The Tragicomic Health Reform Hearings -- At Least Michael Moore Has Lots of Fodder

By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group. Posted September 30, 2009.

WASHINGTON -- The Full Employment for Filmmaker Michael Moore Act is coming soon to a theater near you.

Well, not exactly.

But by exquisite coincidence, Michael Moore was in Washington this week promoting his latest comedic expose of greed, corporate malfeasance and our government's complicity in the unbridled assault on working America that led us into the Great Recession. "Capitalism: A Love Story" fortuitously previewed to select audiences just as the Senate Finance Committee was amending the "America's Healthy Future Act of 2009." The panel obligingly provided hours of potential footage for Moore's next cinematic assault on the system.

The denouement was the panel's votes to kill proposals to create a government-sponsored insurance plan for those lacking coverage. With a public option established by the federal government, the uninsured could purchase policies that would not suddenly disappear when they got sick and that would be available in states where the insurance market is controlled by one or two big private companies. Consumers would know that profits weren't driving the denial of care.

The arguments against allowing the equivalent of Medicare to exist alongside the private insurance system were unashamedly impenetrable. So please, follow closely.

When Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York asked Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa if he supported Medicare -- the exceedingly popular government insurance for the elderly -- Grassley responded: "I think Medicare is part of the social fabric of America ... just like Social Security is." When Schumer pointed out that a public option would work the same way, Grassley persisted: Medicare, he repeated, is woven into "the social fabric." But a similar plan available to those under age 65 would supposedly be disastrous. "The government is not a fair competitor," Grassley said. "It's a predator."

See more stories tagged with: health reform, senate finance committee, public option

Marie Cocco is a prize-winning syndicated columnist on political and cultural topics for The Washington Post Writers Group. She is a frequent commentator on national TV and radio shows.

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