The Speech Worked -- Now Get To Work

President Barack Obama kept me on board a while longer with his State of the Union speech. He set the right tone, handing out an olive branch (again), while refusing to back away from his important, signature policies. He sounded ready to fight for them. Now it's time for him to back up what he said by not allowing the GOP to dictate the terms or the fate of health care reform, which is just what they are trying to do.

They are still offering up a too-insignificant, piecemeal approach that doesn't deal with the heart of the complex problem, which is essentially this: What's the best, most effective and efficient way to pay for the health care for the sickest among us? We already pay for them through premiums that are doubling and hospitals writing off billions of dollars of indigent care, all the while still allowing about 45,000 citizens to die every year for lack of insurance, a countless number of others who are relegated to lives that are less ideal than they have to be, health wise, because they don't have access to medical care and leaving too many of our businesses, big and small, vulnerable to foreign competitors who don't have the same worries. The GOP -- with John McCain and our own Lindsey Graham among them -- is demanding the health care debate begin anew, the bills already through the Senate and House scrapped and a "bipartisan" solution the new priority. They say a plan that costs less than $100 billion will do the trick and again talk about tort reform as one of the main solutions. I don't know how many times it has to be proven that tort reform, whether or not it is necessary to ease the minds of doctors, will not put a big dent in the rise of health care costs. The Congressional Budget Office said it would reduce them by between 1 percent and 2 percent, and another recent study has come to a similar conclusion.

The GOP also tries to underplay the number of uninsured in this country to make the problem seem less serious than it is while trying to ignore another reality: If private medical insurance has any shot of working for the poorest among us, it needs the largest pool of customers possible, and ignoring millions of the uninsured pretty much guarantees their idea will fail, like it has multiple times since the 1940s. And they claim their input was not allowed before, which is utter nonsense. One of the reasons the debate dragged on all year is because President Obama spent so much time trying to court Republicans, even visiting House Republicans on multiple occasions. In addition to that, he set up a six-member bipartisan Senate panel -- three Republicans, three Democrats -- that would serve as the foundation for the ultimate bill. After months of such negotiations, the GOP resorted to saying that Democrats wanted the federal government to take over a sixth of the economy, wanted to set up death panels and would increase the deficit. But none of that is true. The Senate bill includes several Republican ideas, including removing the state-lines barrier so many Republicans insist is necessary to increase competition. It also does not include a public option -- something most Democrats wanted -- but the GOP was against. It brings down the federal deficit by potentially $1.3 trillion over the next two decades, something the GOP said it wants. Given all of that, why is someone such as Sen. Olympia Snowe not willing to vote for the Senate bill?

It also includes pilot programs to test medical best practices. The ones that show promise will be expanded; the ones that don't will be scrapped. If that's not evidence of bipartisanship already in the Senate bill, then is bipartisanship even possible? And the cuts to Medicare will actually extend the life of Medicare because it removes some of the fat, over payments and attacks fraud. Besides that, those cuts and comprehensive reform are necessary to get a handle on the federal deficit. That's why making small changes to the health system won't work. If we don't do it today, we will be forced to do it in a few years -- and by then, many of those who are opposed to reform today will be among the growing number of Americans struggling to find affordable coverage.

This is what Sen. Graham said after the State of the Union speech:

"On health care, I believe the people of Massachusetts spoke for the entire nation when they said ‘no’ to the Democratic health care bill. It was too big in scope, added hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit, increased taxes and cut Medicare in a fashion that did not put the program on sound financial footing in years to come. I look forward to working on a new way forward on health care -- more modest in scope -- that will focus on lowering the health care costs for Americans."

 

I respect Graham and was with him with his early support of the Wyden-Bennett proposal, but now even he is parroting GOP talking points that don't jive with the facts. How can a U.S. Senator from South Carolina say, with a straight face, that the people of Massachusetts spoke for the entire nation? (We also know he is wrong about his assessment, given what exit polling from that special election tell us.) And if Graham is going this route, what hope is there that other Republicans will be serious about getting real health care reform through on a bipartisan basis?

 

The president kept me on board last night by telling his party to "not run for the hills," that they were sent to Washington to solve problems not to remain popular. He will keep me on board if he follows through on that clear, tough talk.

They are still offering up a too-insignificant, piecemeal approach that doesn't deal with the heart of the complex problem, which is essentially this: What's the best, most effective and efficient way to pay for the health care for the sickest among us? We already pay for them through premiums that are doubling and hospitals writing off billions of dollars of indigent care, all the while still allowing about 45,000 citizens to die every year for lack of insurance, a countless number of others who are relegated to lives that are less ideal than they have to be, health wise, because they don't have access to medical care and leaving too many of our businesses, big and small, vulnerable to foreign competitors who don't have the same worries. The GOP -- with John McCain and our own Lindsey Graham among them -- is demanding the health care debate begin anew, the bills already through the Senate and House scrapped and a "bipartisan" solution the new priority. They say a plan that costs less than $100 billion will do the trick and again talk about tort reform as one of the main solutions. I don't know how many times it has to be proven that tort reform, whether or not it is necessary to ease the minds of doctors, will not put a big dent in the rise of health care costs. The Congressional Budget Office said it would reduce them by between 1 percent and 2 percent, and another recent study has come to a similar conclusion.

The GOP also tries to underplay the number of uninsured in this country to make the problem seem less serious than it is while trying to ignore another reality: If private medical insurance has any shot of working for the poorest among us, it needs the largest pool of customers possible, and ignoring millions of the uninsured pretty much guarantees their idea will fail, like it has multiple times since the 1940s. And they claim their input was not allowed before, which is utter nonsense. One of the reasons the debate dragged on all year is because President Obama spent so much time trying to court Republicans, even visiting House Republicans on multiple occasions. In addition to that, he set up a six-member bipartisan Senate panel -- three Republicans, three Democrats -- that would serve as the foundation for the ultimate bill. After months of such negotiations, the GOP resorted to saying that Democrats wanted the federal government to take over a sixth of the economy, wanted to set up death panels and would increase the deficit. But none of that is true. The Senate bill includes several Republican ideas, including removing the state-lines barrier so many Republicans insist is necessary to increase competition. It also does not include a public option -- something most Democrats wanted -- but the GOP was against. It brings down the federal deficit by potentially $1.3 trillion over the next two decades, something the GOP said it wants. Given all of that, why is someone such as Sen. Olympia Snowe not willing to vote for the Senate bill?

It also includes pilot programs to test medical best practices. The ones that show promise will be expanded; the ones that don't will be scrapped. If that's not evidence of bipartisanship already in the Senate bill, then is bipartisanship even possible? And the cuts to Medicare will actually extend the life of Medicare because it removes some of the fat, over payments and attacks fraud. Besides that, those cuts and comprehensive reform are necessary to get a handle on the federal deficit. That's why making small changes to the health system won't work. If we don't do it today, we will be forced to do it in a few years -- and by then, many of those who are opposed to reform today will be among the growing number of Americans struggling to find affordable coverage.

This is what Sen. Graham said after the State of the Union speech:

"On health care, I believe the people of Massachusetts spoke for the entire nation when they said ‘no’ to the Democratic health care bill. It was too big in scope, added hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit, increased taxes and cut Medicare in a fashion that did not put the program on sound financial footing in years to come. I look forward to working on a new way forward on health care -- more modest in scope -- that will focus on lowering the health care costs for Americans."

 

I respect Graham and was with him with his early support of the Wyden-Bennett proposal, but now even he is parroting GOP talking points that don't jive with the facts. How can a U.S. Senator from South Carolina say, with a straight face, that the people of Massachusetts spoke for the entire nation? (We also know he is wrong about his assessment, given what exit polling from that special election tell us.) And if Graham is going this route, what hope is there that other Republicans will be serious about getting real health care reform through on a bipartisan basis?

 

The president kept me on board last night by telling his party to "not run for the hills," that they were sent to Washington to solve problems not to remain popular. He will keep me on board if he follows through on that clear, tough talk.