September 22, 2009
“What is your substantive proposal to meet these real everyday problems that people have? Where’s the beef?” — A question asked of Republican Representative Eric Cantor by Ben Ragsdale about health care reform. Ragsdale is a residence of Cantor’s home town where the forum was held. Cantor replied that Republicans and Democrats agree on 80 percent of fixing the nation’s healthcare system, but could not show the crowd a detailed plan that has been endorsed by House Republicans. Ragsdale wasn’t the only person at the bipartisan forum that wanted to know the details of the Republicans options.
According to this article, Cantor had no excuse of why the Republicans haven’t released an alternative health care plan although they said earlier this year they would. You may recall that they enjoyed considerable press at the time when Representative John Boehner waved a folder in front of the television cameras that was later discovered to contain just four pages with only bullet points.
Another attendee, Marlise Skinner, said to Cantor “the public option seems to be the best that’s out there so far … what is the alternative out there that would truly control costs, because I’m hearing a lot of spin but I’m not hearing what you would do to control it?” Skinner is a registered nurse who has had to deal with insurance companies for many years, and she hit the nail dead on the head when she called the rhetoric “spin”. I’d have called it what it is: lies!
This is the first we’ve heard that Republicans agree with any part of the Democrats health care bill, let alone 80 percent. I presume Cantor was referring to Democratic Representative Max Baucus’ bill. Still, one has to wonder what “80 percent” he was referring to.
Justin Gardner wrote an article for True-Slant about the Republicans position on the health care bill: It’s Smart Politics For Republicans To Compromise On Health Care Reform. In it Gardner says “[Republicans] had the opportunity FOR DECADES to do something about health care and yet they sat on their hands and let millions go without health insurance, go bankrupt as a result of skyrocketing costs or simply were refused insurance because of pre-existing condition clauses”. Gardner says there are plenty of incentives to sign on to parts of Baucus’ bill, but instead they are still fighting it in its entirety. He insists they have room to negotiate. But he also points out the incentives to not sign on or negotiate:
“It’s a smart political move to oppose this because they can demagogue health care in 2010/2012. This is the only real reason I can think that makes any sense why they’d be against it, especially after they signed EVERYTHING Bush put in front of them (including that drug prescription bill) [bold added, link provided]. So all of sudden they’re finding fiscal conservative religion after Obama gets elected”.
Reuters tells us (via CNBC) that the White House is targeting insurers’ healthcare premiums. They point out that “[we] have experienced premium growth of 90 percent to nearly 150 percent in the past decade, while wages have risen 38 percent and inflation by 28 percent”. Brian Deese of the National Economic Council said “as of 2008 … fewer than half of states required a full review when insurers wanted to increase premiums at the state level… even if it’s all going mostly to profits” [bold added].
But in defiance, insurers’ are raising rates. According to the article, insurers’ are “taking a tougher line on risk factors such as high blood pressure and obesity, in effect another way to boost prices” (unless you are a subscriber, you won’t be able to read the entire Wall Street article). In my opinion, a very stupid thing to do given the big debate over health care reform. But these insurers’ are only taking a page from the Wall Street Bankers’ play book: ‘Why worry — we’re untouchable. Besides, with the forcefulness of our protectors, our side is sure to win’.
E.J. Dionne, Jr. says “it’s time to cast aside the political shorthand and ideological pigeonholing that distort our debates over health care”. Dionne addresses both the health care debate and the proposals to expand & enforce bank regulations, but applies the problem to both issues: “This is a classic case of how the Great Ideological Distortion Machine [bold added] does its mischief: Instead of focusing on how the bill advances values typically regarded as ‘centrist’ — government efficiency, pay-as-you-go budgeting — the banks’ defenders bury the specifics behind abstract discussions of “big government.”
I suspect the Republicans are blinded by their success of garnering the lion’s share of pubic attention by demonizing the Democrats, especially President Obama. Like so many people below the age of 60, they are only concerned with today, not tomorrow. They figure they’ll either be gone when the time comes to pay the piper, or that they’ll worry about a way to cross that bridge once they get to it.
So why won’t the Republicans offer a better plan; because secretly they are extremely happy with the status quo! Even if they suffer a total defeat, they are not going to upset their corporate friends.
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