re doing, we are in a world of hurt. We can’t afford what we’re doing right now….
Which sounds great, so long as it’s not juxtaposed against the facts. Republicans, and therefore bipartisanship, it not how the bill it progressing forward. Indeed, in the House, Republicans were simply locked out of the debate itself.
Even with the President recently backing down from the public health care option to attempt to work with the current opponents of his plan, his party is refusing to play nicely with others (here):
“I wonder if the White House truly understands the depth of anger they’ll face from the progressive side if they fail to pass health care reform with a strong public option,” Markos Moulitsas wrote on his liberal Web site, DailyKos.
“We haven’t [worked] the last four years to pass bank bailouts and give insurance companies everything they ever wanted,” he added. “If we wanted that, we’d be Republicans.”
With Howard Dean leading the charge (here):
Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean fired one of the clearest warning shots at hesitant Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, insisting that if the party was unable to produce a health care bill with a public plan, there would be electoral consequences.
“I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn’t pass with a public option,” Dean said, in a phone interview with the Huffington Post….
The problem of course with the whole argument, whether we end with a public option or a co-op type option which is run by the government (anyone know the difference?), is that they seem to presume only two options: public or no reform.
But even if their false dichotomy were true, I’m convinced there isn’t a politician alive, including those I agree with, who understand whether the bill will do what they think it will do.
Reporting from USA Today, they make mention of the 1200 page bill with all it’s quaint little additions like this:
“SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION. (a) Medicare. — (1) IN GENERAL. — Section 1861 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395x) is amended — (A) in subsection (s)(2) — (i) by striking ‘and’ at the end of subparagraph (DD); (ii) by adding ‘and’ at the end of subparagraph (EE); and (iii) adding at the end the following new subparagraph: ‘(FF) advance care planning consultation (as defined in subsection (hhh)(1) … “
Of course not all of the bill itself is as convoluted as this particular section, but I think before continuing to argue about a public option, a co-op option, no reform, market reform, whatever… it might be interesting if the press would just recite certain pieces of the current legislation and the ask all politicians, including POTUS – how does this section relate to your goals for health care reform and what exactly does it do?
Or when President Obama and other leaders claim that opponents are lying or being disingenuous (here):
What you can’t do — or you can, but you shouldn’t do — is start saying things like, we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma. I mean, come on.
We should ask him and his opponents the same basic question – please prove, through rational logic and a good reading of the current legislation, why you think this will or will not happen.
Of course, we can continue fighting amongst ourselves over the definition of socialistic health care or whether a co-op is indeed different from a public option, but if people are truly interested in reforming health care, it might be time to rethink that strategy. Maybe instead, we should start by asking them to explain the legislation they are currently pushing.
Who knows – actually focusing on the issue at hand might actually help us start getting legislation written by our elected representatives instead of the current system where all bills are being written by lobbyists.
Categories: Politics
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Tags: DNC, Health Care Reform, Legislation, Lobbyists, Obama Administration
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