The Reform That, to the White House, Dare Not Speak Its Name
"In this effort, every voice must be heard. Every idea must be considered. Every option must be on the table." -- President Obama, opening the White House health care summit. Except one idea, apparently. The one reform that will actually contain health care costs, cited by the President as his main goal, and, as a bonus, solve the healthcare crisis -- single payer, or expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone. In the weeks leading up to the summit, the White House made sure all the people it wanted in the room were there. The insurers, drug companies, corporate lobbyists, and those consumer and advocacy groups willing to play by the script. One group, however, was conspicuously absent, advocates of single payer reform. Who happen to include, nurses and doctors, the people who have the most daily experience with the collapsing health care system and who by large margins support single payer. Why were they excluded? When the dean of the press core, Helen Thomas, asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that question yesterday, he came up with this charmer:
MR. GIBBS: I will certainly check on -- I told Chip we rented a big room, but we didn't get the Nationals' baseball stadium.So despite their years of experience in fighting for real reform, the single payer proponents had to take to the streets (again), to pound their way in. Just a few hours before the meeting, and apparently hoping to head off the announced protest at the gates of the White House, invitations were hurriedly and belatedly extended to Rep. John Conyers, author of HR 676, the Medicare for all bill in Congress, and Oliver Fein, MD, president of the Physicians for a National Health Program. Two seats out of some 120, not exactly a message of inclusion. And there was no space for their voices in the tightly scripted sessions. As John Nichols wrote on the Nation website afterwards:
while the doctor was not included on any of the lists of breakout session speakers, the CEOs were, along with representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, America's Health Insurance Plans, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the Business Roundtable. In other words, the overwhelming weight of opinion at what was supposed to be a wide-ranging discussion of health reform was -- at best -- on the side of tinkering with the existing for-profit system. Change we can believe in was not on the agenda.Maybe the redoubtable Mr. Gibbs can explain:
Helen Thomas: Why is the President against single-payer? MR. GIBBS: The President doesn't believe that's the best way to achieve the goal of cutting costs and increasing access.Or perhaps there's the reason suggested by Harper's Magazine editor Luke Mitchell on Democracy Now this morning:
it's a threat to a great deal of people who are making a lot of money right now, which is to say the insurance companies. A single-payer system would take a lot of money out of the insurance system, the private insurance system. And it's also something that a lot of people in Washington understand as ideologically threatening,And, as Democracy Now host Amy Goodman noted, the silence in the summit is largely echoed in the exclusion of single payer voices in the major media:
A new study being released today by FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, found the views of advocates of single payer have only been aired five times in the hundreds of major newspaper, broadcasts and cable stories about healthcare reform over the past week. No single-payer advocate has appeared on a major TV broadcast or cable network to talk about the policy during that period.It's not single payer advocates who are harmed by this wall of exclusion, it's all the American families and patients who yearn for real reform and will almost surely be disillusioned by proposals that fail to achieve it. Because you can't genuinely rein in costs without tackling them at the source -- the insurance companies and their built in incentive to perennially jack up premiums, co-pays, deductibles and all the other ATM-type fees that are bankrupting families and crushing businesses. Nor can you begin to address the callous and routine denial of care for those already insured by the claims adjustors and bean counters who don't want to pay for it. There's another potential casualty here as well, President Obama who himself famously said in 2003 that he was a proponent of single payer and must surely know it is best approach. A lot of political capital will be expended to pass reform this year, it ought to be devoted to a reform that will actually work.
Thank you for this important post. The bottom line appears to be 'money talks' and 'change you can believe in' is really just business as usual, pandering to those special interests. We all know that the transition to a single payer system will not be without difficulties, especially the reallocation of labor resources in the private insurance system. That does not mean we should adhere to a failed, and failing system of delivering healthcare to the people of the US. Your comment regarding the l0ost political capital of the Obama administration is one I truly hope someone within the administration is paying attention to. My understanding is at this point more than 50% of the American public support a single payer system. It appears to me that the only reason to have so marginalized the single payer advocates in this debate is to further the int6erests of the insurance carriers in the face of reason, logic, numerous studies, and in contradiction of the will of the American people. Thanks again for posting.
March 6, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Welcome the impromptu health care Blog In! I will add a link to your wonderful post here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/therap/2009/03/the-fallacy-of-republican-heal.php
March 6, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post. Seashell just did a related post calling for personal stories, like Move On.Org is requesting in my Email today.
ConnecticutMan1 just wrote about this this week.
March 6, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
1) I adore Helen Thomas.
2) It's looking more and more like there will have to be a rumble in the streets to get the single payer issue the attention it needs.
Ya know...I don't give a crap about insurance company's anymore. I don't know when the first health insurance policy was written, but it seems to me they have been sucking up our money for enough years that they should be pretty well set financially, so why are they whining so hard about having the tap turned off?
Oh, yeah. It's because they're greedy. Silly me.
March 6, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do you solve a problem when you don't invite the solution?
March 6, 2009 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sweet Jeezus!
This is exactly the way in which Clinton's Health Care Reform effort got submarined long before it could gain any steam. The meeting convened at Jackson Hole included pretty much the same cast of players/thieves as attended Obama's Health Care Summit.
As peegalito said earlier (above) it shows just how powerfully money talks in Washington. "Change We Can Believe In?" Hardly. More like "As Much Change As You Can Afford," and it's pretty tough to outspend in campaign contributions the insurance co's and the phramaceutical industry and all other stakeholders who are vested in the status quo.
If ever there was a legitimately important issue in this generation that will require a populist uprising to resolve in the interests of the people instead of K Street, Universal Health Care is it. And The California Nurse's Assn. has done terrific work getting such an insurrection organized. They deserve all our support and our attention as they continue leading the charge.
And don't think for a minute that Obama will make the changes necessary to truly get us out from under the inefficiencies we experience as the parasitic health industry interests bleed monies from our health care system. He is showing every sign of paying tribute to the suits of K Street on this issue, and we will do well to call him on it - quite loudly, at that!
March 7, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed, money talks. But whose money?
In the last election, it was "our" money that spoke loudest.
But you can't turn government, an essentially private enterprise, into a public enterprise overnight.
Like AIG, Detroit and Wall Street, it appears the government has to go bankrupt before we, the taxpayers are officially recognized as its rightful owners.
March 7, 2009 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
As long as the parasites called Insurance Companies are involved then reform of ANY kind will be a hard target.
Not to "toot my own horn" so to speak please check out some of the salaries of Health Insurance CEO's here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/tmcpac/2009/03/why-health-insurance-companies-1.php
It is obscene what these guys TAKE out of the health CARE system, and it REALLY PISSES ME OFF!
THANKS FOR THE POST AND REC'D
March 7, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you watch the televised meeting? I did. Doctors, nurses, et al were there and spoke.
Out of the gate I believe he should have invited 'all'segments. Make them speak out. Each 'groups' notes, etc. will be posted on site and out there for all to see....perhaps Obama is giving them enough rope, etc.
Why are so many so quick to project end result before process is even really begun? Get all the facts before predicting the worst. I believe it's a concept Obama endorses and utilizes.
March 7, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aunt Sam,
I believe it is far more productive, overall, to assume the worst, speak out loudly in protest and in effort to hold Obama's feet to the fire in insisting he do the right thing, and then (perhaps) find out in the end that he was onboard with our objectives all the time.
In proceeding in this fashion, we offer Obama the political cover he needs to promote the "Change We Can Believe In." We also serve as a countervailing influence to all the monied interests trying to maintain the status quo.
To say nothing at all while waiting to see the result would be totally irresponsible. I fear it would lead once again to the result we received at the close of the Clinton's campaign to reform the Health Care System.
It may be safe to assume that Obama is a true progressive interested in promoting my agenda. But it is foolish to depend upon him to fight the good fight without my active - and oft vocal - support.
March 7, 2009 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not in favor of 'waiting to see the result'...
However, I believe it's prudent to at least wait until the smoke of the starter pistol has cleared before calling the loser/winner or proclaiming 'the fix is in'.
To presume/assume the worst for Obama's processes is not, in my opinion, offering him political or other cover he needs. Quite the opposite.
To provide support based on facts and faith in his judgement is more productive for all until we KNOW otherwise. For me, this approach is the most responsible and promotes the best environment for success.
He and the programs/processes we need do not benefit from/in the fog of baseless projected failure/conjecture that only promote needless negativity. The repubs already do more than enough of this.
March 7, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, do you think this:
is a lie?
Because if it's not a lie, then I don't see how complaints by people who want single payer are "baseless" at this point in time. And they shouldn't be expected to support what Obama wants to do, because it says right there that he doesn't want to do single payer.
I find Obama is turning out to be an amazingly honest politician, but that's going to be to the diappointment of many. A lot of people expected that a lot of things he said during the campaign were "pandering" and not real, and they had their hopes up that he didn't mean what he said about a health care plan, or he didn't mean what he said to AIPAC or whatever. Guess what, it's looking more and more every day like he meant everything he said....
March 7, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe exactly what he said...
That while he believes he has an excellent plan, it is not perfect and he urges others (anyone) who has input/changes that would be better to contribute their options. Also, that the White House would not stand in the way or impede the due process.
It is very early in the process. He is sending people out to hold town meetings all over the nation for input from all who are so inclined.
My stance is that it is more productive to positively contribute and deal in actual facts than it is to critique an hypothetical assumption.
NOTHING is set in stone.
I also believe if, once all the facts are in, that the single payer option is the best for most if not all, he will support it.
We all should be expending our time and energy making what is on the table now better instead of inserting and touting negative critiques.
March 7, 2009 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe exactly what he said...
That while he believes he has an excellent plan, it is not perfect and he urges others (anyone) who has input/changes that would be better to contribute their options. Also, that the White House would not stand in the way or impede the due process.
It is very early in the process. He is sending people out to hold town meetings all over the nation for input from all who are so inclined.
My stance is that it is more productive to positively contribute and deal in actual facts than it is to critique an hypothetical assumption.
NOTHING is set in stone.
I also believe if, once all the facts are in, that the single payer option is the best for most if not all, he will support it.
We all should be expending our time and energy making what is on the table now better instead of inserting and touting negative critiques.
March 7, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe exactly what he said...
That while he believes he has an excellent plan, it is not perfect and he urges others (anyone) who has input/changes that would be better to contribute their options. Also, that the White House would not stand in the way or impede the due process.
It is very early in the process. He is sending people out to hold town meetings all over the nation for input from all who are so inclined.
My stance is that it is more productive to positively contribute and deal in actual facts than it is to critique an hypothetical assumption.
NOTHING is set in stone.
I also believe if, once all the facts are in, that the single payer option is the best for most if not all, he will support it.
We all should be expending our time and energy making what is on the table now better instead of inserting and touting negative critiques.
March 7, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember Paul Krugman being virtually crucified on this site by some as a traitor for warning about Obama's theories on health insurance reform not being progressive enough and worrying about it because he thought it was so important economy-wise?
It's spilt milk now as far as I am concerned, just pointing it out. I still think people can have input and change what he plans to do by screaming to their Congresspersons. So far, he shows himself to be very willing to do to his plans and ideas whatever Congress needs to do, that's where he flexes incredibly.
March 7, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was always my assumption that once Obama was elected, then the real jockeying re health care would take place. I knew from the start his was not the best plan. But I felt he was the best candidate. Yes, I concur with your point!
March 7, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for putting this up! A bunch of us have been trying to keep this kind of information bouncing around here and we certainly appreciate the information coming straight from the horses mouth, so to speak.
March 7, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink