5 reasons why, if it’s as advertised, the Senate healthcare compromise might be a good thing
I’m officially sick of the healthcare debate, which is why I’ve stopped writing much about it. Senate Democrats have dragged the darned thing on for so long, and in such tortured fashion, I’m very nearly in the camp that says just forget the whole thing. Nothing is better than the tangled, mangled rot that appears to be limping out of the world’s most annoying deliberative body. Plus, I fear that in the hands of a handful of so-called “moderates” — the Blue Cross Blue Shield Dogs, I call them — what we’re really looking at is a bill forcing all of us to buy the cruddy product of the health insurance companies that own Senators like Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican in play, and the senior Senator from Aetna.
However, the deal that appears to have been crafted by five blue dogs: Tom Carper, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln) and five actual Democrats (Chuck Schumer, Russ Feingold, Jay Rockefeller, Tom Harkin and Sherrod Brown), under the tutelage of the occasionally, though mildly, gutsy Harry Reid, just might be the best we can get, for five reasons:
1. Medicare put in play – if in fact, the actual Dems have gotten a concession to allow those 55 and older to buy into Medicare, paying a premium, to help defray costs, but expanding the use of that program to improve access to care for a demographic group that has been hit hard by the recession, that’s a good thing. Republicans have been pretending to be strong proponents of Medicare since this summer, and such a deal would call their bluff. Will Michael Steele and other GOPers now turn on the program they’ve been telling seniors they were placed on this earth to first defeat and now defend? It will be entertaining to find out.
2. Calling the GOP bluff on federal health plans – the AP reports that part of the compromise to get liberal Dems to walk away from the “public option” is a plan to give the uninsured access to non-profit health plans administered by the Office of Personnel management, the same federal agency that oversees the health plans of federal employees and members of Congress. That’s a damned fine idea, and would instantly blunt the town hall cries of “give us the halthcare YOU’ve got, Congressman!” Well … okay, birther … here you go. Now what’s your objection?
3. Ease of use – utilizing two existing, already well-run government systems, Medicare and federally administered health insurance, as the basis for health reform is smart for two reasons. One, as Howard Dean has pointed out, it makes healthcare reform both easy, and quick to implement. No new system has to be created. These expansions of access can happen right away. Second, it allows Democrats to argue that they have not, in fact, created anything new or objectionable. They have simply built on what works in the healthcare system. Tough to argue against that.
4. Compromise beats capitulation – The way things were going, the public option that was poised to limp, battered and bloody, out of the Senate, would have been a pitiful thing to behold — stripped of its powers to negotiate, available to only a handful of Americans, and probably triggered, by God knows what or when or if ever — in order to appease Senator Snowe. Better to have a real expansion of Medicare, and possibly Medicaid, which is what Democrats have long wanted anyway, than a watered-down mess that only Senator Snowe and that horrid Blanche Lincoln can abide.
5. Neutralizing Liberman? – For Democrats who have come to detest Joe Lieberman, the compromise hammered out in his absence (like Dick Cheney during the Vietnam war, he apparently had better things to do than join the Gang of 10), creates the intriguing possibility of a showdown for relevancy between the two grandstanding public option opponents. For this compromise to work, Harry Reid appears to need Snowe more than Joe (assuming he can pressure Ben Nelson to stay in line,) and it doesn’t seem likely that Lieberman will have much ability to shut the deal down if the Maine Senator gets on board. What’s in it for Snowe is that if she makes this deal happen, it will be her, and not Lieberman, who will become the lynchpin cross-over vote on deals going forward. And anything that depletes the clout Lieberman thinks he has, is a very good thing.
Of course, this being the Senate under the incredibly undisciplined Democrats, the deal is still not firm, and there still could be some horrid “trigger” attached in order to lure Snowe’s vote. Stay tuned. Or don’t. Really at this point I’m hardly staying tuned myself…
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Most people complaining about Public Option couldn't tell you what it really is but this plan seems to be just enough to get the votes needed to pass and actually be effective.