Who has healthcare? Healthcare, healthcare, healthcare, and...healthcare.
Bob Corker was on Squawkbox today to introduce The Resolution Reform Act of 2009 (S1540), common sense, bi-partisan legislation to give the FDIC the ability to “wind down” bank holding companys. Not sure why this admitted step towards “broader regulatory reform” by the federal government sits well with this Tennessee Republican, but it does.
At the end of the segment Corker is asked about healthcare reform and his plans for the break and, while showing that despite dipping his toes into bi-partisanship waters he’s still a partisan hack at heart, he admits he “wants” healthcare reform.
“Look, I am..actually..want to see appropriate healthcare reform take place and I think there are ways of certainly creating access for all Americans to have affordable healthcare in a way that is budget neutral. We can do that through the employer exclusion. The notion, though, of taking 400 billion dollars from Medicare which is insolvent and everyone knows that it is and taking that money to leverage a whole new healthcare system is ridiculous and it’s hard for me to believe that this administration is proposing that…trying to get states to expand Medicaid. In our own state of Tennessee what has been proposed is over 400 million a year…but we can solve this in an appropriate way hopefully in September after people get an earful back in their states we’ll come together.”
Doh! If only he would have stopped at “I think there are ways of certainly creating access for all Americans to have affordable healthcare…” and then left out the part about a whole new system being “ridiculous” and giving the people an “earful” – which, in partisan double speak means, “while we’re on break we’re being dispatched to spread lies and false information to the people back home so they become afraid of reform.”
It’s nice that Senator Corker, who I’m sure has a fine health insurance plan, finds it so easy to reduce the debate to dollars and cents while ignoring, as Ezra Klein points out from his reading of T.R. Reid’s “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care,” the moral case for health care and the “ethical obligation” our society has to our uninsured.
We know why such arguments are missing from Senator Corker’s Squawkbox appearance – because his party has defined the terms and are trying to control the debate. They have made it OK for it to be all about the dollars and cents and ignore the moral arguments.
But why, Klein asks, is the Obama administration allowing them to get away with it?:
The economic case for health-care reform requires a really radical version of reform. Single-payer, say, or the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act. The consensus Democratic health-care plan — the basic approach that the Obama campaign committed itself to and that Democrats in Congress are pushing — is primarily a coverage plan. It has some cost-saving features on the margins, but it’s primarily a way of getting to universal coverage. You can argue for that plan in primarily moral terms, with some economic arguments around the margins. But the administration has been pushing it in primarily economic terms, with some moral arguments around the margins. And now they’re caught in that dissonance.
And why is the Obama administration ignoring the successful efforts used by countries like Sweden and Taiwan and described by Reid in his book, that overcame political opposition so they could “rebuild their patchwork health care sector’s into national health-care systems…”?
Both countries decided that society has an ethical obligation — as a matter of justice, of fairness, of solidarity — to assure everybody has access to medical care when it’s needed. The advocates of reform in both countries clarified and emphasized that moral issue much more than the nuts and bolts of the proposed reform plans. As a result, the national debate was waged around ideals like “equal treatment for everybody,” “we’re all in this together,” and “fundamental rights” rather than on the commercial implications for the health care industry.
If Senator Corker is going to come back to Tennessee with his numbers, then we need our Democratic representatives to come back and make the moral case for healthcare reform. Because as our guest Molly Secours said this morning, if we had the political will to reform healthcare, we’d find the money in 5 minutes.
You want to see this country completely go broke? Then, wait until we have single payer health care run by bureaucrats. America stands for individual freedom not european socialism. Check the history folks. Whatever government touches turns in a bureaucratic nightmare that costs more than it should. Y’all make it sound like the majority of people uninsured today ar poor and destitute when the over half of the uninsured could afford insurance. They just choose not, too. So, don’t give me your crying over misguided lies. The only rights are those that don’t intrude on other people’s rights. Government Health Care provides for some by intruding on others. it’s time for people to do what made this country so great. Stick you hands back in your pocket and stop looking for a handout. Geez.
[...] had the discussion on how to redefine the debate for success…for what’s best for the [...]
[...] had the discussion on how to redefine the debate for success…for what’s best for the [...]
Thank you, Michael, for laying it out so eloquently. If Corker continues to only think about healthcoin reform instead of healthcare reform, he’s doing a huge disservice to his constituents who are in the very predicaments that you describe.
The path to Health Care Reform will only be realized when the Health Care Industry and their “big bucks” lining the pockets of our elected POLITICIANS is stopped. Please watch this video. Republicans need to watch it “twice.” I want the same coverage as the people telling us “no” on the issue of Health Care Reform. Are we not as good as they are?
Our elected officials are “our” employees. Our employees receiving millions of dollars from the Health Care industry to keep things just the way they are. Why, glad you asked the question, so they can continue to rake in billions of dollars a year for the same sorry coverage provided to those of us lucky enough to have their sorry coverage. Wake up people! we have been played for suckers long enough.
http://thisweekwithbarackobama.blogspot.com/2009/08/keith-olbermanns-special-comment-from.html
I called Corkers office last week and first, the woman who answered the phone was completely rude. However, she told me mine was the only phone call regarding his stance on Sotamayor and that “his constituency” had spoken to him. I guess that makes me something like chopped liver. And the healthcare issue is one I can hardly even speak about as it is such a hot button. I not only work in the industry but am one of the millions without health insurance because my employer does not provide it and I can’t afford it on my own.
I did not vote for Corker and I am making it my personal mission to campaign as hard as I can for anyone who runs against him on the next election. Now, I can go to sleep because I feel so much better.
[...] just wrote a post about the kind of healthcare debate our Democratic representatives should be having while [...]
If the for profit system that is also known as the free market has been so responsive to the needs of the people then one in seven Americans would not be without health coverage. When you have to decide between eating today or paying your rent or mortgaga this month or health insurance for a health issue that may occure in the future you can see why so many people don’t have coverage.
My wife and myself make a great income when compared to the average in this nation and we still pay nearly 5k a year to have health, dental and meet the needs of our families health care. We have no chronic medical problems and other than braces for the kids have no regular medical or dental expense. This 5k is aprox 5% of our take home income but for the average family in this country it can be a high as 15-25% of their income.
Corker is out of touch with reality that faces most Americans. He has been rich for so long that he has forgotten that most Americans are living pay check to pay check just to eat and have shelter.
The market is only concerned with their ability to make profit and as long as it fits their desire to increase the bottom line then they are for it. The insurance industry is the problem and without a public option that makes them compete on the basis of what is good for the people will they ever do the right thing. The public option is not the end all solution but does far more than hoping the insurance industry will do the right thing. They have proven themselves to be in the game to make money and not to care for the publics health care well being.
Corker is wrong and needs to hear that from the voters. I hope as a Tennessee resident he has heard this voters opinion and takes it in consideration before he cast his vote on the matter.
Sincerly,
Michael Chapman, RN