Health Care Reform Lite.... or Suicide is Painless
"I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got into this war I had a very clear understanding with the Pentagon. No guns. I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, Cary Grant, carry me back to old Virginie, I'll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!"... Hawkeye Pierce
As the 2010 Congress is poised to pass a watered-down health care bill painfully similar to the legislation green-lighted by the Senate, advocates for more extensive reform are beginning to see the handwriting on the wall. With comments trickling out from the House leadership that it now could envision voting for a bill that does not contain a public option, it would appear that the support for the House's more progressive initial bill may be taking its last breaths.
I can understand the argument, now seemingly supported by the majority, that given the likelihood of more Democratic seats being lost in 2010 a defeat of the more limited Senate bill could mean the end of the road for any manner of health care reform for some time to come. I can understand the argument that it would be far better to pass an imperfect piece of legislation that will clearly save lives. Yet, I am still left with a profound sense of disappointment that America will have missed a chance to fully correct a long-standing and egregious social injustice.
When the votes are counted after the Senate and House bills are reconciled, Americans will discover that their government has granted them a set of limited changes to what might be described as the most draconian health care system in the industrialized world. What happened to our sense of shame? Americans spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the decades on a system that permitted insurers to gouge the consumer, to deny them health care for having pre-existing conditions, to cut them off from coverage as they became ill. The fact that we allowed this racket to go on for as long as it did without sending insurance executives to the slammer is a testament to the power and influence of corporate finance and to our own ignorance.
Though many of these injustices will likely end up being regulated in some form when a final bill passes, the most fundamental ethical point will be ignored: it is the basic unfairness and the rapacious character of for-profit medical care that is the problem; it is the danger such a system poses to the long-term stability of our nation that is the problem.
The current provisions agreed to in the Senate, if adopted, will further empower the private health insurance industry by mandating coverage, providing the system with an infusion of tens of millions of new customers without a public mechanism to control prices by offering meaningful competition. In spite of the fact that in the months leading up to the Senate vote polls showed public support for the public option averaging over 60%, the Democrats and the administration have chosen to throw the public plan overboard in order to insure that health care reform of some kind gets passed before the mid-term elections turn more Dems out of office.
What this strategy says is that there is a recognition in Washington that Americans have the attention span of a roundworm and the political acumen of a gerbil. After watching their homes and jobs go down the drain of Wall Street, after watching their government spend hundreds of billions of dollars to salvage the fortunes of companies such as AIG, JP Morgan and General Motors, the American people are being told that this unholy compromise with their health is the best that can be done for them. And they will accept every word.
The ultimate, sad irony of this scenario is that the commercial insurance industry, flush with cash from millions of new subscribers, will have even more resources to begin their next campaign to reverse the limited reforms that Congress is now expected to pass. Incapable of going out into the streets, unable to make their voices heard, the American people will place the noose around their necks, yank the lever and will, for a few precious seconds, wonder how it all happened. Where is Hawkeye when we need him?
"I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got into this war I had a very clear understanding with the Pentagon. No guns. I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, Cary Grant, carry me back to old Virginie, I'll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!"... Hawkeye Pierce
As the 2010 Congress is poised to pass a watered-down health care bill painfully similar to the legislation green-lighted by the Senate, advocates for more extensive reform are beginning to see the handwriting on the wall. With comments trickling out from the House leadership that it now could envision voting for a bill that does not contain a public option, it would appear that the support for the House's more progressive initial bill may be taking its last breaths.
I can understand the argument, now seemingly supported by the majority, that given the likelihood of more Democratic seats being lost in 2010 a defeat of the more limited Senate bill could mean the end of the road for any manner of health care reform for some time to come. I can understand the argument that it would be far better to pass an imperfect piece of legislation that will clearly save lives. Yet, I am still left with a profound sense of disappointment that America will have missed a chance to fully correct a long-standing and egregious social injustice.
When the votes are counted after the Senate and House bills are reconciled, Americans will discover that their government has granted them a set of limited changes to what might be described as the most draconian health care system in the industrialized world. What happened to our sense of shame? Americans spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the decades on a system that permitted insurers to gouge the consumer, to deny them health care for having pre-existing conditions, to cut them off from coverage as they became ill. The fact that we allowed this racket to go on for as long as it did without sending insurance executives to the slammer is a testament to the power and influence of corporate finance and to our own ignorance.
Though many of these injustices will likely end up being regulated in some form when a final bill passes, the most fundamental ethical point will be ignored: it is the basic unfairness and the rapacious character of for-profit medical care that is the problem; it is the danger such a system poses to the long-term stability of our nation that is the problem.
The current provisions agreed to in the Senate, if adopted, will further empower the private health insurance industry by mandating coverage, providing the system with an infusion of tens of millions of new customers without a public mechanism to control prices by offering meaningful competition. In spite of the fact that in the months leading up to the Senate vote polls showed public support for the public option averaging over 60%, the Democrats and the administration have chosen to throw the public plan overboard in order to insure that health care reform of some kind gets passed before the mid-term elections turn more Dems out of office.
What this strategy says is that there is a recognition in Washington that Americans have the attention span of a roundworm and the political acumen of a gerbil. After watching their homes and jobs go down the drain of Wall Street, after watching their government spend hundreds of billions of dollars to salvage the fortunes of companies such as AIG, JP Morgan and General Motors, the American people are being told that this unholy compromise with their health is the best that can be done for them. And they will accept every word.
The ultimate, sad irony of this scenario is that the commercial insurance industry, flush with cash from millions of new subscribers, will have even more resources to begin their next campaign to reverse the limited reforms that Congress is now expected to pass. Incapable of going out into the streets, unable to make their voices heard, the American people will place the noose around their necks, yank the lever and will, for a few precious seconds, wonder how it all happened. Where is Hawkeye when we need him?
Comments