By Tim Redmond
The New York Times has a great piece by Jean Edward Smith on why Obama needs to stop trying for a bipartisan health plan and a compromise that the moderates and conservatives can agree on:
This fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead.
This was not true of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Congresses that enacted the New Deal. With the exception of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 (which gave the president authority to close the nation’s banks and which passed the House of Representatives unanimously), the principal legislative innovations of the 1930s were enacted over the vigorous opposition of a deeply entrenched minority. Majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission.
When Roosevelt asked Congress to establish the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide cheap electric power for the impoverished South, he did not consult with utility giants like Commonwealth and Southern. When he asked for the creation of a Securities and Exchange Commission to curb the excesses of Wall Street, he did not request the cooperation of those about to be regulated. When Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act divesting investment houses of their commercial banking functions, the Democrats did not need the approval of J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers.
From the start, the wrong people (that is, the insurance industry reps.) have been at the table. Now the president is going to Congress to make his case — but he ought to have enough support to get a strong bill passed anyway.
And maybe he can start his speech with this report from the National Nurses Movement, which notes:
Researchers from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee analyzed data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. From 2002 through June 30, 2009, the six insurers rejected 45.7 million claims — 22 percent of all claims.
The main point here:
Left hanging in the air is a bigger question. If the private insurers are not paying for care, why do we have private insurers?