PROGRESSIVES PUSH FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, BUT DISAGREE ON FORM

Friday, March 21, 2008

(PAI)

By Mark Gruenberg

PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI)--Progressives meeting in Washington in mid-March vowed to make affordable universal health care the top domestic issue of the 2008 campaign, but--just like their colleagues in the labor movement--they disagreed on the form it should take.

In the Take Back America conference, meeting March 17-19, the Economic Policy Institute and others campaigned for a system like one enacted in Massachusetts, requiring everyone to buy health care but offering heavy subsidies for those who can't afford it. It would feature "shared risk and shared responsibility" among government, individuals and businesses, said its creator, Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker.

Hacker's plan would also create a second insurance pool--which he estimated initially would cover about half the country--of workers and families whose firms either did not provide health care or could not afford it. That would be a government-run system similar to Medicare, he said.

Hacker admitted it would eventually lead to universal government-run health care, as more and more private firms give up covering their workers and dependents.

"There are a lot of great ideas that sand little chance of passage," Hacker said, without naming them. "And there are a lot of bad ideas that have some support," he added, referring to GOP plans for throwing people onto the mercy of the health insurers.

Conference co-chair Roger Hickey claimed the progressives, including labor, already had a won of sorts by forcing the Democratic presidential hopefuls--led initially by former Sen. John Edwards but also including Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.)--to embrace universal coverage.

The latter two senators, the last ones in the race, "didn't want to be seen as less progressive" than Edwards, so they adjusted their health care plans, Hickey said. Clinton initially wanted to just cover children, Hickey said. Obama still does.

But Hacker said any reform plan--his included--must address containing costs as well as covering everyone. Otherwise, it will fail "and we've seen that allure in Massachusetts already," he warned. "It's not sustainable to require people to get coverage without doing anything about costs," he noted. The Massachusetts plan is estimated to cost individuals at least double what its proponents forecast.

Hacker touted his plan as politically feasible, unlike alternatives such as government-run single-payer universal health care. But even then, he warned the progressives, "the problem is how to get the political support to overcome vested-interest lobbies that oppose it," especially the health insurers.

Those lobbies, he added, have already started screaming "socialized medicine" about Clinton's and Obama's health care plans, Hacker noted. Each of the Democratic plans "has a public insurance option," he noted.

Hacker's advocacy of the mixed public-private system, with a large public component--and an estimated $1 trillion in savings over a period of years--drew some questions about why progressives didn't just immediately advocate for a Medicare-like government-run single-payer system. That idea was discussed by its lead sponsor, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) at another session.

Unions are similarly split over how to achieve universal, affordable health care. Service Employees President Andy Stern, for example, endorsed California GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan, which was similar to Massachusetts' and which required everyone to buy health insurance. Stern said it could be a model for the nation, but the Democratic-run legislature defeated it.

Conversely, several influential unions, including the California Nurses Association, the Steel Workers, the Plumbers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, back government-run single-payer health care. CNA pushed a state through the California legislature several years ago, but Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

One single-payer advocate, from SEIU/United Health Care Workers West, challenged Hacker's plan as a half-measure. But Hacker and panelist Ezra Klein, a health care writer, pointed out that what's vital is a plan that can win 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a GOP filibuster--even if a Democrat wins the White House.

"Medicare for all is a problem politically from Day One," Hacker said. Klein offered a more optimistic outlook for health care reform, however.

"Make people (politicians) be afraid to vote against you" on universal affordable health care, he declared, just as "the Republicans made Iraq for the Democrats" before GOP President George W. Bush launched that war.

"I was at the Association of Health Insurers convention and they're afraid" of what Obama and Clinton are proposing, as well as of single-payer, he told the crowd. "That's because they know that you need doctors, you need hospitals, you need drugs, but you don't need them"--the insurance companies. "Don't give up the public plan quickly, if at all," Klein concluded. ###

Press Associates, Inc. (PAI) -- 3/21/2008

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