Left In Lowell

I didn’t have time last week to talk about Niki Tsongas’ response to the questions raised from her comments at Greater Lowell Area Dems (boy, is that a convoluted sentence or what? to say nothing of the links therein). But if I had, it probably would have been a lot like Charley’s response:

As to the substance of her post … well, there really wasn’t much. She correctly identifies the problem (47 million uninsured, more underinsured, high cost of coverage). But her proposed solution is not that of a leader who understands the issues at hand, but of a blind follower: Just do what Massachusetts did — after all, it’s good enough for Deval Patrick, Obama, and Edwards, and they’re all good people.

Besides the fact that the jury is still definitely out regarding the Mass “universal” (and I put that in quotes because it’s not entirely true) care plan, there were serious red flags even as the thing got out the starting gate. For instance, is the most efficient way to deliver health care to go through the private industry? Isn’t that just one more middle man getting his cut before the care is delivered? Not a good use of taxpayer money, in my opinion, just a revenue-stream giveaway to big business that addresses none of the real issues, like cost of care (and big pharma), and doesn’t seem to address quality problems either. So what will we be getting? Well, basically, an individual mandate forcing people who cannot afford it to buy health insurance from the very same people who suck at delivering it in the first place. And Tsongas expresses confidence in this plan?

Maybe this is the emerging “issue” in this race - certainly, I bet we can distill differences on each candidate’s position on how to end the war, or on trade and foreign policy - and perhaps health care doesn’t deserve to be the all-consuming pivot point. However, I do know how important this issue is to me personally, after six years of being one slip-n-fall shy of medical cost hell as an uninsured self-employed worker, and I know it’s real key to the wages and budgets of workers, businesses, and governments alike.

Dick has more on the Sun article which came out today looking at each candidate’s position. I note that Eileen Donoghue has rather echoed Tsongas. Sure, she and all the others support “universal health care” in principle, but that devil is in the details. How is this not going to be a giveaway to big business? How do you address the inherant conflict of interest between the core right to quality health care versus some HMO’s bottom line? That conflict plays itself out in cutting out the riskiest members (or making them pay through the nose), in denying care outright, or in tying a patient up in red tape so deep Jacque Cousteau couldn’t dive it.

Is it any more “impossible” to get the private health care industry reformed (read: regulate them properly so they can’t screw people in this most important of services) than to get single-payer health care? Not until the candidates that pander to the health care industry lose enough elections. Because those corporations have lots of money to fight to keep the status quo, which suits them - and their ever-increasing profits - just fine.

I know it would be a tough slog to totally remake our health care system now that the big corporations are entrenched. I know reform should go slow, if only because reducing private insurance means thousands of layoffs of health insurance workers (that 20%+ administrative overhead employs a lot of people). But if we give in before we even begin, then we start from a position of total weakness and once again, nothing will ever change except the exact details of what bandaid to use the next time. The Mass health care plan is the biggest bandaid yet. And inevitably, we’ll be back in another decade or two, with this same lament about how little quality even insured citizens get for their hard-earned dollar, never mind the thousands of uninsured, and how much it’s costing our economy. Do we ever learn from our mistakes?

[Update: Regarding this phrase from Tsongas - “…Massachusetts Universal Health Care Plan, which was supported by Deval Patrick when he was a candidate for Governor and that he continues to strongly support today” - Patrick always spoke of it with serious caveats. He supported the plan as a first step. He also talked about its major flaws and gaps, too. I wouldn’t quite say that’s a ringing endorsement of the MA plan.]