Health Reform the American Way

We vaunt American democracy as a stellar model for the world. The bizarre spectacle now on display in Washington as the White House and the Congress tussle over health care "reform" is hardly an advertisement from our prime export product. Consider the following. The nation's entire medical system is being reshaped by six Senators meeting behind closed doors for weeks. All we know of the proceedings is through puffs of smoke leaking under the doors. The other 529 members of Congress twiddle their thumbs awaiting the conclave's outcome. The gang of six composes three Republicans and three Democrats from states that cumulatively contain less than 3% of the country's population. All are more conservative than the large majority of Democrats who control 60 Senate seats and much more conservative than most Democratic Representatives in the House. They have just killed the "public option" that is favored by 72% of the American public. They have also rejected out of hand the provision for financing the costs of the program via a tax on the rich as approved by the key committee in the House. So, too, for the Employer Mandate that has been at the heart of all serious proposed plans until the gang of six decided otherwise.

Where is President Obama in all this? Supposedly he is investing himself and his political capital in a full court press to win support for his epochal program. But the White House cannot say at this eleventh hour just what he wants in the program. A "public option" or not? An employee mandate or not? A tax on the super-rich or not? No one knows. Yes, we can do what? Obama is out there making the case for a phantom program. All we can be sure of is its complexity, a complexity that defies comprehension -- much less reasoned assessment of what it would mean in practical terms. Somehow, a brilliant President and the assembled powers of the United States Congress are together concocting something that makes Rube Goldberg look like a minimalist. One cannot avoid the conclusion that the current model of American government needs some redesign before it can capture foreign markets.

Comments

[mmonarch]

I posted this elsewhere on Huffpo, but I am going to post it here too:

Keep it up Blue Dogs. Go dogs go! Why is everyone in such a hurry to pass a bill that hasn't been read? If it is so terrific then it will have legs and walk itself through. It won't need Obama to fly around the country trying to sell it. Campaign for it. Cajole and threaten for it. Here is my suggestion, and considering our government's track record with other bills - such as No Child Left Behind, Medicare, etc. I think it's a valid suggestion­.I am sick of being their unpaid, unrewarded guinea pigs for every stinking experiment. Let Congress stop usage of the plan they currently have and make them live by the plan they expect us to use. Make them live with it for at least one year. In other words, Congress and Mr. President, YOU FIRST. Then, if it works, vote on it for us. But until then, I say, Go Blue Dogs Go.

[plumnelly]

As someone stated, when the majority of the American people, atleast , want a public health policy and our Congress works agains it, our Democracy has been corrupted and we're now just a banana republic. Congress is just going through the motions, it has been scripted by wall street's insurance companies to not change a thing, health for profit. We're going to have to march on Washington and take our country back, if our families can fight the wars overseas we at home can atleast take up the cause of healthcare for all of us and not let wall street take over our Democracy.

[quidam56]

BRISTOL, VIRGINIA

The acceptable standards of health care in southwest Virginia and East Tennessee.

http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=62

Clearly in TN & VA profit care comes ahead of patient care.



We thought my father had good insurance and was going to the best health care provider. His care was rationed. He died.

[Squeezer55]

Enough is enough ! If those knuckleheads in Washington don't do what's right, it will be time to march on Washington. It's time the citizens of this country took to the streets(peacefully) in the millions and showed those idiots that we've had enough of their B.S. POWER TO THE PEOPLE !!

[CelticMajic]

When the congress comes up with a health care reform that they put themselves under then might just be worth considering. Till then, watch them very closely.

[calbengoshi]

All the references to "health care reform" are misleading. None of the proposals that is being considered by Congress are designed to "reform" the way doctors treat patients ("health care"). Instead, what is really being discussed are alternatives for reforming the health insurance industry.

[Bobg]

Our founding fathers (and the women who gave them a boost) were geniuses. We are intellectual pygmies. Read Adam Smith and find out how our economy is supposed to work - then you will realize why captitalists hate free markets and the free enterprise system. Health care has been corrupted, maligned, and scammed for a long, long time. The invisible hand which was supposed to be guiding our economic system has lost its way, and is now busily rummaging around in my wallet looking for the thousand dollar bills needed to keep our wonderful doctors happy.

[Seldon]

You do realise that Adam Smith was Scottish right?

I agree, that Adam Smith is the grandfather modern economic theory, it just seems odd relating him to the founding fathers.

[Aaror]

Adam Smith is often discussed along with our founding fathers because they were alive during the same time. History classes tend to group lessions by time period rather than nation (although many classes focus on just one nation or area). This does not make the confusion "right," only understandable.

[quidam56]

They want to kill health care while the status quo is killing us. Mitch McConnell, this is the best health care in the world in Tennessee and Virginia. http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=62 Health care in America will be America's "Waterloo".

[thehoopoe]

It's time to face facts that this system of government just isn't working. When voters can't get what the majority of them want, it's no longer a democracy.

Reforming campaign finance laws would go a long way to changing that. But that will never happen.

I'm sorry but this is a banana republic now. It's hard to believe in the viability of america as a nation with this level of corruption.

[Peabodies]

We are the laughing stock of the world. They are watching (via internet, twitter,et­c.) how we make the sausage, and swear they would never do it our way (they're sitting pretty, health care wise, the rest of the world). Yet the few republi-democrats act as if they know better than the rest of the world. What delusions of grandeur! The harder they come ... the xxxx they fall?

[zanzig]

I know. I was going to comment apropos the opening sentence of the above article ("We vaunt American democracy as a stellar model for the world."), that almost nobody else in the world vaunts it any more.

[phoenixbc]

I do not agree with Mr. Brenner's assessment that the President "cannot say . . . just what he wants" in the health reform program. His key appointees, Nancy Ann DiParle and Kathleen Sebelius, have been quite clear as to what works to improve delivery and cost control, and what does not. The President wisely has left Congress to come up with what will pass Congress, rather than try to dictate what it should do, inasmuch as Congress has absolutely no constitutional obligation to abide the President. As each branch of Congress works through what it believes it can pass, the White House comments to those in key positions, in an attempt to bend the legislation to what the President is willing to sign into law.

President Obama has learned well from history how the Executive Branch should work with Congress.

[bereasonable0]

SINGLE PAYER ! It does not have to be fair for private insurers. They drove out the competition and now it is time for the citizens of the US to do the same to them. We choose to be self insured using OUR government to manage OUR non profit insurance plan.

[cripes]

Go bereasonableo!

[plumnelly]

Hear, hear!

[iamaceltic]

I've said it again and again. If health care reform does not pass, we need to rally on Washington. I would be glad to help in some way with organising. Whatever there was for the Inauguration, we need doubled that on the Mall. Millions of us coming together to make it clear that we will NOT live in a plutocracy. Enough cynical resignation; the time for that has passed.

[cripes]

me too!

[Realization]

Wouldn't it be better to rally before it fails?

[zitlight73]

A government of the special interests, by the special interests and for he special interests. It's sickening how blatantly these so-called representative thumb their noses at the will of We the People.

[E4B32787]

"But the White House cannot say at this eleventh hour just what he wants in the program. "

I think they've said it. It's bipartisanship.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20090628/cm_thenation/7446851_1

"God I hope David Broder is wrong. "The President has told visitors," the Washington Post columnist wrote last week, "that he would rather have 70 votes in the Senate for a bill that gives him 85 percent of what he wants rather than a 100 percent satisfactory bill that passes 52-48." "

I kinda equate "bipartisanship" with "corporate welfare".

[plumnelly]

Me too!