Hedging on healthcare?

April 24, 2008

We know that both of the Democratic presidential candidates have ambitious healthcare plans. What we did not know is that congressional Dems, who expect to be in the majority next year, don’t sound especially optimistic that sweeping changes to the existing healthcare system will be possible.

It is still seven months before Election Day, but already senior Democrats are maneuvering to lower public expectations on the key policy issue.

In the back of their minds is the damage done to President Bush’s second term by his failed attempts to change the nation’s Social Security policy.

For some senators, the promises made by Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) outside of Washington may not match the political reality on Capitol Hill.

“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Finance Committee member and an Obama supporter, referring to the presidential candidates’ healthcare plans. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (RD-N.Y.), part of the Senate Democratic leadership and a member of the Finance Committee, said, “Healthcare I feel strongly about, but I am not sure that we’re ready for a major national healthcare plan.” Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, said “the money is not necessarily there right now.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) but projected an uphill battle ahead. “If they try to solve all the problems, it’s going to be difficult,” Baucus said.

This is more than a little discouraging. In fact, I thought the momentum was moving in the direction of universality, not overly-cautious half-steps.

Jonathan Cohn noted:

For the last year, momentum for universal health care has been building. Most of the Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed the idea, at least in principle; Senator Ron Wyden has been building a bipartisan coalition behind his proposal; a wide array of interest groups have been agitating for it, if not for the sake of social justice than for the sake of cutting down on the cost of employee benefits; and polls show the public supports universal coverage at levels not seen since the early 1990s. […]

Still, this isn’t the last word on the subject. I just got off the phone with Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, who in recent years has done as much to promote the cause of universal coverage as any single person in politics. And he is not at all happy.

“I thought it was embarrassing,” Stern said. “I think it showed an incredible lack of appreciation for what most Americans are confronting every day in this health care system. … What was said in this article is not the kind of leadership that I think Americans are expecting after this election.”

Quite right. But I’m not entirely prepared to give up hope here.

First, as for the notion that healthcare reform might be too expensive, I’m not so sure. Yes, it’s pricey, but it’s not that pricey. The Obama plan, for example, may cost as much as $80 billion a year. In the context of the federal budget, that’s not chump change, but it’s also not a bank-breaker, especially if we get out of Iraq and scale back Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

Rockefeller’s quote may not have even been specifically limited to healthcare. He said we can’t afford to “do all this stuff,” and that the candidates are “laying out their ambitions.” Well, that’s true. But if healthcare reform is the centerpiece of a Democratic administration’s domestic agenda, it’s not “all this stuff,” it’s the stuff. Likewise on Baucus’ quote about solving “all the problems.” We’re not talking about “all”; we’re talking about one big one.

Indeed, whether it’s President Obama or President Clinton (44), one has to assume he or she will invest considerable political capital in a healthcare plan, and a Democratic Congress is going to want to follow through. The Hill article noted that some Dems have Bush’s Social Security debacle on their minds, which is leading some to waver. But that’s foolish — Bush’s privatization scheme was wildly unpopular, whereas a universal healthcare plan won’t be. (At least, it shouldn’t be, if it’s presented the right way.)

The article was discouraging, but I’m not prepared to assume the worst. Not yet, anyway.

Okay, so it’s going to be pricey. How is it that we keep coming up with all these BILLIONS for the war if “the money is not necessarily there right now”?

I know, if we don’t get universal health care, we’ll just send our medical bills to our Senators and House Representatives… How ’bout that? Works for me!

  • Sen. Chuck Schumer (R-N.Y.), part of the Senate Democratic leadership and a member of the Finance Committee, said, “Healthcare I feel strongly about, but I am not sure that we’re ready for a major national healthcare plan.” But I’m quite happy to let the taxpayers pay for MY healthcare, thanks very much!

    Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, said “the money is not necessarily there right now.” But there’s plenty of money for wars and tax breaks for the wealthy!

    Heads on spikes, from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.

  • “Sen. Chuck Schumer (R-N.Y.), part of the Senate Democratic leadership”

    Where do you get the “R”? Are you trying to FoxNEWS him onto the other side?

  • “Where do you get the “R”? Are you trying to FoxNEWS him onto the other side?’

    It’s an understandable mistake.

  • It aint going to happen. For the last year, momentum for universal health care has been building. No it hasn’t, in progressive circles it has, but that’s it.

  • The Obama and Clinton plans ARE baby half-steps.

    Is Congress hoping to hold health care like a carrot over our heads for four years the way they’ve hung an end to the Iraq war now for 2?

    The sick, twisted thing is… it might well work.

  • I won’t say: “I told you so.”
    But hell… I told you so.

    It ain’t going to be easy. It is damn near impossible.
    That’s why Krugman’s dopey analysis that Hillary’s plan was best was embarrassingly shallow.
    It was an analysis totally detached from political reality.
    Hell… Clinton’s plan wasn’t DOA. It was DBA: Dead Before Arrival.

    That’s why Obama’s plan has always a tad bit better.
    Any plan has to have wiggle room to accommodate the weasels.
    It has to have “choice” built in some form or another.
    Even if it can be credibly argued that having choice built in is less than ideal, and hurts in the long term. Who cares? Something is better than nothing. And any successful plan is going to have to be crafted in such a way that it appeals to core conservative values. They has to be an opt out clause of some sort. Has to be!

    Also any successful plan is going to take heaps of selling.
    Whomever tries to sell such a plan will have to have low negatives and the trust of the people.
    So not only is Clinton’s plan DBA… but the messenger isn’t worth a damn either.
    If Clinton was elected we’d get nowhere with health care. Absolutely no where.
    The real question is… can Barack glib it in? Does he know how to massage the message?

    Maybe.

    But Hillary investing 10 more million to erode his character doesn’t help:
    Not. One. Fricking. Bit.

  • Remember, the spending for the war is, so to speak, “on the card.” I don’t think we can do that for, y’know, useful stuff…

  • The Obama plan, for example, may cost as much as $80 billion a year.

    Of course, that magnitude of extra dollars will be spent on health care anyway, since health care inflation is still greater than the regular CPI. Medical inflation will continue to squeeze employers who cover their employees and strangle those who are not covered and try to find individual coverage.

    Ultimately inaction on health care doomed the Democratic congressional majority in 1994. Do Rockefeller, Baucus, Schumer and Meek want to repeat that history? Maybe then, Defeatocrat would become an apt description for some of these “leaders”.

  • The bottom line is this: the “Universal Healthcare” plans touted by both the Dem candidates do not go at all far enough, and why? Because they include private, pro-profit insurers at the table and will do nothing to control the price of drugs. You bet there’s plenty of both insurance and pharma money going to both sides on the aisle, and that’s going to be a hard addiction to break. There is only one plan that will ultimately work, and that’s single-payer. That’s raising everyone’s taxes, not just the taxes on the rich. But it insures coverage for every single person in the country and prevents bankruptcy due to medical bills; it also prevents high health insurance premiums, co-payments, deductables, refusal to cover a variety of medical procedures, including life-savings ones, refusal to provide coverage of any kind based on pre-existing conditions and so forth.

    It works in Denmark, France, England, Canada, Sweden, Finland. We need to be moving toward this kind of program and away from the profit-based, high cost medical system we are all currently dealing with here.

  • So …

    When it comes to funding a couple hundred billion dollars for a war — and outside of the normal budgetary process — Dems don’t waffle even a little bit.

    But when it comes to spending a fraction of that –within the context of the budget — on providing health care for everyone, Dems get all shaky on it.

    Sounds like the solution to pass a universal health care bill, then keep putting forth emergency spending bills to pay for it.

    /snark

    Since these jackasses cave every time the Republicans simply threaten a filibuster, I see no way any plan will pass without 60+ solid supporters. The Democrats just lack the spine to actually make them filibuster minor issues, so there’s no way Dems will force the GOP’s hands on something like this.

    This, ladies and gents, is why we need not just more Democrats, but more better Democrats.

    Otherwise, we’ll remain the only modern society in which health care remains a privilege.

  • In the back of their minds is the damage done to President Bush’s second term by his failed attempts to change the nation’s Social Security policy.

    Yes, because the country’s past rejection of a hugely unpopular position should absolutely drive our political will on the country’s future acceptance of a much more popular position.

    Way to spine-up, Democrats. If this keeps up, we’ll have a Democratic President, and Democratic Congress, and STILL get nothing done.

  • Senator Slippery has a lot of explaining to do regarding Jay Rockefeller’s remarks. If Mr. Mellifluous doesn’t agree with the senator from West Virginia, he should immediately and emphatically denounce this statement and fully reject Rockefeller’s support.

  • It’s time to face up to the fact that as bad as the republicans have been, the democrats are not going to be much better. it is still going to be a country dominated by special interests, and the healthcare special interests have a lot of money to throw around to protect their juicy profit streams. there are a few brave holdouts in congress who will try to do the right thing, but they will get steamrollered by the tsunami of dems eager to suck on the teat of monied interests.

  • The one reason I think that there might be movement on the whole insurance thing is that employers are feeling the pinch. When they are paying multi thousands of dollars annually to chip in for their employee healthcare – and they baulk at it – there might be something akin to wiggle room in changing our abysmal system.

    If it wasn’t for the employers seeing red (as in to the bottom line) we’d be completely doomed. I don’t think it’s going to be a slam dunk, but I do think it’s possible.

    But, then again, GM is offering buy outs to all existing employees so what they offer new employees may be 1000% different in terms of benefits. And then again, much of our manufacturing is moving to both Mexico and Canada. Mexico, they don’t give a shit about their citizens and Canada already has a healthcare system in place.

    Time will tell.

  • IFP, heh! Funny!

    BTW, I owe you an apology. After reading the real insane fake professor in last night’s open thread, GOD I MISSED YOU. 😉

  • Well, the last time a major Democratic regime took the universal health care plunge (in 93), Democrats (the voters) abandoned them in droves. The consequence has been 14 years of almost total Republican rule. It should not surprise anyone that today’s Democratic leadership is a little gun shy…

    You can argue (and have) that the Clinton’s messed it up by making it too complicated and by not playing the political game well. Perhaps. But both the health care and the politics are complicated.

    We’ll see if Democrats (the voters) have the fortitude to hang in there this time.

  • She packs a world of crazy into every sentence, MsJoanne.

    And you don’t owe me an apology. I wasn’t offended and I took your point.

  • We are told that this is the richest country in the world, so why can all the other industrialized countries in the world ensure health care for their people and the US cannot afford it?Single payer health insurance would stop the billions of profits that are being taken by the insurance companies, administrative costs for the hospitals etc.More to the point, it would end the lobbyists dictating our health care, and that is why Schumer & Co will not push for it. I suggest that we should all have a list of senators that get money from health ins companys and drug companies. We have already seen the statics that women in the US have a lower life expectancy than the rest of the developed world.

  • Jim, I don’t think that was why dems vacated the party…it was 24/7 blow jobs that did it. Gore got tied to Clinton 1 in his dalliances and the last one was the gift that kept on giving because Fox, et al, made it the topic of constant coverage. It was the original Anna Nicole and people got sick of it and of the dems in general. Toss into that that the lie of the Clintons trashing the WH when they vacated – it was all media hype and bullshit.

    That’s why dems lost in 2000 (well, that, a little voter fraud, and a healthy dose of The Supremes best hits). IMHO, at least.

  • MsJoanne #16 makes a good point. But employers want out because providing health insurance benefits is so expensive. They don’t give a damn if the American people have it or not. And if the government is spending money on common folk, well then what happens to all their corporate welfare?

    It’s very complex. It’s not a problem for Republican solutions. But it’s so confusing that the American people are not likely to rise up and demand change. They’re easily put off by Republican sophistry and the complexity of the issue. Besides, they”ve got gas prices, a recession and American Idol to worry about.

    I don’t think we’ll see significant health insurance reform if Obama wins, and that’s no slam dunk, and getting unslammer in my opinion.

    The American people just don’t seem to care about anything except gasoline prices, when it comes to real issues, and they’re just a symptom of more fundamental, underlying global crises.

  • Health care reform isn’t possible in this country because what we really need is waistline reform. Americans are fat and live ridiculously unhealthy lifestyles compared with Europeans and Asians. So its like comparing apples and oranges, or more appropriately whales and dolphins. Thats why I am skeptical about national health care working……it will have to cover a ton of working class baby boomers who are having major medical problems in their 50s and 60s due to obesity and lack of exercise.

    I don’t know what the solution to that problem is. But at least Obama has mentioned it which is a start, not just assuming that adopting France’s health care system will automatically give us the health of the French.

  • Sounds to me like BOTH sides of the aisle took it to heart when health experts told us to cut back on red meat-and go with the” other” white meat-PORK!

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