Healthcare - The Next Shafting For The Left?

By Steve Hynd

Could healthcare be the next issue that sees Obama and the Democratic Party turning away from their left? We've been ignored - probably because their's a view that we don't have a choice except to support the Democratic Party - on torture prosecutions, on FISA and warrantless surveillance, on escalating Bush's failed occupation in Afghanistan and on bailouts for Fat Cats. Now the Washington Post's Ceci Connolly says healthcare could be the next Dem cave-in.

Disputes over whether to create a new government-sponsored insurance program to compete with private companies shine a light on the intraparty fissures that may prove more problematic than any partisan brawl.

More than 70 House Democrats recently warned party leaders that they will not support a broad health reform bill that does not offer consumers a government-sponsored policy, and two unions withdrew from a high-profile health coalition because it would not endorse a public plan.

"It's way too early" to abandon what it considers a central plank in health reform, said Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union. He said the organization pulled out of the bipartisan Health Reform Dialogue because it feared its friends in the coalition were sacrificing core principles too soon. "You don't make compromises with your allies."

Last week, two top administration officials suggested that Obama is open to compromise on the public plan, comments that set off alarm bells in some corners of his party.

Part of the problem is that there's intense pressure from Republicans and from healthcare insurance industry lobbyists leaning on Dem campaign contribution recipients. They're opposed to a government-sponsored plan because they say it would have an "unfair advantage over private-sector competitors". Really? Whatever happened to the Republican idea that government could never, ever do anything as well or as cheaply as the private sector?

Some advocacy groups, like Consumer Watchdog, have accused Obama and key Dem lawmakers like Kennedy and Baucus of excluding consumers from the discussion, while opening their doors wide to health industry lobbyists. Others say they've been included and are being listened to.

This one bears watching. Perhaps more than any other domestic policy issue, this is one where the left kept the debate alive and moved the notion of a government sponsored plan into mainstream acceptance. We deserve this, and being denied it by Obama would likely be the final straw for many of his supporters.

Update: Corporations Negotiating Health Care Bill While Funding Obstruction. Bill Scher notes that one of the major conservative pressure groups admits it's getting big money funding from the health industry. "Sitting at the table by day, and paying for lies in hopes of smashing the table at night" as Bill terms it. What a surprise.

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

This is not a surprise. The insurance industry is very powerful and it doesn't really matter if it is the Ds or the Rs in the majority the Beltway power brokers are still pulling the strings. It will be that way until there is real campaign finance reform which isn't going to happen anytime soon.