The health care debate has been crystallizing in my mind this past week – I’ve been suspicous of Senator Max Baucus. He’s holding the football and the regular Lucy’s are lining up. But what does he want? How does he intend to get it?
This morning I was visited by a ghost of Democrats past. It was eerie – he spoke with a drawl and had some charm and charisma and a thing for cigars. His name: Triangulation.
In the 1990’s, Bill Clinton enlisted the support of Democrats to advance various right wing causes, among them the deadly Iraq sanction regime, welfare “reform”, increased incarceration of blacks, the attack on Serbia, and privatization of Social Security. Democrats presumed that his rhetorical support for their causes meant he could be trusted to follow through. They didn’t apply force on him – odd thing about liberals – they do not threaten office holders. They merely trust them to carry out their will. Bill Clinton took them down his road.
As Mel Brooks reminds us, it’s good to be king, and Democrats like being in power. Once in power, they are like sheep lined up at the sheering wagon. With health care reform, it is Max Baucus holding the clippers.
The game is afoot. (I am one tall, handsome and balding mixed metaphor this morning.) First, Baucus took “single payer” off the table. Democrats were OK with that. Don’t let the “perfect spoil the good”, they were told.
Second, he’s making coverage mandatory. There’s some justification for that, though it seems heavy-handed. But the key to mandatory coverage, from the Baucus standpoint, is the so-called “public option”. With a true option, we will have a choice between private and public coverage. I was traveling down this path until I realized that Baucus does not intend us to have a real choice.
The “choice” will belong to his campaign contributors – the health insurance companies. They will get to “choose” who they cover. They will be allowed to cherry pick – healthy people will be required to purchase private coverage. Government will pay the premium for poorer people, but as with Medicare D (another Baucus product), there will be no price negotiation allowed.
The “public option” is really an “insurance company option” on who to cover. Anyone deemed unprofitable will be turned over to government. Since it will be by definition a high-risk pool, it will be expensive coverage. Those of us who are not poor and who do not qualify as healthy enough for private coverage will be forced to pay exorbitant premiums.
Who will manage the high-risk pools? Again, it will be private insurance companies. However, they will not be at risk. They will merely be paid a management fee, and will have a guaranteed profit.
We have such a plan in Montana, as I wrote about before. It’s called the “Montana Comprehensive Health Association“. It’s a high-risk pool, very expensive with high co-pays and deductibles, and a private insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana, is paid to manage at no risk to itself. There are 77,000 uninsured Montanans. MCHA covers perhaps three thousand of them. If Baucus were in charge, all 77,000 would be required to purchase MCHA coverage.
So it’s time to sink the ship. There are conservatives out there who are opposed to any kind of health care reform. It is time to enlist their services. For once, those deceptive TV ads will be welcome. For my small part, I’ve written letters to the editor to newspapers in Missoula, Great Falls, Billings and Bozeman. In them I emphasize that Baucus wants to use the IRS to force people to buy private health insurance policies. That ought to rile up some libertarian and conservative feathers. (Last metaphor – I promise.)
The objective is to drown the Baucus plan in the bath tub. (Aye!) There’s tons of good energy out there right now for reform, but triangulation has reared its ugly head again. It’s time to triangulate on triangulation, progressives and conservatives alike taking aim.
Ready, aim, fire.
P.S. Strong Mike Dennison piece in today’s Gazette, perhaps all the Lee newspapers.
Piece of Mindful 