If you haven't been asleep the last two days, you've probably heard by now that the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3590, the Senate health care bill, along with an additional package of improvements designed to make H.R. 3590 better.
Politically, it's less a victory for Democrats than it is a complete public relations disaster for Republicans. Republicans had stalled for months, banking on the Democrats' incompetence to kill reform efforts. As of Sunday night, that bet failed to pay off.
Still, the Democrats gave up way too much in pursuit of this bill. It was apparent in the summer of last year that Republicans had no intention of working with them in good faith. The Democrats continued to give up things they wanted in order to draw Republicans to the bill, but when the time came to vote, they got a grand total of zero Republicans.
Chasing after them only resulted in a weaker bill and wasted time that could've been spent addressing immigration, energy or the wars.
The politics of the issue aside, the substance of the bill is rather poor. It's not awful, but it's certainly not a good bill. I'm the only one of my political persuasion that I personally know believes this way, and there's no way I would've voted for it.
The status quo of the health care system is unsustainable. Due to a system of for-profit health care that is already seeing exploding costs, the system can't work as is for much longer. While the current bill has some cost-control measures contained in it, it doesn't amount to much.
So with an already unsustainable system, the bill is going to take the current chassis and put 32 million people on it. The math just doesn't add up. It would've been better to just scrap the entire system and start from scratch.
A few other points drew my opposition:
- No public option. Is it any wonder why stocks of Cigna and WellPoint have shot up over the past year? With a mandate coming and no public option in sight, private insurers are guaranteed 32 million more customers. If I were an insurance executive, I'd love the deal.
- The anti-trust exemption remains. Insurers such as Anthem and WellPoint are still completely free to call each other up and agree to jack up rates 20 percent tomorrow, if they so choose.
- No Wyden-Bennett deal. The problem with our current system is that insurance is largely provided by employers. By businesses paying these costs, there's less room in their budgets for raises, hiring more workers or investing in their own business. This is a problem that no other industrialized nation faces; it puts us at a major competitive disadvantage.
- Weak subsidies. The subsidies are crucial. Without strong subsidies, it makes no sense to mandate that people purchase insurance, because they wouldn't be able to afford it. The original House bill had very strong subsidies. The bill that just passed was rather weak in this area.
All these problems aside, there were indeed some very good features, but none good enough, in my opinion, to vote to support it. The supporters of the bill say it's a step forward. And it is, but I just don't see the step as big enough, considering we had the ability to do so much more. If only leaders hadn't been so willing to toss out every part they really wanted.
Notice that the criticisms above are very different from the reasons many members of the Republican Party and the Teabag Brigade have been giving. Listen to them and they'll tell you that we're now on track to becoming an atheist, fascist, socialist, baby-killing nation where the government is taking over health care.
I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone; it's just a case of reckless, paranoid hyperbole completely taking over a major political party.
The bill doesn't remove restrictions on federal funding for abortion, and because there isn't even a public option, much less single-payer, it's ridiculous to claim that it's the government taking over health care. If that were true, then why do private insurance companies like the bill so much?
Even though it's not a great deal, health reform is just about done, as soon as the Senate agrees to the fix, which appears very likely. The Democrats will have their signature issue completed, which should give them momentum going into the November elections.
But it's a hollow victory when they could've had so much more.
Write to Michael at mgkarafin@bsu.edu.
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