The Rachel Maddow Show's August 18, 2009, "Parable of the Pizza Order and Health Care Reform," (link below) inspired me to offer a non-parabolic version of sorts, entitled, "By Partisanship."
In the past 5 years, America's health care insurance companies' profits rose 1000% while consumers saw their cost of insurance go up 200-300%. [1] More than 50% of the personal bankruptcies in the US are because of an individual's health care costs. Of those bankruptcies, more than 75% are people who do have health insurance.[2-footnote] On average, 14,000 Americans a day lose their health insurance.
So, something needs to be fixed, and even most Republican opponents of reform--including Sen. Chuck Grassley (IA), Rep. Mike Pense (IN)--recognize it and say so publicly.
The Obama Administration and the Democratic majority in Congress thought it would be grand to get a compromise health care reform bill that some Republicans could support, even though such support might not be absolutely necessary for legislative success, because for the most part, the President and the Democratic majority been elected in 2008 by fairly solid margins.
So, right off the bat, Democrats (being good sports) took off of the table national health care via a "single-payer" system, in which there's centralized payment from public funds to doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers and facilities.
Instead, the Democrats (being naive about "bipartisanship" in the era of a radicalized Republican Party) offered a "public option" type of system, in which a separate health care insurance is set-up parallel to private medical insurance, but is financed by a publicly-managed fund. Republicans responded that they didn't like that.
So, the Democrats (being just downright silly) offered non-profit health care co-ops as an option. Republicans now respond that they didn't like that idea, either.
Republicans don't like anything that's being offered. They think that the only real solution is for the marketplace to somehow magically do what it's failed to for the last several decades: insure quality affordable health care to our nation. That's unacceptable; the status quo is brutal to small businesses [3] and to the middle class [4].
It's time for the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress to realize that the Republican Party will always put insurance company profits first. At every opportunity for Republican objectors to offer a non-governmental solution to the health care crisis, they have offered no suggestions. Instead, they complain about how bad government-involved solutions might be, and mis-represent various ideas Democrats in the House of Representatives have drafted--such as referring to funding for counseling about stressful but important end-of-life issues, like creating living wills, as "death panels."[5]
It's time for American health care reform without the Republicans, because it's become clear that there can be no health care reform with the Republicans.
[2]. Source: Senate Bill 840, Senate Rules Committee, Senate Floor Analysis, 5/24/05
Here is a selection of Maddow videos; click on "Parable of the pizza order and health care reform."
A version of this diary also appears on Isebrand.com