The Progressive Half a Loaf Problem
by Matt Stoller, Sat Jan 13, 2007 at 06:01:20 AM EST
Health Care for America is not single payer--a vision that, for both political and budgetary reasons, is unlikely to be achieved in the near future. Health Care for America
It's so depressing to watch progressive activists accept a bad status quo. Progressives are supposed to change the status quo, not just work within it. And in reading over this post from Roger Hickey about their new health care plan, I'm struck by the total timidity in actually dealing with the problem and the unwillingness to accept the job of social change agent.
The problem with health care is not the policy details but the insurance industry, which is a business model dedicated to denying care to people and keeping the money, or what's sometimes known as negligent homicide. The quote above is from our progressive group, not our Democratic groups that want to compromise. We're negotiating with ourselves, in other words, before we even get to the table.
More than that, the idea that health care reform negotiations are possible with the murderous health care industry is laughable. Here's what makes this plan a political loser, from Goozenews.
My point is that opposition to this plan will come from the people who make their daily living from collecting that 16 percent of GDP. And that opposition will be intense. The insurance companies led the last war on health care reform. The drug companies, the device and equipment manufacturers and organized medicine will lead the assault on this or any other plan that is serious about controlling costs.
Opposition to single-payer health care and muddled plans like this one or the Wyden one will be the same in intensity. And this one is weird and complicated, like every other plan that isn't single-payer. This is an issue for the voters. We will have to go to the voters and basically ask them to vote to end the health insurance industry. Barring that, and you're just not serious about universal health care.
I see this kind of 'half a loaf' strategy popping up everywhere among progressives, from the ethics fight to energy to media reform. We seem to be ignoring what Clinton learned in 1993 - these people don't compromise on issues fundamental to their control over the economy, ever. They will fight as hard your smarty pants complicated plan that takes 'their concerns' into account as hard as they will fight your liberal plan that actually works and can be easily explained.
There is no implementation of policy this cycle. We have to set up a series of debates over fundamental values, and then ask for voters to decide in 2008. Fortunately, it's very unlikely that these industries are going to let anything go through this cycle, so we have time.
Let's get real. At this moment in history, the public is on our side, not the side of the corporate elites. Asking for half a loaf isn't a compromise, it means that nothing will be enacted, and it also means that progressives are failing at representing a public that just asked us to fundamentally reshape how the economy works to reduce economic risk.
Tags: Health care, public financing, single-payer health care (all tags)
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