As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus holds the keys to health-care reform; any health-care legislation must pass through his committee. So what he says or doesn’t say is important to those following the twists and turns of the congressional effort to fix our health-care system. This is the fifth of an occasional series of posts on the senator’s pronouncements and how the media has covered them. The entire series is archived here.
Anyone who has ever covered Washington, or a state house, for that matter, knows that the pols don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say. The semantic games they play send signals to lobbyists, the press, and the public about this or that piece of legislation. And those pols who have been around a long time are very, very good at the game.
There seemed to be something for everyone in Max Baucus’s latest remarks to a group of health policy researchers this week about the future of health care reform. They reminded me of the old Clairol commercials: Does she or…or doesn’t she? (Hair color so natural only her hairdresser knows for sure.) Will reform happen this year, or won’t it? Only Max Baucus knows for sure…or does he?
A headline in a recent Washington Times story, “Health care reform not No. 1 on Hill”, signaled that maybe reform will be put on hold because, as Baucus said, “Why might reform not happen this year? As is often the case, the new administration and the new Congress face competing priorities. These priorities compete for time on the agenda and attention in the press and in public. The president’s dance card is indeed full.”
The Times reported that Baucus also said he is committed to passing legislation this year, although several obstacles remain; as examples he cited the bad economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget deficit, and efforts to wean the U.S. from foreign oil. But the senator said that, even if reform is pushed back to 2010 or later, voters did give Congress and the White House a clear mandate to change the system.
The Hill put another spin on the senator’s comments with this headline: “Baucus says healthcare reform will require more government spending.” The Hill quoted Baucus: “Getting health reform legislation this year is my top priority—-No. 1. Certainly this session of the new Congress, not next session of this Congress, because we have to get momentum to really make this work.”
The Hill story went into some detail about what Baucus said on the topic of costs. “We cannot and should not anticipate savings in every year of the budget window, nor should we claim that we will be able to pay for healthcare reform,” he cautioned, while speaking of bending the growth curve of health spending. “If we can’t generate savings, then reform is not likely to happen.” No mention of the possible pushback to 2010 in The Hill. Instead, the story noted that “Baucus went so far as to describe the enactment of health reform in 2009 as ‘nearly inevitable’” but gave itself an out by saying that those remarks came before president’s pick for health chief, Tom Daschle, resigned.
One thing Baucus has been consistent about is his aversion for a single payer system, and CQ presented that message to its readers. CQ reported that, when a questioner asked about single payer, Baucus said: “It may come later but it’s not going to happen in America [any time soon].”
“We’re a different country. We’re constituted differently than European countries,” Baucus said. “There’s more of an entrepreneurial sense [in the United States]. So we’ve got to come up with a uniquely American result. And a uniquely American result will be a combination of public and private insurance.”
FYI: Bill Clinton also used the words “uniquely American” to describe his proposed reform plan in 1993.
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What these influent people, members of the "American aristocracy" mean by “There’s more of an entrepreneurial sense [in the United States]" is that in the United States, the new aristocracy of the wealthy people (the "entrepreneurs", you know the Wall Street people and their friends in Congress) are the only one that should have right to good health care, like any other things like private jets, mansions, army of security guards, private schools and colleges for their kids, etc...
Basically, the justification of social inequalities is that the money is the only recognication of your value as a human being. If you are rich, it means you are an "entrepreneur" and you deserve to get the best (as the European aristocrats in the 18e Century). If you are a working class member, you are like the European peasant who has no right at all, except to serve his land lord and the King). Of course, the European people woke up one day and just discarded their aristocrats and kings. It is interesting to note that when people in Europe were freeing themselve from their masters through revolutions and reforms, people in America were creating their own masters who would rule over their live for the next centuries (robber barons, politicians in Washington, etc.).
For the American health care system, it is what I call the "Titanic syndrom": the life jackets and life boats are only for the first class passengers, and they are the only people to have the right to be saved, when the rest of the passengers are locked in their "reserve" having only the right to die.
#1 Posted by Micusa, CJR on Sun 8 Feb 2009 at 06:21 PM
This man sounds like Nero the Pervert .A man has to be Perverted in his mind and very sick in-deed to know people are crying and sad and sick , and then walk away from the poor souls dying.
#2 Posted by Eliza Dood, CJR on Sun 8 Feb 2009 at 08:22 PM
The Senator's attitude suggests unbecoming arrogance and closed mindedness. As single payer is a proven PRAGMATIC (the current, and appropriate, operative word) system throughout the world, just perhaps it should at least be allowed "on the table" for discussion. Uniquely American entrepreneurial for profit health care is a miserable and immoral mess. HR676 is a reasonable beginning.
#3 Posted by Joseph Eusterman MD, MS Med, CJR on Thu 12 Feb 2009 at 07:36 PM