Elizabeth Cohen of CNN reported on Monday morning on some hospitals are charging $53 for a pair of disposable gloves, $140 for a single Tylenol and a whopping $1,000 for a toothbrush -- yes, a simple, non-electronic toothbrush. It goes -- or should go -- without saying that these numbers are outrageous and should make any American extremely angry about the state of the American health care system. But are they?
It doesn't seem like they are; at least not sufficiently. How can we have a system that can turn a blind eye on for-profit hospitals charging patients who are desperate for care such obscene and almost surrealistic amounts that have nothing to do with free market, efficiency and unit costs? What else do we need to know to make our blood boil and march to Washington and not leave until Congress passes comprehensive health care reform?
When I moved to the United States from Iran at 17, I was told this is the "best country on earth." I love this country and the freedom and opportunities it has given me that I could have never imagined under the Iranian dictatorship. Nonetheless, unlike the American Constitution, the Iranian Constitution entitles all citizens to basic health care, and the government provides subsidies for drugs and vaccinations for most citizens. How can the American government do worse than the Iranian regime on health care?
The obvious problem has to do with Republicans. For some reason, no matter how many times the Republicans get it wrong, certain portions of the American public seem ready to give the conservatives more chances to implement the same ideas that didn't work before. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Do the members of the tea party pseudomovement have short-term memory loss, or is their anger due to something that has nothing to do with the contents of any Democratic bills, like President Obama's skin tone?
These questions are difficult to answer. But what we already do know is this: Democrats are in the large majority, and they have the obligation to do what they promised when people elected them. That includes reforming the American health care system once and for all. Here are some ideas to make the political environment more conducive for the implementation of such a change:
1. The Democrats need to build a resume. They have done a number of important things, including credit card reform and extension of unemployment benefits. But they haven't done anything of policy substance in a long time. People are still waiting for health care reform and financial reform. With mid-term elections coming up, they need to build their resume. Americans are frustrated not so much because of what Congress is doing, but because of what it's not doing. Our government just doesn't seem productive. While the Democrats need to do things right rather than right away, they do eventually actually need to make legislation happen and cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good. When the Republicans begin their attacks on the Democrats in the run-up to the election, the Democrats need to be able to fend off those attacks with lists of things they will have done in a short two year period under a Democratic President.
In order to build that resume, they need to pass a health care bill in weeks, rather than months. Forget about starting over, and most certainly forget about bipartisanship. If the Democrats believe that their ideas are better than the Republicans -- as they do since there must be a reason why they've decided to run as Democrats and not Republicans -- why should they pretend that the best bill is one that combines ideas from both sides? If an idea is perfect, how would diluting it make it better? Would it have made sense for President Lincoln to leave the issue of slavery to the states for the sake of middle ground? The notion that we should strive for middle ground regardless of the absurdity of some of the positions one side is taking is frankly ridiculous. Unless we actually feel that way, let's stop pretending that the Republican ideas are as good as the Democrats', because they are not.
2. President Obama needs to hold a press conference for the specific purpose of criticizing Republicans, and he needs to make one idea the center piece of this event: Republicans who stood steadfast against last year's Stimulus Bill have gone back to their states and claimed credit for its passage. President Obama has made passing comments on this trend here and there, but that's not enough. He needs to hold a long and live press conference during prime time and force all three networks to cover it back to back and exclusively for days. The media can miss the emphasis if the press conference is to focus on any other issue.
3. When it comes to the health care bill, Congressional Democrats need to bring their final bill -- whatever it will look like -- to a normal vote, even if Republicans are threatening a filibuster. The Democrats must call the Republicans on their bluff. If Mr. Smith wants to hold up the bill day after day, let him do it and let the cameras role as he reads the dictionary to the rest of Congress. After a week of this charade and round-the-clock coverage of it in the media, suddenly the reconciliation process to pass health care with a simple majority won't look so bad to the public. Not to mention that the filibuster speeches will give the Democrats some good materials for their ads in the mid-term races.
What these ideas have in common is that they require a little bit of backbone. But unless the Democrats let Republicans get away with their action, there will be no healthcare reform.