Truth and trust in the health reform debate
| August 12, 2009 | 1:33 PM
More journal entries from Cindy House »
The more I look into the health care reform bill the more I realize that, as with everything in politics, the motivations of the people involved will weigh heavily on the eventual reality.
Case in point: the argument that the public insurance option in the reform bill is opening the door to socialized medicine.
First off, we already have socialized medicine in America. It’s called Medicare. And the public insurance option will function similarly, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your personal feelings about Medicare’s effectiveness and fiscal sustainability.
But whether the public insurance plan will lead to a single-payer system — which is what most people, I think, are referring to when they say “socialized medicine” — depends more on people and politicians rather than legislation. The bill itself leaves a key decision up to a government administrator: whether to allow large companies to participate in the public plan for their employees.
If these companies are allowed to participate, it’s ostensible that the number of enrollees in the public plan will swell because it’s a cheaper option. That would assume competing private plans won’t lower their premiums to be more attractive. It also assumes that the folks overseeing the new Health Choices Administration will stay true to the reform bill’s goal of preserving “a variety of choices” in the insurance marketplace.
This administrator who will make the decision about large companies having access to the public plan — the Health Choices Commissioner — would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. So, again, we need to look at the motivations of our elected officials.
My former Rocky Mountain News colleague Rick Henderson was kind enough to direct me to two video clips that lend credence to the argument that the ultimate goal of the health reform push — at least for some politicians — is to establish a single-payer system. In one, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., tells the group Single Payer Action July 27 that the best way to establish a single-payer system is by first having a “strong” public insurance option. In the other clip, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. and Democratic chief deputy whip, tells another gathering of single-payer advocates essentially the same thing. Both discussions involved H.R. 676, which was introduced in 2005 to establish a single-payer system.
Since that plan has gone nowhere in four years — even as Democrats regained control of the White House and Congress — it seems that other politicians have been able to temper the single-payer push. Whether they will continue to be able to temper it is another question entirely.
So, for foes of “socialized medicine,” it seems the key question is not whether you support health reform; it’s do you trust your legislators?
Business, Cindy House, Journals, Region
health care reform, health insurance, medicare, single payer
