America is probably not center-right politically, but our public discourse is. All of us left of center and President Obama are often caught up in asking the wrong question and answering the wrong charges. We are not negotiating with principled partners when we seek to find a middle ground; we are most often bargaining with opinionated and fact poor holders of ossified positions. In our opportunity for bold action, we are lost in pragmatic and moralistic arguments that have little impact on the other side.
While teaching a University prep course in Germany last week, a student came to me during the break and asked what I thought about President Obama. I told him that I could not imagine the difficulty of President Obama’s position in trying to bring positive change to a general political/economic system so damaged that it almost bankrupted the western world, if that is what he intends to do.
I also had to admit being disappointed. President Obama’s pragmatic, collaborative approach that has served him well in getting to this point in his political career, may not be serving him or the country well in the current situation. From one view, President Obama is trying to employ principled negotiation in a position based bargaining situation by seeking a middle ground that doesn’t exist.
The moderate middle ground is not found through compromise between two parties with different facts, world views, and a lack of trust in one another. Temporarily acceptable agreements can come out of that situation as both sides grudgingly agree to follow the rules as long as they are watched. Both sides continue to search for an advantage in the language of the agreement, loopholes, in order to reduce the impact of their agreed compromises.
Middle ground can only be found with negotiating partners who agree on the same facts, share a common goal (though they may disagree profoundly on how to achieve it) and are committed to maintaining their relationship in the process.
The honesty of a principled negotiator in a position based bargaining situation is a disadvantage. The other side will use it against you and not offer you its honest perspective in return. Knowledge is power and the side who truly knows that it is not negotiating in good faith can get more of what it wants. The "Gang of Six" on the Senate Finance committee is not negotiating in good faith as their true goal, to kill meaningful reform that will lead to reduced profits for their health care handlers, is not in line with the general perspective of President Obama. A lot of the waste in our national health care system is in the profits of the insurance companies, captive audience pharmaceutical companies and medical suppliers, and all of the paper handlers as well.
Apparently, single payer health care sounds so politically unreasonable to the president due to the second myth of the middle. The middle in the US seems buy in to the myth that profit and health care go together. Why is that? To paraphrase Rep Anthony Weiner (NY) on his recent MSNBC’s Morning Joe appearance, "What value do private insurance companies add to health care?" Also according to Rep Weiner, the overhead for Medicare is 4% while insurance companies have a 30% overhead. Is our distrust of the government worth 26 cents of every insurance dollar?
The middle in the US has been and continues to be duped into believing that "private is better than public" so thoroughly that a simple economic comparison can be seen as astonishing by a member of the national media and former congressman.
By forgoing the single payer goal in pursuit of the non-existent middle ground, President Obama lost a clear position that most Americans could grasp outside of their political blinders. Private payers are more expensive than public ones for the same product. They are a name brand luxury we can no longer afford. It is that simple.
PS If health insurance companies can’t compete on price or add value to the process in comparison to a public option, they deserve to fail!