The nutty thing about the health care
debate that will play a prominent role in the next election is that most
Americans want pretty much the same outcome: to control costs without
sacrificing quality. And that’s not what either major-party candidate is
offering. Few think that Obamacare, a Romneycare descendant that
contains the same kind of individual mandate the then-governor of
Massachusetts signed into law, will get us to that desired goal. Nor
would Mitt Romney, who has been reborn as a celebrant of the old,
pre-Obama system with a few nips and tucks.
Taken on November 3, 2011 in Franklin Mcpherson Square, Washington, DC. (Photo: Flickr/Glyn Lowe Photoworks)
As the nation awaits a Supreme Court ruling
on the constitutionality of the Obama health care approach, a new
Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that the vast majority of Americans
want Congress to come up with a better plan. They know that the current
system is unsustainable. Only a third of those polled favored the law
President Barack Obama signed, but according to the AP, “whatever people
think of the law, they don’t want a Supreme Court ruling against it to
be the last word on health care reform.” The article continued, “More
than three-fourths of Americans want their political leaders to
undertake a new effort, rather than leave the health care system alone
if the court rules against the law, according to the poll.”
That sentiment underscores the opportunity
missed by Obama, who limited his ambition to what Big Pharma and the
insurance giants would accept as “reform” in a system that they had so
successfully exploited. Obamacare is a faux reform born of opportunism,
as was Romney’s original version: Play ball with those who have profited
most from the run-up of medical costs and expect them to make it more
affordable.
Two dynamics doomed the experiment. First,
the new Democratic president wanted to launch a bold progressive
program, but rather than channel the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
to address the economic crisis that he inherited, he continued the
bailouts begun under George W. Bush and fixed on health care reform
instead of the financial pain being suffered by average Americans.
"Obamacare is a faux reform born of opportunism, as was Romney’s original version"
The second dynamic that undercut the health
care bill was an overeagerness on the part of the new White House
operatives to collaborate with the profiteers in the very industry
targeted by reform.
The email trail of cave-ins to the medical
industry heavyweights is startlingly clear, and it is difficult to
quarrel with the headline on a Wall Street Journal story: “Emails Reveal
How the White House Bought Big Pharma.” Except, as a related editorial
in the WSJ makes clear, it was the pharmaceutical industry that did the
buying, with “a $150 million advertising campaign coordinated with the
White House political shop.”
What the industry bought was an end to the
notion of a health care “public option,” and a guarantee of no serious
restrictions on drug prices, arranged by then White House chief of staff
Rahm Emanuel, who was in close communication with the lobbyists
involved. The Journal article pointed to the cynical language of the
emails exchanged, quoting one incriminating note from a lobbyist: “Rahm
asked for Harry and Louise ads thru third party. We’ve already contacted
the agent.” The American Medical Association and others also were in on
the fix, yet with all of that power being exercised the public wasn’t
conned. As the WSJ editorialized (it galls me to agree with that
newspaper’s editorialists), “The miracle is that despite this collusion
of big government and big business, Obamacare has received the public
scorn that it deserves.”
But scorn for an individual mandate that
compels consumers to purchase something they don’t want does not
translate into a rational alternative to the current mess. Californian
Gary Hess, a retired school administrator and a Republican, is quoted in
the AP story about the new poll as saying that he wants the Supreme
Court to reject the entire Obama plan but that he still wants the
government to retain the requirement that insurance companies cover
people regardless of their prior medical conditions. “There needs to be
compromise on both sides,” he said. Clearly, any good compromise must
include both control on costs and the availability of health care to the
needy in places other than the very expensive emergency room.
Let me humbly suggest that as an
alternative to a mandatory system rejected by the majority, we return to
the idea of covering most people by attracting them to quality public
and private programs through consumer choice, and that one of those
choices be a version of the public option we now offer seniors. It’s
called Medicare and it works splendidly.
© 2012 TruthDig.com
Robert Scheer is editor of
Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.
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