Liberals: Take the Gloves Off

The looming defeat of a progressive health care bill is a much greater disaster than meets the eye. The right wing will learn, as they already surmised from previous skirmishes, that they can blow the Democrats out of the water. They will use the same smear tactics, emotional lies, and talk radio campaigns to defeat whatever other progressive moves of any significance are left on the diluted and impoverished Obama agenda. And they will further water down whatever laws have been passed, the weak cap and trade bill for instance. Moreover, the right wing will use the same tactics during the forthcoming mid-term elections as a dry run for 2012. By that time they will have convinced the masses that Obama was born on Mars, is a Soviet agent, and will take away the people's right to shoot each other.

The liberals in response have been lame beyond belief. They have set up web pages that clarify the facts and provide corrections to misinformation -- as if this was some kind of scholarly debate and the right and its followers will yield to the kind of corrections editors of scientific publications are prone to make. Liberals have called for a "stable, quality care" system, a phrase which has less appeal than last week's dish water. They favor "evidence based policies," a term that may excite a handful of policy wonks in a handful of think tanks. And they have been "negotiating": making grand concessions to the other side without getting anything in return, just to show how conciliatory, bipartisan, and reasonable liberals can be.

The time has come for liberals to take off their gloves. A good place to start is to conduct hearings (Henry Waxman, where are you when we need you?) and town hall meetings fully dedicated to the ill doings of the private, profit-making sector. Lets hear about the sick who were denied care by insurance companies using one technicality or another; about private hospitals and clinics that pay recruiters to bring in patients from across the country in order to subject them to surgeries they do not need; about the health care dollars that are pocked by high salaried executives, their mistresses and sons-in-law, and back room backers; about elders allowed to wallow in their own waste to increase profits at nursing homes, and about other senior citizens who were refused treatments in order to hasten their deaths after they paid the assisted living facility's high entrance fees. In short, liberals need to show that the private, profit-making sector is riddled with abuse, corruption, and malpractice. Only then will a public option shine.

If you feel at this point that such accusations are unfair, that one cannot generalize, that there are good people in the private sector, that public institutions also have some failings -- then you should look in the mirror and see one reason the right wing is winning. This is not a theoretical debate which can be settled by checking the decimal points. At issue are overarching conclusions and basic sensibilities: is the profit-making sector a more trustworthy provider of health care than the public one? Should it at least face some public competition? The debate has to focus on this level and employ a language most people can be affected by--or we may as well wave another white liberal flag and not bother to join the fight. And a fight it is, with much more than the future of health care at stake.

Amitai Etzioni is a University Professor at The George Washington University, and the author of The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Comments

[Alabama John]

Power used in a way that does not apply deadly force, being what ideal democracy is all about, why is our government so obsessed with using deadly force to control other nations, to imprison so many of our citizens, to torture even those who are our citizens and to evict from their homes millions and millions of unemployed citizens?

Could it be that capitalism is the freedom to compete for excessive wealth, and such a destruction of equality could only work by excessive deadly force?

[Alabama John]

EXCESSIVE WEALTH = EXCESSIVE POVERTY

Allowing people to die so we can have more excessive wealth, this is a quilt that must be shared all but the slow and careful thinking laboring class.

For though our politicians and media put a blackout on the term "laboring class," our ruling class asserting us all to be middleclass or poor, 40% of society is of a hard working laboring class that would feel insulted if you called them poor.

And so the real issue: Is healthcare wages due and owed to those who hard labor generate all our wealth?

[Dale Larson]

It's time to end our "risky experiment" of "For-profit health insurance". It's a proven failure.

HR676 (http://hr676.org) Single Payer system that is proven, pro-business and pro-people:

* Slashes at least 30% of costs off the top by removing private insurance overhead.
* Companies take health care expenses off their books. Stock value increases. Better able to compete internationally.
* Small companies could have access to higher skilled workers because previously they couldn't compete in the labor market by offering similar benefits.
* More entrepreneurial ventures will launch since they have more money and less unrelated risk.
* Dramatic drop in bankruptcies.
* Dramatic drop in lawsuits. Most of these lawsuits are simply to obtain money to cover health care if something interrupts their coverage.
* Reduced system complexity. Greater efficiency due to fewer regulations.
* Savings from employees not having to fight with their insurers during work hours.
* HSA and MSA dollars redirected back into the economy for goods and services.
* Additional money to spend from not having to carry "uninsured motorist coverage" on your auto policy.
* Contract employment is more viable for workers since they are guaranteed access to health care.
* People are covered when unemployed. No chance of being wiped out financially if you lose your job.
* Health care providers (doctors, hospitals, therapists...) see increase in business with much less administrative expense.

[GrainOSand]

Seemingly -- a no-brainer.

[fightorleave2]

The real problem is that people (i.e. Obama and elected politicians) are too cowardly to really take on the corporations. Yet, they are owned by the corporations, which takes me to point #2: the prohibition of corporations participating in the electoral process is a no brainer. They can't vote so why should they able to dilute my vote. At this rate, it's over, and I doubt it will ever change. It seems to me that it's too late. The military industrial complex is too deeply rooted. They will simply kill, or marginalize, those who get in their way. Yet, I still believe in the power of the people, and that is why Jefferson was right about it sometimes being necessary to break the political bonds that connect one people to another. That would be a wonderful day, except it would no doubt lead to armed conflict (see Israel and India/Pakistan).

[fightorleave2]

Here's the problem with facts. I don't think the public option should change the fact that people "get" their insurance through their employer or that employers pay. In fact, the only reform the system needs is for the elimination of for-profit insurance. Everyone who pays now should continue to pay. The insurance companies should be taken over and turned into shells for merely collecting premiums. Nothing changes except you can go to your doctor and there will be no denials except for the most elective procedures such as breast jobs for women larger than an "A" Beyond that I can't think of another procedure (beyond the vilest plastic surgery) that would be denied. Then once that system is in place. The rest of Americans will be able to participate and then some means to equalize the cost should be implemented. I'm sure many people stopped reading before the end, but the only thing that needs to change is the insurance companies have got to go. They shouldn't be making medical decisions and they shouldn't be profiting.

[GrainOSand]

The insurance companies have to go or they have to be made to see that caring and fairness are in their best interest and the concepts are not antithetical to profit making or taking...they are merely regulatory concerning the profiteering goal as it relates to that offered, and that paid for that offered

[AverageJoe-1]

Republican or Democrat-what is the true difference? Neither party have a mandate but the Democrats won because the Average American was tired of the ineptness of the Republican Party.

It is not a true test of mandate when the choice is between a Republican or a Democrat. The true test is if a third box existed for 'None of the Above"- or a vote of no confidence. I bet more and more people would have voted for 'None of the Above'. That is the reason for the rise of the Independents but without a place to 'call home' in terms of a political party.

[AverageJoe-1]

I am overall disappointed by the quality of available information in regards to Health Care Reform in the context of:

1. I have past experience of how public funded Medicare / Medicaid will be the flooring reimbursed rate for healthcare providers and facilities that leads to a situation in which private sector patients and plans will be basically subsidiizing for the losses of Medicare / Medicaid patients. Typically, private insurers are able to charge 2 1/2 to 3 times floor rate of Medicare / Medicaid and then are able to obtain discounts through negotiations with the healthcare providers and facilities.

My question is: (1) how does Public Option affect that and where will the subsidy to cover the costs of Medicare / Medicaid Patients comes from except from the government. (2) Medicaire / Medicaid can be highly cost effective if it does not have to pay for at least the cost of the services provided. (3) What happens to the private insurers with more patients under a shift of coverage to the Public Option and does that create a cascade by which more funds are required to cover the lost private sector subsidy or will private insurers quit?

[FightingTheRight]

Look at the bottom of your EOB it will most likely say payed in accordance with Medicares fee schedule.

Private health insurerers already pay at Medicare rates.

[AverageJoe-1]

Are you sure? The reason that I ask is because Medicaid Reimbursement is determined as the 'floor rate' by which private insurers can use as the minimum. The reason that I ask is because MED-CAL (Medicaid program for California) had found correlation between the lower 'reimbursement' rates of MED-CAL versus private insurers for healthcare providers and facilities for making it harder in terms of getting appointments. Medicaid reimbursements are set up differently for each of the fifty states. Most reports that I had read states that Medicaid is under-reimbursing cost by 20% and a shortfall to cost of nearly $12.58 per Medicaid patient. The study was performed by BDO Seidman.

The battle with the cost savings over the next 10 years is to come from a certain degree in terms of reimbursement for healthcare providers with rates for primary physicians going down.

[dogtiredofbush]

I agree. The dems need to grow a pair and pound these lying idiots of the GOP into submission. They are blatant racist and hypocrits who love the status quo-just say no attitude. How in the world these GOPers got elected in the first place is just beyond reason. OOPs, reason and GOP in the same line, is just not right. Take the gloves off for sure and smack down the idiots once and for all. Pound them until they couldn't chair a committee of the broom closet at best!!!

[AverageJoe-1]

I would prefer if either the Democrat or Republican Party can just explain how the program will work because the devil is in the details of implementation. The symbolism is not the issue but the real issue should be of how such a program can be defined, measured, anlayzed to improve, improve it, and establish controls to make it effective. How can one implement a program if no one in power will explain what is being defined to be delivered and for what cost?

I much prefer the Public Option Plan if it can be spelled out of how it will be structured and developed and how it will be run. Look at FANNIE MAE and FREDDIE MAC-both of them collapsed because of political oversight stupidity (Republican or Democrat-who cares)...I do not want the same for the Public Option Plan as well.....

[phathalo]

Right Wingers are usually cowards. They are not counting on liberals fighting back

[GrainOSand]

Word.

Why are some bringing dainty to a mud slinging contest? Why are some playing with feathers while rocks are thrown? Why are we appeasing the real losers of 08 and 06? The mandate was loud and clear. This is no time for dainty, for fierce urgency does not suggest tea and crumpets with an extended pinky. I love the president, I am for him one hundred percent. He is in a tough fight and he needs to step out of his indoctrination -- for that is what is hurting him. He needs not what he learned at Harvard but what average Americans learn in the school of hard knocks -- how to take down an antagonist who leaves you no choice, who attempts to bully and box in. He needs to go "street". Street in this case would be utilization of every communication medium to drive the message home of corruption, unsustainable cost trajectory, inefficiencies, and obscene profits running parallel to obscene levels of poor service. Personalize the message. Show pictures, show the dead bodies. Drive the point home. Unmask and undress the charlatans. Say openly and defiantly that the Republicans have lost their way, and until they find themselves as Americans, we will no longer be dealing with the Party of no. Use every procedural method to isolate and ignore the GOP. That would be where academic training comes to bear -- identification and utilization of process and procedure to close the mouths of zealots.

[getsmart85]

If Obama settles for a watered down health care policy he will embolden his opponents. Things will only get a lot worse. His presidency will be a complete disaster.

[write2bheard]

Much agreed - the democrats are always on the defensive even though we have done nothing to be defensive about. On the other hand, the gops have much to answer for, but no one is talking about that. Obama showed himself to be a brilliant strategist during his campaign -- we need that brilliance and leadership now.

[Marcospinelli]

You have mistakenly believed that Obama&Democrats want public health care.

If the Bush years taught us nothing else, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid & relentless in your sales pitch & tactics. It's not that Bush&Rove were geniuses & knew something that nobody else knew; Bush&Rove were just more ruthless (clumsy & careless many political graybeards would say) in doing what politicians & the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine & the oldest, most experienced politicians in our nation's history (including the Rove machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep the impeachment of Bush&Cheney off the table & have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches&pitchforks?

Obama&Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.

The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but that they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them in spite of their failure to deliver on any of our alleged shared objectives.

[SmolderingRuin]

It's true, they're all corporatists now. The Democratic Party has been commandeered by the right centrists. Faved and fanned.

[generationyes]

Jezus, think you're cynical enough? If we're all doomed, then why bother?

[RavenRant]

Excellent article. I have been emailing various news outlets asking them why they aren't covering the criminal behavior of health insurance companies, for-profit hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies.

In addition to writing and calling our representatives, we all should be contacting news outlets demanding they cover the real issues at stake, a criminal, out-of-control industry in dire need of real reform.

[NationalTreasure]

Professor Etzioni:

The Democratic party has allowed the healthcare reform initiative to be hijacked due to their coziness and acceptance of hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the healthcare industry and big pharma. The Democrats have suckled at the teat of the healthcare industry, the insurance industry and big pharma all most as much as the members of the GOP have feasted.

It is past time for the progressives in the Democratic party to point out that while healthcare costs have skyrocketed that the health care industry, insurance companies and big pharma have raked in record profits -- this while over 3 million Americans have lost their jobs AND their health insurance over the past 24 months.

The Democrats need realize that there is a growing pool of Americans who are waking up everyday without health insurance and, these folks are counting on the Democrats and President Obama to deliver a public option.

The Democrats need to acknowledge that this fall when the pan-flu epidemic that has been hitting the lower hemisphere resurfaces in the US, there will be hundreds of thousands of Americans who will be at greater risk than in previous years due to the substantial amount of healthcare benefits that have been lost with lost jobs over the past 24 months and; these folks will remember that the Democratic politicians had an opportunity to change the status quo but failed to do so; instead they caved in to the healthcare, insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

[Cimms]

Preach it brother. I have been saying from some time now you cannot offer an olive branch to the Repugs. You need to smack them upside the head with the whole limb. That is all they understand. Take off the gloves, grow a pair, don't go bear hunting with a twig, etc.

Yes we can.

[noaxe397]

In 1994-95 in response to Ruby Ridge and Waco, the Republicans in control of Congress held hearings to investigate police actions into these events. Cops on trial, pure and simple, as a symbol of GOP support of anti government agenda.

Nothing said about the criminal acts that led to police response, the cop killing, the child molesting that the police responded to in force.

The GOP was very successful in painting the government as out of control and a danger to the people.

The GOP is doing the exact same thing today with health care. At least in 1995 the Dems, then in the minority, held seperate hearings attended by no republicans at which the victims got a chance to be heard.

Why aren't the Dems today hauling insurance execs before Congress demanding to know why they are killing Granny. Where are the people who voted for the pres. in 2008 NOW on this health care issue. Why isn't there a half million people marching on the Mall in DC over HC?

Who is Kathleen Sibelius, who just popped up yesterday. Is Harry Reid still breathing? Or is Baucus the majorrity leader, or Conrad?

[Marcospinelli]

Kathleen Sibelius is Obama's secretary of Health and Human Services. She's who Obama got when Daschle's nomination tanked. Tom Daschle with his day job as champion for the insurance industry. Tom Daschle with his lobbyist wife.

Obama is using lawyer-speak, and is now trying to redefine "public option" as "coops".