Obama’s difficult sell on healthcare reform
Dante Chinni
Posted: 06.22.2009 / 7:36 AM PDT
Just as the healthcare debate begins in earnest on Capitol Hill, a parade of lawmakers appeared on the Sunday talk shows to announce it was in jeopardy.
President Obama may not have the votes in the Senate to pass a plan – at least not right now – Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California, said on CNN. Over on ABC, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina, called the cost, which one estimate puts at $1.6 trillion over 10 years, a “death blow” to the effort.
Across all of our 12 Patchwork Nation communities, no issue raises as many questions and concerns as the government’s involvement in healthcare. We have visited with people in 10 of our 12 communities so far this year, and the topic of healthcare reform was unique in its ability to fluster and raise ire.
Why change anything?
For some with insurance, for instance, change isn’t really a high priority.
In the wealthy, educated “Monied ’Burbs,” some 85 percent of the population has health insurance, based on 2005 estimates. (See the 2005 estimates, the latest available, mapped here.) For a lot of those people, the issue will probably be cost containment and holding on to the plans they have.
While the Obama administration has repeatedly said that people with insurance will be able to keep the plans they have, some skeptics are bound to be concerned that any broad change to the system will ultimately affect them.
“No one I have talked to is excited about the new healthcare initiative,” e-mails Bill Enloe, chairman and CEO of Los Alamos National Bank in Los Alamos, N.M. “Concerns are very high among the medical professionals and healthcare community. Talk about dropping coverage to Medicare levels will put many of them out of business.… The individuals outside of these industries are concerned care will drop and cost will increase.”
In our aging “Emptying Nest” communities, concerns are similar. “Most retirees have Medicare, Medigap, and maybe even a sweet retirement-insurance program that they fear losing,” says Ray San Fratello, president of the South Lake Chamber of Commerce in Clermont, Fla. “With property devaluation, lost investments, and higher property taxes, many fear having to go back to work just to get or help pay for insurance.”
Both of these community types will ultimately be crucial if reform is to take place. The “Monied ‘Burbs” are the most populous community type, and they hold the swing voters that both parties need to get elected – and they tilted heavily to Obama last November. The “Emptying Nests,” meanwhile, hold a lot of senior voters – a politically active group that will make sure its feelings are known on this issue in coming months.
Do something big
But in places like Lincoln City, Ore., a small-town “Service Worker Center,” there seems to be more enthusiasm for something big.
“There’s no excuse for the lack of a full-coverage public healthcare program in this country,” writes Beth Gerl, a former hotel worker in Lincoln City who was recently laid off. “We cannot address public needs through profit-driven companies – that’s illogical and self-defeating. Our country’s government and business priorities are skewed.”
We’ve heard that kind of support for a big national plan that “covers everybody” in other communities where many people lack insurance. But those people are likely to be disappointed in what actually emerges as “reform.” Neither Congress nor Obama supports such a comprehensive plan, which they see as too expensive.
In other places, any mention of healthcare reform almost reflexively brings the words “socialized medicine.” In Nixa, Mo., for examply, a socially conservative “Evvangelical Epicenter,” the word socialism is used to describe a lot of what the Obama administration is doing. Many there were using it to describe healthcare reform back in January, long before there was any plan.
In all of our communities, small-business owners express varying degrees of concern and fear of what a new healthcare system could do to their bottom line.
Add those views together, plus the views of lawmakers who are focused on macroeconomic costs, and you begin to see just how tricky the task ahead is for the Obama team.
Later this week, we will look more closely at how the health insurance question has affected El Mirage, Ariz., an “Immigration Nation” community – those places have the highest number of uninsured, according to the 2005 numbers.
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm PDT
What cracks me up about healthcare reform is why care? The illegals get free care when having babies, the illegals get care under worker’s comp while working here illegally. If every person with insurance were to cancel today, our government would pay for all the injuries and needs because they do for the rest of the world. Do we need insurance companies who usually drop people who are high risk and challenge coverage? Oug gov’t set a precedent when a Judge ruled recently that the boy child had to have chemo. They will also pay for it, no doubt.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:14 pm PDT
All the people who don’t have insurance end up costing us more now than they would if they were on a gov’t program. Every time an uninsured person goes to the ER, we all pay, through higher taxes, and higher insurance premiums. Furthermore, when people wait till they get seriously ill before they seek medical attention, they make more trips to the ER, and spend more time in the ICU. In other words, more $ for worse results.
From personal experience, the private insurance companies’ primary concern is making $, providing quality health care is secondary.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:35 pm PDT
why isn’t the media or npr or pbs covering the opinion of the uninsured or underinsured? all we hear are the perspectives of the insurance industry, doctors, pharmaceutical companies and of the insured.
why aren’t you and other media outlets covering what it’s like in america for those who can’t get health insurance and ask these folks what they think about obama’s effort to cover the uninsured?
at the end of the day, we have to realize and accept that health care is a human right and anyone who proclaims to believe in the concept of basic human rights has to support reform to the system we have, which means we all have to be willing to make compromises, give up some comforts and share with our fellow human beings. all of us need to stop being so selfish in this discussion and think about our community at large. at the end of the day, it is better if everyone can access health care, than just some of us who are lucky. no one can deny that a healthy nation benefits all of us.
please cage discussion more often in terms of the humanity of it instead of in the special interests involved. please. it will be a breath of fresh air.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:56 pm PDT
The segment on health care was horrid… Ifil has lost her edge..the truth is the Congress is owned by Big Pharma, HMO’S and Insurance Companies…People will not lose there healthcare but the companies will need to become really competitive or fall by the wayside…They are not offering coverage but are giving profits to their shareholders,,,Medical care should be about CARE not profit!
June 26th, 2009 at 6:23 pm PDT
I am a Canadian, and I don’t understand why universal health care for all Americans has to cost more than you presently spend.
Canada’s one pay system, where provincial governments pay all doctors for basic medical care, and also fund all (non-profit) hospitals, including expenses, has an overhead of about 10%. Our doctors are kings who get the treatment they order.
The American medical system can provide better health care because it costs more per capita, and because you steal our doctors, nurses and technicians. But it has a 25% overhead wasted on insurance commissions, accountants, billing requirements, discussions on what treatment to provide, etc.
If you switched to our system, you could cover the 15% of Americans who don’t have health care insurance for no extra cost. In fact, you would save the money you now spend on charity for people who don’t have coverage.
You don’t have to worry about our line-ups affecting basic health care because we can’t have doctors, nurses and technicians standing around. Instead, you treat it as limited resource, with those needing immediate help going immediately to the front of the line. That is what happens here, so you hear of long waiting times, but they are waiting times for non-essntial services.
If Americans do as I suggest, then their life expectancy will rise to our levels, and probably surpass it because you are a wealthier country.