Negotiating Health Care Reform
For the next several weeks, the Obama administration will be putting the full-court press on Congress to come up with a health care bill that will reflect his vision of reform. Political progressives and a variety of professional medical associations around the country have been ratcheting up the pressure on the Democratic Party and the Senate Finance Committee Chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) criticizing them for excluding advocates of a "single-payer" system from initial discussions on reform.
Single-payer, the system in which the government acts as sole provider and administrator of a national health plan, has broad support around the country. Though it is similar to the type of health plan used in most industrialized countries, the Democratic leadership in Congress announced that it would not consider it for inclusion in the national debate because it was deemed to be "politically unfeasible."
This precipitous bit of cowardice on the part of the Democratic leadership could spell disaster for any kind of meaningful reform. Widespread GOP support of the private insurance industry is well-known, underscored by party leaders who now are trumpeting the same refrain used to derail the health care initiative proposed by the Clinton administration in 1993; Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Newt Gingrich have led the charge in the media, railing against "socialized medicine" and the certain destruction they claim a public health system would bring upon the quality of care in the United States. The majority leadership in Congress was unprepared for the political firestorm resulting from the single-payer exclusion, especially when its own supporters began lifting up a few Democratic rocks only to find the same insurance industry lifeforms crawling beneath.
Those involved in the maelstrom of the health care debate have noted that the Obama administration did propose the construction of a "public option," a government-run program that would exist as a tangent to the current system, offering consumers low cost universal coverage without terminating the private insurance setup. Taking single-payer off the table not only represents an unfair, a priori rejection of a critical argument in the health care discussion, it effectively removes a powerful bargaining chip in the larger debate over the shape of an actual health care bill. Without single-payer, the president's public option concept cannot be used as a compromise in the political tug of war, and instead becomes the target for those who support the insurance industry and who truly want to see no fundamental change. Rather than give away the store before substantive debate began, the Democratic leadership might have said to the opposition: okay, we will drop the demand for a universal, single-payer health care system if you accept the president's proposal of a public option tangent... case closed.
There are fears among insurance industry advocates that providing an affordable public option for American health care will in fact "allow the camel to get its nose under the tent." Such a system, they say, will price private medical insurance out of the market, resulting eventually in a single-payer system coming in the back door. Now, with single-payer off the table, the Republicans are free to whittle away the Obama plan until a compromise is reached that will almost certainly provide fewer benefits for American health consumers.
Politics is the art of horse trading. One would think that the professional negotiators who are our representatives would be savvy enough not to send a potentially swift stalking horse out to pasture before the race has begun.
For the next several weeks, the Obama administration will be putting the full-court press on Congress to come up with a health care bill that will reflect his vision of reform. Political progressives and a variety of professional medical associations around the country have been ratcheting up the pressure on the Democratic Party and the Senate Finance Committee Chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) criticizing them for excluding advocates of a "single-payer" system from initial discussions on reform.
Single-payer, the system in which the government acts as sole provider and administrator of a national health plan, has broad support around the country. Though it is similar to the type of health plan used in most industrialized countries, the Democratic leadership in Congress announced that it would not consider it for inclusion in the national debate because it was deemed to be "politically unfeasible."
This precipitous bit of cowardice on the part of the Democratic leadership could spell disaster for any kind of meaningful reform. Widespread GOP support of the private insurance industry is well-known, underscored by party leaders who now are trumpeting the same refrain used to derail the health care initiative proposed by the Clinton administration in 1993; Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Newt Gingrich have led the charge in the media, railing against "socialized medicine" and the certain destruction they claim a public health system would bring upon the quality of care in the United States. The majority leadership in Congress was unprepared for the political firestorm resulting from the single-payer exclusion, especially when its own supporters began lifting up a few Democratic rocks only to find the same insurance industry lifeforms crawling beneath.
Those involved in the maelstrom of the health care debate have noted that the Obama administration did propose the construction of a "public option," a government-run program that would exist as a tangent to the current system, offering consumers low cost universal coverage without terminating the private insurance setup. Taking single-payer off the table not only represents an unfair, a priori rejection of a critical argument in the health care discussion, it effectively removes a powerful bargaining chip in the larger debate over the shape of an actual health care bill. Without single-payer, the president's public option concept cannot be used as a compromise in the political tug of war, and instead becomes the target for those who support the insurance industry and who truly want to see no fundamental change. Rather than give away the store before substantive debate began, the Democratic leadership might have said to the opposition: okay, we will drop the demand for a universal, single-payer health care system if you accept the president's proposal of a public option tangent... case closed.
There are fears among insurance industry advocates that providing an affordable public option for American health care will in fact "allow the camel to get its nose under the tent." Such a system, they say, will price private medical insurance out of the market, resulting eventually in a single-payer system coming in the back door. Now, with single-payer off the table, the Republicans are free to whittle away the Obama plan until a compromise is reached that will almost certainly provide fewer benefits for American health consumers.
Politics is the art of horse trading. One would think that the professional negotiators who are our representatives would be savvy enough not to send a potentially swift stalking horse out to pasture before the race has begun.
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