Burt Hall: Fighting Back On Health Care Reform

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Burt Hall

Open letter to Senators Webb, Warner, Baucus, and Conrad:

Far right attempts to sabotage health care reform have promoted uncivilized behavior at town hall meetings and attracted extremists packing guns. Now, the swiftboaters who viciously attacked Senator Kerry are attacking the President on the public option. Every U.S. Senator worth his salt should go on the airways and counter the far right misinformation machine. As to current polls, they are meaningless when the public (including some of your own colleagues) don't even understand the reforms.

You could start by educating the public and your colleagues on the critical differences between private insurance and the public option. For example, private insurers have failed to control the exploding costs of health care or to provide sufficient care for our people. We rank nearly last among advanced nations in practically ever health care category. Other advanced nations have been successful without private insurers. Big business here bypasses private insurers and self insurers. Private insurers have restrictions, such as on coverage and what doctors you can see. The public option allows freedom. Further issues to explore about private insurers are (1) what do they actually contribute to medical care, (2) does the insurance business even apply to the medical field, and (3) is it moral for private insurers to profit from human illness?

In short, the public option is not optional. It could be sunsetted in your legislation to first see how well it works. As Paul Krugman noted, the stocks of private insurers soared when your substitute of co-ops entered the picture. In a recent The New York Times column, Bob Herbert said:

Forget about the nonprofit cooperatives. That's like sending peewee footballers up against the Super Bowl champs. … If the oldest and sickest are on Medicare, and the poorest are on Medicaid, and the young and healthy are required to purchase private insurance without the option of a competing government-run plan -- well, that's reform the insurance companies can believe in.

The public and your colleagues also need to be educated on the use of the term, "government-run program." There is no such thing, except possibly in the military. In my experience with Medicare, the doctor and I have always made the decision. The government merely administers the program from afar. Two years ago I fired my cardiologist, and just last Sunday I discharged myself from the ER when instead the hospital wanted admittance and additional unnecessary tests. The next day, my primary care doctor concurred with a smile. The government has never once in over 20 years of my Medicare experience been involved in any of my medical decisions.

The far right wants you and the President to fail on health care reform, regardless of its merits, so they can recapture the White House and control of Congress. The far right has hijacked the Republican Party and poses the greatest danger to our nation's welfare in decades. They simply do not accept the results of national elections. Desperate to further their own agenda, they do not play by the rules or follow the U.S. Constitution. They decide what they want to do without regard to ethics, legality, or the harm it might do to our nation, and then pursue a win-at-any-cost strategy to achieve their ends. This happened throughout the 90's (including the far right's first assault on health care reform), and is happening again today.

The far right believes it has a special entitlement to govern this country. It considered Bill Clinton a usurper and now is comparing our new President to Hitler. Threats on the new President's assassination have increased by 300 percent. A new book (JFK and the Unspeakable) supports the Kennedy family theory that the President "was the victim of a right-wing conspiracy" because he was going to end the Cold War and pull out of Vietnam. Terrible misstatements on health care reforms by politicians, such as Senators Jim DeMint and Chuck Grassley and Representative Tom Price (R-GA) only inflame the situation and increase the chances of another assassination. If our politicians don't cool it, there will be more presidents wounded or murdered in our land of democracy than those who were not.

Another reason for you to be more personally concerned is that campaign finance is a factor and could backfire on the Democratic Party. Chairman Baucus of the key Senate Committee on healthcare is the recipient of substantial contributions from private insurers. They obviously do not want the public option even considered. He also erred initially when he would not allow all health care options on the table. Another dimension of this problem is that major organizations are beginning to announce no support, financial or otherwise, for any member of Congress who does not vote for major health care reform, including a public option. The way things are going now this means a reduced or total loss of congressional control by the Democrats.

I've never seen so much misinformation on one subject in my lifetime. I hope you can improve the situation. Some problems could be resolved if you would convince the President to hold a fireside chat with the American people in early September outlining what he really expects from the final bill in Congress.

Under the previous administration, Senate Republican leadership threatened use of a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than a super majority of 60 votes, in order to get approval of several judges. Isn't America's health care worth more than a few judges?

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

Burt Hall has served as a group director on matters of national security in the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and authored articles on 9/11, the war in Iraq, and terrorism strategy. He is coauthor, with Ed Asner, of Misuse of Power: How the Far Right Gained and Misuses Power, reviewed by BuzzFlash. At the GAO, Mr. Hall became an expert in the procurement field and was instrumental in creating the Truth in Negotiations Act, the modernized and unified federal procurement statute, and the initial government-wide policy on acquisition of major weapon systems. He is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program of Harvard University.