Editor's note: Due to a production error, the Feb. 10 column from John Waelti was inadvertently published again on Friday. Below is the column intended for Friday's edition.
The political landscape can change mighty fast. A few years ago congressional town hall meetings were dominated by voters outraged that politicians were attempting to assist uninsured citizens to achieve affordable health care through the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA).
In stark contrast, recent congressional town hall meetings have been populated by voters who are frightened and outraged that politicians will repeal the ACA, leaving them without health care and at the mercy of for-profit insurance companies.
This is a real sea change. What has not changed is the hypocrisy of Republican politicians who enjoy taxpayer-financed Cadillac health insurance.
It's one thing for politicians not to agree on how to do something. But it's tragic when they cannot even agree on the objective of every citizen having access to a basic affordable health care plan. People should not have to avoid seeing a physician for basic care because they can't afford it, only to get seriously ill and either suffer, or resort to costly emergency room care.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is on target when he reminds us that we are the only wealthy nation that does not declare basic health care a basic right. We are a wealthy nation of vast resources sufficient to make basic health care available to all at reasonable cost.
That would be in a rational world, that is. But politics is not rational, beyond doing what politicians believe will increase their access to power.
The day after President Barack Obama won the election, powerful Republicans, led by Kentucky's Sen. Mitch McConnell, made a pact that they would oppose Obama on absolutely everything, with the objective of making him a one-term president. Naturally, that would include preventing him from passing legislation that would address the problems of the uninsured - largely people not on Medicare or working for government, corporations, or the many small businesses that provide health insurance plans.
Most of the uninsured were those with low incomes, unemployed, and/or with pre-existing conditions that made private health insurance plans unaffordable or unavailable. They were largely politically unconnected, and among the vast majority of Americans who don't contribute to political candidates or campaigns.
Yes, it's partly a matter of fairness. But fairness doesn't count for much in the politics of today. And it's far more than that. There is a public interest in making sure every citizen has basic health care. Healthy citizens are productive citizens. And, as conservatives constantly remind us, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Those who are forced to rely on costly emergency care through lack of health insurance drive up costs that are reflected in the insurance premiums the rest of us, including employers, pay.
Many people favored a public option plan resembling the successful and popular Medicare system. But the Republicans, and some spineless Democrats, would have none of it. So that became a non-starter.
In a vain - some would say naive - attempt to get Republican cooperation, Obama resorted to something like the Republicans said they wanted a couple of decades ago, and resembling what Gov. Mitt Romney backed in Massachusetts. This would be based on private sector insurance with provisions that prevented denial for pre-existing conditions, and elimination of benefit caps for coverage of serious illnesses.
To make it economically feasible for insurance companies, the young and healthy would be required to participate. That's the basic principle of insurance: spreading the risk. Besides, the young and healthy won't always be that way. We don't expect insurance companies to pay for a wrecked car to a driver who only wants to pay the premium after he wrecks his car. If we require for-profit health insurance outfits to cover all comers, including those with pre-existing conditions, then even those who "don't think they need it now," should pay into the pool. And if they are of low income, it is economically more efficient to subsidize their premiums than to force them to the emergency room and/or let them languish and die prematurely.
It was clear from the start that Republicans saw no reason to cooperate, especially since the uninsured were generally politically unconnected. They saw every reason to oppose, as it was a convenient stick with which to beat the president and the Democrats. The mainstream media enjoyed the conflict and obediently repeated the tired Republican banalities - a government takeover of the health care system, forcing a program down peoples' throats, deprivation of freedom.
The trashing continued with cries of "death panels" and "bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor." Never mind that Democrats invited Republican participation to improve the legislation.
The Republicans and the out-of-touch celebrities of the mainstream media, including the out-of-touch elitists of National Public Radio (NPR) had a hay day with the troubled roll-out of the plan. If the worthies of NPR would have been doing their jobs, they would have spent some time in big city hospital emergency rooms, and interviewing the previously uninsured, instead of faithfully and lazily echoing Republican talking points.
The capable Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, was endlessly trashed by the Republicans and the media. Instead of House Republicans working with Democrats to fix the glitches, they voted some 33 times to repeal the ACA. But who's counting.
Some 20 million people who didn't have health insurance now have access to the system. Many people were saved by this "unpopular program," as recently discovered by the commercial media, and even by NPR that has been asleep at the switch.
Enter Donald Trump, promising to repeal "this disaster" on his first day.
Wait a minute - some people would be hurt badly. What's this idle babble about "replacing?"
Worry not - health care hypocrite-in-chief, Paul Ryan, assures us they "have plans" to repeal and replace.
Hey Paul, you don't replace with unspecified "plans." You replace with "a plan," if you had one.
Maybe we should give him a break - and more time. He's only had six years.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
The political landscape can change mighty fast. A few years ago congressional town hall meetings were dominated by voters outraged that politicians were attempting to assist uninsured citizens to achieve affordable health care through the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA).
In stark contrast, recent congressional town hall meetings have been populated by voters who are frightened and outraged that politicians will repeal the ACA, leaving them without health care and at the mercy of for-profit insurance companies.
This is a real sea change. What has not changed is the hypocrisy of Republican politicians who enjoy taxpayer-financed Cadillac health insurance.
It's one thing for politicians not to agree on how to do something. But it's tragic when they cannot even agree on the objective of every citizen having access to a basic affordable health care plan. People should not have to avoid seeing a physician for basic care because they can't afford it, only to get seriously ill and either suffer, or resort to costly emergency room care.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is on target when he reminds us that we are the only wealthy nation that does not declare basic health care a basic right. We are a wealthy nation of vast resources sufficient to make basic health care available to all at reasonable cost.
That would be in a rational world, that is. But politics is not rational, beyond doing what politicians believe will increase their access to power.
The day after President Barack Obama won the election, powerful Republicans, led by Kentucky's Sen. Mitch McConnell, made a pact that they would oppose Obama on absolutely everything, with the objective of making him a one-term president. Naturally, that would include preventing him from passing legislation that would address the problems of the uninsured - largely people not on Medicare or working for government, corporations, or the many small businesses that provide health insurance plans.
Most of the uninsured were those with low incomes, unemployed, and/or with pre-existing conditions that made private health insurance plans unaffordable or unavailable. They were largely politically unconnected, and among the vast majority of Americans who don't contribute to political candidates or campaigns.
Yes, it's partly a matter of fairness. But fairness doesn't count for much in the politics of today. And it's far more than that. There is a public interest in making sure every citizen has basic health care. Healthy citizens are productive citizens. And, as conservatives constantly remind us, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Those who are forced to rely on costly emergency care through lack of health insurance drive up costs that are reflected in the insurance premiums the rest of us, including employers, pay.
Many people favored a public option plan resembling the successful and popular Medicare system. But the Republicans, and some spineless Democrats, would have none of it. So that became a non-starter.
In a vain - some would say naive - attempt to get Republican cooperation, Obama resorted to something like the Republicans said they wanted a couple of decades ago, and resembling what Gov. Mitt Romney backed in Massachusetts. This would be based on private sector insurance with provisions that prevented denial for pre-existing conditions, and elimination of benefit caps for coverage of serious illnesses.
To make it economically feasible for insurance companies, the young and healthy would be required to participate. That's the basic principle of insurance: spreading the risk. Besides, the young and healthy won't always be that way. We don't expect insurance companies to pay for a wrecked car to a driver who only wants to pay the premium after he wrecks his car. If we require for-profit health insurance outfits to cover all comers, including those with pre-existing conditions, then even those who "don't think they need it now," should pay into the pool. And if they are of low income, it is economically more efficient to subsidize their premiums than to force them to the emergency room and/or let them languish and die prematurely.
It was clear from the start that Republicans saw no reason to cooperate, especially since the uninsured were generally politically unconnected. They saw every reason to oppose, as it was a convenient stick with which to beat the president and the Democrats. The mainstream media enjoyed the conflict and obediently repeated the tired Republican banalities - a government takeover of the health care system, forcing a program down peoples' throats, deprivation of freedom.
The trashing continued with cries of "death panels" and "bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor." Never mind that Democrats invited Republican participation to improve the legislation.
The Republicans and the out-of-touch celebrities of the mainstream media, including the out-of-touch elitists of National Public Radio (NPR) had a hay day with the troubled roll-out of the plan. If the worthies of NPR would have been doing their jobs, they would have spent some time in big city hospital emergency rooms, and interviewing the previously uninsured, instead of faithfully and lazily echoing Republican talking points.
The capable Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, was endlessly trashed by the Republicans and the media. Instead of House Republicans working with Democrats to fix the glitches, they voted some 33 times to repeal the ACA. But who's counting.
Some 20 million people who didn't have health insurance now have access to the system. Many people were saved by this "unpopular program," as recently discovered by the commercial media, and even by NPR that has been asleep at the switch.
Enter Donald Trump, promising to repeal "this disaster" on his first day.
Wait a minute - some people would be hurt badly. What's this idle babble about "replacing?"
Worry not - health care hypocrite-in-chief, Paul Ryan, assures us they "have plans" to repeal and replace.
Hey Paul, you don't replace with unspecified "plans." You replace with "a plan," if you had one.
Maybe we should give him a break - and more time. He's only had six years.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
