OpEd:
Legitimate Healthcare Reform Is Fading Fast
October 12, 2009 by Kyle BradyTags: America, Baucus Bill, Congress, Healthcare, Insurance, Max Baucus, Obama, Politics, Reform
As required by the FTC, a Full Disclosure is available - this piece adheres to the Code of Ethics
Senator Max Baucus produced a bill from the Senate Finance Committee not long ago that has since been lauded as “revolutionary”, a “win” for the American people, and, most importantly, as the bill that will likely form the basis of what Congress will actually pass as so-called healthcare reform. Not only is this ethically wrong, it’s a farce that’s been handed to the American people in the hopes that they accept its very minimal reforms as truly revolutionary and placate the 70+% of the country that is pining for change within the medical, insurance, and otherwise healthcare sectors.
The “Baucus Bill” does a number of things, but there are two central pieces to it: forcing every American, under penalty, to have some form of health insurance, and providing subsidies to private insurance companies to make it more affordable to citizens. There is no public option, or any semblance of a government-run healthcare plan. There is no extension of Medicare to younger crowds. There is no tax to pay for these subsidies. There is no forced transformation from healthcare corporations to non-profits.
Rather than put together an intelligent bill, Max Baucus chose to give in to the current Republican ideal of not instituting progress for the average American citizen, as well as not increasing the size of federal government, and this has resulted in a mashup of horrible ideas with even worse implementations. Take, for example, the way the bill is paid for: rather than having a relatively low and inexpensive federal-level tax, individuals or families with extensive healthcare plans are taxed. This means that people who prefer to have substantial coverage for themselves, essentially those who are able to afford the best care/plan in the unnecessarily expensive world of health insurance, are now being taxed on their free-market expenditures.
Somehow, those behind this bill imagine that the federal government providing money to already corrupt and money-hungry insurance companies will help solve the situation, even without any actual regulation of the healthcare system or a legitimate nation-wide option for health insurance. The bill does nothing about pre-existing conditions, those truly unable to afford healthcare, regulating the health insurance companies, or even addressing the skyrocketing cost of healthcare in America, and yet the American people are expected to support a large cashflow of their money to the companies that have caused these very problems.
Is this what American politics have become? A system so entrenched in its fundraising process that it can no longer make intelligent policy decisions that have an effect on large corporate entities?
There are rumors that some Democrats, including President Obama, are supporting this bill merely to get something on the Senate floor, in order to pull a trick in the process of Reconciliation: sticking the public option in at the last minute, while removing the pocket-lining of insurance companies. This is a risky strategy, at best, because its failiure would obviously result in millions of dollars being freely given to an industry that has already proven itself as both irresponsible and unable to behave properly. To this end, there is a growing number of Democrats that are looking at the public option as the only solution, no matter its inherent partisan nature, something that should have occurred months ago, and Alan Grayson has become the focal point of this movement by publicly decrying the “Republican plan” of denial while calling out his fellow Democrats that have thus far failed miserably.
In response to the Baucus Bill, hundreds of amendments have been proposed, most of them as inane, or worse, than the bill itself - not the least of which is the ability of states to “opt-in” or “opt-out”, depending on the proposal, from a federal public option. Among proposals such as the public option becoming a state-level enterprise, the lack of backbone by many Democratic Congressmen has been shown, since the country’s citizens overwhelming want not only healthcare reform and industry regulation, but a federally run public option - this cannot, and should not, be accomplished at the state-level or with a provision for objecting states to remove themselves from federal law. Why is this so difficult to comprehend?
As the days and weeks pass, the hopes that many Americans had for a decline in healthcare costs and the de-emphasizing of grossly self-indulgent corporations is fading. Short of a coup in the Reconciliation process or a magical unity of Democrats, which would include the self-labeled “Blue Dogs” that masquerade as liberals, the American people have lost. Not only have the American people lost, but Congress has lost – the people’s faith in not only Congress but the government itself has been visibly shaken by the recent public display of corporate influence on the future, fate, and form of this very nation.
Kyle can be found on Twitter and MySpace, or reached via email.
