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Taking on Teddy's Cause
Dennis Brack / Newscom
One American political dynasty has passed the torch to another. Margaret Carlson on how West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller is assuming Ted Kennedy's health-care mantle.
Senator John D. Rockefeller hardly looks like the person who would fill part of the void left by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. At 6-foot-6, thin as a pinstripe, and absent the gene that races for a camera, Rockefeller has, nonetheless, become the member of Congress as passionate about health-care reform as the Massachusetts senator was. In 1993, Rockefeller was an ardent but behind-the-scenes supporter of the Clintons’ sweeping health-care reform package, hosting the first closed-door strategy session at his Rock Creek Park estate, although Kennedy took the Senate lead.
This time around, Rockefeller is out front, operating under the klieg lights, so emotional at Senate Finance Committee hearings on the issue that he chokes back tears as he pleads with colleagues to rise to the occasion. The core of that plea is the public option, a national insurance plan akin to Medicare that would compete with the limited number of private companies providing insurance. It has pitted Rockefeller not just against Republicans, who don’t want reform of any sort even if it’s free, but also against other Democrats, including committee Chairman Max Baucus, who’ve gotten cover from the president’s less-than-absolute support of a public plan.
“Opposition to a public option is really just a vote for the insurance companies to make bigger profits, and that is unacceptable to me,” he says.
Now, barraged every day by millions of dollars' worth of lobbyists, the pragmatists in Congress have been persuaded that there are many other ways to get adequate reform—by accepting the industry’s voluntary concessions on things such as pre-existing conditions, through buyers’ co-ops (although the Congressional Budget Office says they would have little impact), regional companies, or a state option.
This is hokum, of course, and since returning from summer recess, Rockefeller has become the skunk at the garden party as he points out how all these counterproposals are a way of dodging what has to be done. A bill that doesn’t provide competition in the oligarchic private market would just be handing 47 million new customers to an untrustworthy industry (no wonder the industry is so gung ho!). “Opposition to a public option is really just a vote for the insurance companies to make bigger profits, and that is unacceptable to me,” he says.
Rockefeller knows there is more than one way to deny claims and myriad tactics to cherry pick customers—for example, by excluding from your network a sufficient number of doctors specializing in costly and complicated medical conditions. Moreover, there is no efficient way to enforce the new rules. Triggers have never worked, Rockefeller claims, and by the time one kicked in here, catastrophe for too many people would already have occurred.
• Benjamin Sarlin: The Ugliest Health-Care Debate
• Watch: Wanda Sykes on Health CareThe Senate Finance Committee avoided even debating a public option until Rockefeller forced a vote on his amendment. As an indication of how fearful Democrats have become on reform, they split on the measure, defeating it. In explaining his no vote, Baucus, who theoretically favors the public option, said it was because he knew a bill with a public program would eventually lose. Apparently he decided to hasten the inevitable.
Like Kennedy, Rockefeller is unafraid to be liberal. Massive wealth (both top out on the forms disclosing personal wealth at “more than $500 million”) and a virtual lock on his Senate seat frees a man to do what he believes in. Coming from a family that believes in public service, Rockefeller, blessed or cursed to be as earnest as Al Gore, was raised in New York but signed on 45 years ago as a Vista volunteer in West Virginia, one of the country’s poorest states. When he described the privations of those coal miners and their children—like the boy Samuel stricken with leukemia who has exhausted his coverage—at a late night session last week, he teared up.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Margaret Carlson is a columnist for Bloomberg News. She was a columnist and deputy Washington bureau chief for Time magazine.
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Go, Rockefeller! America needs the public option.
Actually, single-payer would be better, but that's apparently a fight for another day.
It would be good to allow both public and private insurance companies to operate across state lines.
He is the perfect Kennedy replacement. He's from New York, also WVA, next to me, I'm from NJ, originally from WVA, so it has a next-door, personal angle for me.
It may be that it takes a multi, multi millionaire to tackle these issues with some authority. You can't say that Kennedy or Rockefellor were/are in it for the lobbyist money. Both were/are genuine and care deeply for America's underserved. I know Rockefellor would prefer a single-payer system, as I do, but will do everything he can to get a "robust" public option. Go Jay!
BTW, one of the most knowledgable people in congress concerning health care reform.
Just what we need, another Trust fund baby pushing a tax and spend agenda.
Amen.
neverlate: It sure beats the "borrow and spend" agenda favored by Republicans.
Have you forgotten that Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 ran up $9 trillion in national debt?
Trust fund babies aren't beholding to corporate masters.
John D. Rockefeller is one of a handful of people in Congress whom I trust and admire.
I admire the balls of all these super rich people who feel they have the right to promote public strategies that affect everyone else but them. Their sense of entitlement is truly awe inspiring.
Unlike super rich Republicans who want nothing more than tax reductions at the expense of everyone else. That the common people of their party accept this policy is truly amazing.
You couldn't be more right.
Instead of working to improve the lives of those with a great deal less than he has, he should be working on special legislation that would do nothing more than increase his wealth. We all know that you're not allowed to give a damn about other people, unless you first give away everything you have.
Neverlate had better be living under a bridge for his logic to work.
He wants competition to private insurance. Great. Is the public option the right answer? Maybe, maybe not. But why doesn't he want to allow cross-state selling of health insurance? You could have that with or without the public option and consumers would have more choice, which would lead to more competition and lower premiums. All the impediments I've heard to opening up the market (e.g. differing state insurance requirements, etc.) could be dealt with in the federal legislation. Whenever Rockefeller is asked about this approach, he just seems to mumble that it won't work. That's not good enough.
P.S. to Margaret Carlson: You said "It has pitted Rockefeller not just against Republicans, who don't want reform of any sort even if it's free..." There ARE Republican reform proposals out there and you know it. You may not like them, and congressional Republicans may have been dragged kicking and screaming into proposing them, but they're out there. You're not entitled to your own facts, ma'am.
Cross state insurance wouldn't cost a dime, but the libs want to take a chance on a bloated policy that has failed everywhere it has been tried: Massachusetts & Hawaii.
Rescuedog & Glenda1976: As I have mentioned a number of times before, the ability to buy across state lines will increase consumer costs.
Insurance companies will move to the least-regulated state, increasing costs for people in other states.
If you doubt this, look at credit card companies, which are almost always based in Delaware (a P.O. box, at least). Delaware allows higher credit card interest rates than any other state.
Sorry about being so lengthy, but I feel it important to opine further on the subject. Five years ago, I had to go to the Emergency Room at a local Hospital. At the time I was working for a large company and had pretty good private insurance. They found I had Diabetes so bad it required immediate surgery to remove a large area of Gangrene, very painful process. While recovering from that, they found the I also had Lung Cancer, which required a lower lobe lung removal and subsequent Chemo. After decades of fast food and convenience apparently my body had been in the process of shutting down. While recovering from those processes, I took an early retirement and went on Soc. Sec. Disability. After a year my Cobra ran out and the cost of private insurance was absolutely prohibitive. Since I was on Soc. Sec. I was able to eventually get on Medicare and I also went into, thankfully, the VA for my following care.
The VA found that I had 2 arteries with 100% blockage and another that was 50% blocked and a fairly large tumor in my other lung. The VA doctors suggested bypass surgery and perhaps another lung surgery. An interesting realization happened at the VA, actually the point of all this. Since my body nearly shut down and I realized why, I had been taking aggressive steps to provide my body the fuel it needs to help itself and I had been seeing the effects of that effort in many areas. For one thing, the Diabetes, for all practical purposes, was no longer an issue. There were several other things as well. But the VA doctors were somewhat skeptical but went along with my idea to try to let my body try to do what it can for itself with the Heart Disease and the other Tumor. So far, over 2 years now, the bypass option has been tabled as the naturally built bypasses seem to be working and the tumor has been and continues to shrink. I have the feeling that had I still been in non-government care, my opinions on how to handle this, if even possible, would have been much harder to accomplish. Maybe it's because the VA doctors are less susceptible to law suits so are less inclined to "cut and go", cover all bases and move on to the next cash cow. I, for one, am extremely glad that I am in a Government run program.
floridabob: I agree. The VA is my primary heath care, and I have nothing but praise for their people. This is one example of what a single-payer "Medicare for All" could look like.
You mentioned that private insurance was absolutely prohibitive, but even if it had been affordable, I suspect that no insurance company would have given you insurance because of your pre-existing conditions.
Best wishes for your ongoing health challenges.
I don't see why rather than the public option, legislation could aim at Federal standards that make cross state selling possible. Plus legislation could be targeted at making entry to the market easier, thus relying on reducing monopolistic pricing to produce cheaper results. Whatever it takes to enter the mkt, the government could make easier even it there were financial guarentees or tax policy etc. If there is a way to do this without a goverment program it seems that should be taken. All I hear is dismissal of those options without explaining why it won't work
Ideally I'd love a single-payer insurance run by the same people who do such an excellent job at Medicare or VA care. But that isn't on the horizon.
I would (surprise!) even settle for an all private health insurance system, provided the government set the rates the insurance companies could charge. This is what they do in Holland. Everyone pays $160/month for healthcare to a private insurer. No one can be turned down, everyone must have health insurance, and there are no such excuses such as "pre-existing conditions" allowed to deny treatments.
The private insurance companies now have to really compete to get as many customers as possible by offering better and smarter service (unlike in America where various big insurance companies have spheres of dominance).
This forces the insurance companies to create incentives for healthy behavior and for preventive measures so they can keep costs down and still make a decent profit.
There are many ways to make healthcare affordable and sustainable, but the system we have in America now is neither.
Watch Keith Olbermann tonight on MSNBC at 8 pm EDT for a 1 hour special on this very subject.
It's interesting that another Senator, born of wealth, is standing up to be the voice of those in this country who are withouth health insurance. Baucus & the rest of the so-called Democrats who feed at the trough of the health insurance companies, should pony up & do the same.
I'm in favor of a public option & am of the belief Medicare should be opened to all who currently are without health insurance. Medicare is up & running, it would take about a year to get those without signed up & covered by 2011.
The Republicans oppose a public option plan based upon costs but are in favor of continuing the war in Arghanistan. If there is money available to wage war, then dam it, make money available to insure the health & well being of every American citizen.
I think many are missing the point of why the GOP is against Healthcare reform plans. It is the same reason the Dems killed Nixon's plan in the 70's. Nixon's plan was very similar to the Baucus bill and the Dem's would not allow it to pass for similar stated reasons. The real reason, however, was the same as the GOP's reason is now. A successful bill would inhibit the ability to keep and gain seats in the House and Senate. Our Representatives have a long history of representing their political parties and benefactors, rather than the people they are supposed to act for. That is an unfortunate truth at least from what I have seen.
Wonder why she didn't mention that in October of 2002 he declared that Saddam was working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and represented a grave threat to the US. But then he revealed in a TV interview in 2005 that in 2002 he took a trip to the Mid East and told the leaders in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria that George Bush had planned to attack Iraq before 9/11. So why did he vote for the Iraq Resolution in 2002?
I'd say the Senator speaks with forked tongue, so if I were the President I would be cautious, very cautious.
Thank you.
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