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Truthdig
Posted on Jun 17, 2009
Where did we get the idea that the only good health care bill is a bipartisan bill?
Is bipartisanship more important than whether a proposal is practical and effective? And if bipartisanship is a legitimate goal, isn’t each party equally responsible for achieving it?
This week, the health care debate moved from general principles to the agonizing specifics of how much reform will cost, who will pay, and which groups get what.
If this were a perfect laboratory experiment, Democrats and Republicans would enter such discussions agreeing on core goals and then argue over how to tweak certain provisions and spread the costs equitably.
That’s what Howard Baker, Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, the bipartisan trio of former Senate leaders, suggested in a report Wednesday. Good for them. And Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, still hopes to be health care’s Great Compromiser, this era’s Henry Clay, even if the messy particulars slowed his efforts this week.
But there should be no illusions: On health care, the two parties are far apart on the fundamentals.
Most Democrats believe that fixing the system will require increased government intervention to guarantee universal coverage and to contain costs. Most Republicans oppose an expansion of government’s role and believe an even more market-oriented system would pave the way to health care nirvana.Trying to achieve full bipartisanship by squaring those two views is a recipe for incoherence.
As it is, President Obama and the Democrats have already compromised a great deal. They are not proposing a government takeover of health care financing, as single-payer advocates would prefer. Instead, they are working within the confines of current arrangements.
Editorial note: E.J. Dionne uses GOP language "government takeover" which weakens the op-ed. He could have clarified that under single-payer doctors and hospitals operate as private providers of care. The question is why is the Obama administration so seemingly adverse to cutting costs by taking advantage of the government's buying power?
That’s why White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel can argue, as he did in a recent interview, that any proposal Obama endorses will inevitably be “bipartisan” because “the policies in the bill will include Republican and Democratic ideas.” That’s another way of saying that any health care bill that passes will expand government’s role but also build on the existing private health care market.
This has not stopped Republicans from charging that Obama favors “socialized” health care run by “big government.” And even when the GOP is not using over-the-top rhetoric, the party’s own proposals make clear how far most Republicans are from Obama’s purposes. For more click on this link.
