On the Contrary

“Senator Olympia Snowe, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, where the most-watched version of the health care bill is being written, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the so-called public option is “universally opposed by all Republicans in the Senate” and “therefore, there’s no way to pass a plan that includes the public option.””  The New York Times article went on to say, “A new government insurance has been roundly opposed by the health care and insurance industries, and Republicans have argued that it would create an alternative to employer-sponsored private plans that will lure millions of insured workers away and lead to a dysfunctional single-payer plan.”

If the Republicans and the health care and insurance industries don’t like it, it must be a good idea.  So it is clear who is in charge of health care reform, and it is not the Democrats.  Senator Snowe is, of course, referring to the filibuster requirement of 60 votes.  But one has to remind the Democrats that our democracy as defined in our Constitution does not require 60 votes for a health care bill.  The Constitution is clear about what actions require a super majority, but lets each house set its own rules, thus the filibuster in the Senate. The Democrats have tied their own hands because they have failed to call the Republican’s bluff and stand firm for what they believe will work.  They seem to work under the impression that half a loaf is good enough when in fact it may just worsen the situation.  I wonder how the Republican Party would fare if the Democrats stood firm on a Public Option and forced the Republicans to actually conduct a filibuster, exposing their nihilist approach to our problems for all to see.

Senator Snowe went on to say scuttling the public option for good “could give real momentum to building a consensus on other issues.”  Read the words “real momentum to building a consensus on other issues” as meaning do it the Republican and health industry way so that the bill enrolls lots more people, but does nothing to really correct the massive cost growth problem. Building consensus with Republicans has really worked well for the Democrats in the past, hasn’t it?  If they are stupid enough to go down this road again they deserve to be out of power.

Republicans mean only one thing when they say bipartisan, and that is do it our way.  Real negotiations would have been insisting on a single payer system and then compromising to a public option.  As it is, President Obama and his band of weak-kneed advisors gave up the single payer system before the game began, have not stood firm for the public option, and then made side deals with the health care industry to try to defuse opposition.  It was a stupid play when they could have used the opposition to their advantage.  It is unlikely now that we will get any real health care reform that makes a difference or put in place the incentives to control costs, unless the Democrats decide to fight the filibuster.  Will they?  I don’t think they have the guts.  It has always been their fatal flaw that Republicans have turned to their advantage.

What we need is a strong public option and a real look at how unlimited health care incentivizes unlimited spending.  Probably a mix of public and private insurance such as France has is the optimum approach (See Roger Cohen op-ed, Get Real on Health Care),  with a look at how to make consumers more discerning about how they spend their health care dollars (How American Health Care Killed My Father).  If Congress brings anything forward without a public option, it should be killed because it doesn’t address the underlying problem of mushrooming costs and has no mechanism to control the private industry by competition.  We need to stand firm for what is right and will work, not half measures that may cover a few more but bankrupts all of us in the end.

Moderate Republicans like Senator Olympia Snowe from Maine are upset about Arlen Specter’s move to the Democratic Party.  She wrote this in the New York Times on Wednesday:

“It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.””

Said more plainly, lose the social issues, and focus on fiscal restraint.  I still think this approach loses.  How does restraining government spending help each child have an opportunity for a college education, provide us with an energy policy and way forward to free us from oil, or solve our healthcare crisis?  How does tax reduction address the money needed for investment in research for the innovation in the future, not to mention fixing the infrastructure?  And of course how does the torture policies of the Republicans and their suspension of habeas corpus defend individual liberty?  The basic flaw here is that what was good policy in the 19th century does not address the complex world we live in the 21st century.  Small town values are quaint, but don’t deal with the complexities of the world around us.

Nobody wants wasteful spending, but the Republicans are famous for labeling wasteful spending any investment in our future.  It would seem their horizons are limited by the short-term impact and they can do no long term planning or investing.  A prime example is to wonder why in the early 2000s, did they not raise taxes to retire the deficit when everyone was flush?  Their underlying philosophy is that the private sector, once the incentives are right, will solve all problems. They have been tinkering with the health care system for years with this philosophy and it is a mess.  The business model for health insurance companies is counterproductive to providing universal healthcare (insure the healthy, deny claims) and can only be modified by requiring them to take on all comers.  But that would entail regulation and government interference.  So tinkering with the private insurers and placing all your bets on the private sector is going nowhere and most people understand that today.

Take our energy problems, which are in abeyance now in our suppressed economy, but will come back with a vengeance just as we start to recover.  History tells us that our automobile companies cannot plan for the future and are focused on the short-term, high return automobiles that will make them totally unprepared for the eventual high price of oil.  Well actually they are already going under.  It is government’s role to protect all of the people by raising fuel standards and forcing the industries to do some long term planning.  The fact that they have been so successful in the past lobbying Washington to keep that from happening tells you all you need to know about the free market solving these problems.  The free market is made up of very powerful vested interests who do not want to lose their piece of the pie.  If you doubt this ask yourself what just happened in our financial industry.  They made a ton of money and the rest of us are screwed.  Worked okay for them.

Probably the biggest indicator that the Republican philosophy no longer applies is that they have no solutions for our future other than to cut taxes and reduce government.  Reducing the deficit when government is the only thing keeping people employed is madness.  Once again long-term thinking applies (spend now, save later, or during good  times, raising taxes to prepare for rainy days) and they just can’t manage it.  Pundits decry the lack of Republicans stepping to the plate with Republican solutions for the massive problems that face us.  That is because their underlying conservative philosophy offers no solutions.

The way forward is to lose the philosophy altogether.  The important thing is not how a policy complies with our dogma, but does it work.  Sometimes big government is a good thing and sometimes it isn’t.  Sometimes taxes are required, and sometimes they are constricting our economy.  Sometimes regulation is essential, and sometimes it chokes innovation.  Sometimes the government must provide services, and sometimes the private sector is better equipped.  The key here is sometimes.  Moderates of either party and Progressives believe in sometimes.   In the conservative dogma, sometimes doesn’t exist and is why we are in the mess we are in today.   There is a reason that this conservative right wing dogma appeals so to the religious nuts.  It is a religion and is therefore uninformed by reality.  It doesn’t require thinking. It is very unlikely that they will ever compromise and see the sometimes.  They certainly haven’t so far.