Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Misunderstanding the opposition to reform
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Joe Guthrie
Guthrie, of Dublin, is a farmer and teaches agriculture at Virginia Tech.
Re: "The party of no vs. the party of 'd'oh!' Jan. 31 column:
If Democrats in Congress want to commit political suicide this November, they would do well to heed the advice offered by Dan Radmacher, who offers up a prescription for electoral disaster: Ignore the will of the vast majority of American voters and ram the current health care reform bill -- which may be the worst piece of legislation in a century -- down the people's throats.
Republicans, conversely, should be cheered that Radmacher's misunderstanding of the issue is shared by many other liberals like him who are in denial that the opposition to the disastrous bills being reconciled behind closed doors on Capitol Hill stems not from the deficiencies of the bills themselves, but from the people's misunderstandings of them -- the death panels and all that.
Sadly for the Democrats who yearn for the health care reform bills, it is not what the people don't know about these bills that create the opposition, it's what we do know about them.
One thing in this process that has turned our stomachs as badly as watching sausage being made is the lengths to which congressional Democrats have circumvented both process and decency to have their way, when oddly, with control of the White House and majorities in both chambers in the Capitol, passage of a bill should have been a slam dunk.
Radmacher goes so far as to openly pine for the circumvention of the system the Founders intended by hoping that the House would accept the Senate's version of the bill -- bloated with $300 million for Louisiana to buy Mary Landrieu's vote and another $100 million to Nebraska to pay for Ben Nelson's vote -- in spite of the enormous differences between the two versions.
Of course, all that is only necessary because the Senate Democrats no longer have the 60 votes needed to end debate and vote on this monstrosity because the people of Massachusetts have decided to save the nation by sending Scott Brown, the first Republican to sit in their Senate seat -- no Dan, not Teddy Kennedy's seat -- since Carl Yastrzemski patrolled left field at Fenway Park for their beloved Red Sox.
The people of Massachusetts reacted strongly to the really horrendous aspects of the proposed bill and particularly to buying votes in the Senate and kickbacks to unions (through their exemption from penalties for high-cost health care plans) as a reward for their money and votes to Obama in 2008.
As woeful as Radmacher's political judgment is on this matter, however, he did stumble upon one nugget of truth: Congress is squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pass a meaningful health care reform bill that would improve the lives, economy and well-being of our society. For that alone they should be ashamed and dismissed from office.
Americans want health care reform. Just not this mess.
The Democrats failed to address the fundamental problem with health care -- skyrocketing costs -- because they chose not to go against the wishes of one of their major benefactors -- the American Trial Lawyers Association -- and enact any medical malpractice liability reform.
Failing to address tort reform -- which would reduce both doctors' costs of doing business and the staggering number of unnecessary medical tests that are given only to reduce the risk of a malpractice suit -- fails to keep costs from rising at their current high rate.
Once cost is not addressed and the government (which means the 50 percent of us who actually pay income taxes) takes over the system, then we get stuck with an even higher health bill than we already had with no improvement, and in fact probably a sharp decline, in quality of care.
It is in fact the high cost of health care that creates the high number of uninsured. Reduce the costs of health care and the insurance to pay for it will become more affordable. Ignore costs and any health care bill becomes a mess, like this one.
If Republicans stand united in their opposition -- what Radmacher calls obstruction -- of this dreadful legislation, they will be rewarded, perhaps with majorities in both chambers. And is obstruction necessarily a bad thing?
If a bartender refuses to serve an intoxicated patron another drink, that's obstruction, and yet hasn't the bartender done both the patron and society a service? If Republicans in Congress can prevent wasteful spending and a decline in the quality of our health care, haven't they done us all a favor?
