As I sit and watch Meet the Press today, I'm struck by the premise of this statement and the smug certainty of it's delivery:
"MR. GREGORY: But wait, but this is a huge blow, it seems like, on the face of it. If the priority is lowering costs, you've got the person who's in charge with a nonpartisan way of looking at these saying it's not going to contain costs. That was goal number one. It doesn't appear to be getting achieved through this."
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we create this game of two sports teams with arbitrary goalposts and false umpires. This is wrong. Let's first point out the amazing reality in what Elmendorf is saying:
"We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount"
So, you're saying it is possible to add 40 million Americans to our system and still keep the costs nearly neutral. You're telling me that we can perhaps alter the course of millions of lives with the stroke of a pen, and we may choose not to. Why, you ask?
Well, let's get to that (from the same Sunday show):
SEN. McCONNELL: Let me, let me just tell you what I think, David, if I may, is flawed about the whole approach. They don't seem to grant that we have the finest health care in the world now.
Do you beleive this Mr. McConnell? Outside of the crass nationalist political appeal of "we are the greatest," how could you look past our problems? How can you stand by as our system withers away? How can you stand by as the urgency of the situation is so bleedingly obvious?
MR. GREGORY: Well, but wait a minute. You, you say that we have the best healthcare system in the world, you say it as a matter of fact.
SEN. McCONNELL: Mm-hmm.
MR. GREGORY: But it seems to be a matter of debate. You just mentioned access. You've got 47 million people who are uninsured.
SEN. McCONNELL: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
See, I don't hate Mitch McConnell. I know many people like him. They are my father's friends, my neighbors, my co-workers. It's an easy approach to life. See, Mitch McConnell is a smart man. He knows our health care system is broken. He knows it has been broken his entire life. But Mitch McConnell has health insurance, my father's friends have health insurance, my neighbors and co-workers have health insurance. And this is America. We are rugged individuals. We can take care of ourselves. And Mitch McConnell knows something like this is expensive, and difficult.
There is an entire generation of Mitch McConnells out there. The one true achievement of their lives was the defeat of communism and the establishment of the United States as the one system to rule them all. See, for many, we had achieved greatness in the second half of the 20th century. Our system won, we were the great Americans. The only thing that could stand in our way would be change from within. You see, that change would only weaken us. These people are stuck in a different time. They cannot see our internal weakness.
As such, they have spent the last 30 years trying to preserve this feeling in time. They have ignored the hard realities, they have failed to lead. They have not felt a desire to explore our weaknesses.
MR. GREGORY: Do you think it's a moral issue that 47 million Americans go without health insurance?
SEN. McCONNELL: Well, they don't go without health care. It's not the most efficient way to provide it.
Not a moral issue; an inefficiency.
There are 40 million people reaching out their hand to us. Helping them will be difficult; helping ourselves will be difficult. This is hard stuff. It is life and death. It will cost us nearly the same amount of money as doing nothing, and yet we still may say 'no.' In order for us to take care of everyone, we're going to need something in return. We need to get paid.
It's tragic. I love this country, I love what it stands for. I love the American story and persona. We are a good and decent people. But we've become complacent. We've become lazy. We've looked past our neighbors problems and found ways to justify it. We've closed our eyes, we've tried to wait this out. And we are weaker for that.
Time to grow up America.
SEC'Y SEBELIUS: ...the status quo is absolutely unsustainable. We have costs ratcheting up at this alarming rate, 16 percent of our GDP; every business, every family, every organization, every government is paying more and getting less. We live sick or die younger and spend more than any nation.
MR. GREGORY: Well, but that's fine. But you want to spend a trillion dollars...
Yes, Mr Gregory, we do.