Americans Demand a Public Option in Health Care -- When Will Politicians Listen?

By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted June 23, 2009.

The public option issue also would seem ready-made for Democrats given that the New York Times/CBS poll found that a solid majority of Americans (57 percent) were willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans could have “health insurance that they can’t lose no matter what.” [NYT, June 21, 2009]

Nevertheless, key “centrist” Democrats, such as Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, are ready to scuttle the public option to secure a few GOP votes so they can claim their plan is “bipartisan.” Conrad has called for substituting a privately run, non-profit “cooperative” for the public option.

While Conrad’s “cooperative,” which would be ostensibly owned by its members, has some superficial appeal, it would require the creation of an entirely new bureaucracy – rather than relying on the government’s existing infrastructure for Medicare – and would likely be run by high-paid executives recruited from the existing private insurance industry.

Critics of Conrad’s plan also note that the cooperative would have far less leverage in negotiating lower prices from pharmaceutical companies and other parts of the medical industry, so the savings would be marginal – which is exactly why the idea appeals to industry groups.

Patrons and the People

It goes without saying that the medical-industry complex has made generous contributions to all the key lawmakers, especially those like Grassley and Baucus who are at the top of the influential Senate Banking Committee.

But the obsession of some Senate Democrats, like Conrad, to find “common ground” with Republicans seems to go beyond simply rewarding benefactors. Though it’s clear that many, if not most, Republicans have a single-minded goal – to sabotage the Obama administration – Democrats nevertheless continue in their quest for the elusive “bipartisanship.”

This quest goes on despite the fact that Republicans were trounced in the last two elections, are down to 40 senators, and are facing historically low approval ratings. Still, “centrist” Democrats insist on bending over backwards to accommodate the GOP desires, even when those desires fly in the face of popular opinion and do not represent the most sensible policies.

These Democrats – sometimes including President Obama – appear deeply influenced by Inside-the-Beltway chatter coming from pundits who still reflect the Ronald-Reagan-to-George-W.-Bush conventional wisdom that “government is the problem,” that tax cuts are the answer to every question, and that “self-regulating markets” have made bureaucrats largely irrelevant.

Despite the nation’s cascading crises – which can be traced to too little government, excessive tax cuts and a lack of sound regulation – the chattering class has not been shaken from its biases. So, the minority Republicans are given far more time and space than they reasonably deserve (and much more than minority Democrats got during George W. Bush’s presidency).

Amid Republican charges of “socialism,” the reaction of Democrats, like Baucus and Conrad, is to position themselves in what they must consider the safe center, earning praise from the pundits for their courageous willingness to stand up to the Democratic “base” – and to the overwhelming majority of Americans – in order to stop the public option.

But Baucus and Conrad will likely find that the safe center isn’t so safe. When half-measures and half-baked compromises leave the American people disappointed or angry, the fault will be laid on the government’s failure to do the job right.

And that failure will be cited by Republicans and the pundits as further proof of the superiority of the private sector.

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Robert Parry's new book is Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq."

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