Right now in D.C., inside ornate committee meeting rooms and
cluttered congressional offices, plans for a radical redesign of
America’s health-care system are being rolled out. Also being rolled
out: strategies for torpedoing any meaningful change to a system that
Republicans and Democrats alike agree is broken—but is
nevertheless extremely profitable for certain vested interests. Between
the House and the Senate, there are five committees each drafting its
own version of the nation’s new health-care plan, and Washington State
has six congressional representatives sitting on those committees.
Here’s what they’re all pushing for (and against) and how you can push
them.
Senator Patty Murray (D)
Murray sits on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee, which has produced the best plan the Senate has to offer: It
includes near-universal coverage, a government-backed “public option”
that would compete with private insurers to bring down costs, and a ban
on using preexisting conditions to disqualify Americans from getting
coverage. Call her at 202-224-2621 or 206-553-5545, and
tell her to hold firm—and suggest she have a chat with the junior
senator from Washington (see next page).
Senator Maria Cantwell (D)
When Washington’s junior senator was appointed to the Senate’s
powerful Finance Committee in 2006, Cantwell promised to use the
opportunity to “fight” for health-care reform. But lately she’s been
meekly toeing a line laid down by committee chair Max Baucus
(D-Montana), who’s dead set on a bipartisan solution to health care
even though Republicans don’t have great ideas about health care and
Democrats currently control both houses of Congress and the White
House. Bipartisan, in this context, has come to mean abandoning the
public option—which experts and reform advocates say is necessary
for real change—and instead promoting the “co-op compromise”
offered by a senior Democrat from North Dakota. What Cantwell doesn’t
seem to understand is that the politics of her committee (never mind
the politics of North Dakota and Montana) are not the politics of
Washington State. Nor are they the politics of the United States as a
whole, where polling shows 72 percent of Americans support the public
option. Call her at 202-224-3441 or 206-220-6400, and
tell her to support the public option—and when she tells you she
already does, tell her to define her terms. Lately, Cantwell has taken
to redefining public option so that it means co-op compromise.
Slippery. They’re not at all the same thing.
Representative Dave Reichert (R)
Because he represents Washington’s politically-mixed 8th
Congressional District, which runs along the east side of Lake
Washington, conservative Reichert has to say things that make him sound
like a nice, reasonable, moderate guy. On July 2, he told KUOW: “There
needs to be a public option.” Hooray! A Republican so enlightened that
he’s even to the left of Maria Cantwell! Nope. Within the span of a few
on-air seconds, Reichert then elaborated: “We don’t want a government
takeover of health care. If government’s running one side of it and
they can print money, I think that the private-sector health-care
system will have a tough time keeping pace.” Huh? That’s the whole
point of the public option: The government enters the private
health-insurance market, not to take over all of American health
care but just to offer an alternative that forces private insurers to
keep costs competitive. Wisdom of the markets and all, right? Reichert?
Can we hear an amen for the invisible hand? Call him at
202-225-7761 or 206-275-3438, and tell him to keep saying “there
needs to be a public option,” ditch the rest, and vote the right way
when the time comes.
Representative Jim McDermott (D)
Don’t worry about McDermott. Seattle’s congressman-till-forever is a
doctor and has been so hardcore about health-care reform for so long
that he finds all of the options on the table this year—public
option included—to be way short of what he wants. Ideally,
McDermott wants America to have a single-payer health-care system, just
like a lot of other advanced democracies in which health care is
cheaper and universally available—places like Canada and Britain,
for example. But for now, McDermott’s pushing the public option, in
part as a test of whether this year’s reform effort is serious. “It all
stands or falls on that,” said his spokesman, Mike DeCesare. “If there
isn’t a public option, you’re not going to have real health-care
reform.” Somewhat surprisingly, McDermott won’t promise to vote against
any bill that doesn’t have a public option. He says that’s
because he’s confident the final House bill will include one. Call
him at 202-225-3106 or 206-553-7170, and tell him he better
make sure that happens.
Representative Jay Inslee (D)
Don’t worry about Inslee, either. The Democrat from Washington’s 1st
District—which covers south Snohomish County and the Kitsap
Peninsula—is for a “strong public option.” He’s over that whole
debate. He already has his mind on the next battle: how to create a new
system without bankrupting the country. Inslee is in favor of
implementing doctor peer review to get medical providers to limit
unnecessary tests and procedures, and he wants to get away from the
pay-for-service model (which creates perverse incentives for doctors to
perform unnecessary services). Call him at 202-225-6311 or
206-361-0233, and tell him to keep up the good fight.
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R)
Unlike Reichert, McMorris Rodgers, who represents Spokane and a huge
swath of Eastern Washington, doesn’t even pretend to like the public
option. “What is being proposed, another government takeover, is not
the answer,” she wrote recently in a note to constituents. “Proposals
to establish a government or public option are nothing more than an
attempt to have federal bureaucrats tell you what your health-care
needs are, instead of those who know you best, like your physician,
nurse practitioner, or pharmacist.” Bullshit. Even if the public option
passes, Americans will be free to keep their private insurance if they
like it better. Call her at 202-225-2006 or 509-353-2374,
and tell her to stop with the crazy scare tactics. 
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The product of health insurance is to provide you with medical coverage when you need it.
Unlike other businesses that need to provide you with their product in order to make any money, health insurance companies actually make more money for themselves when they restrict and do not pay claims.
In other words, they make more money when they do NOT provide the product that you have paid them for.
Read the 50 to 70 pages of your health insurance contract.
Pay particular attention to the section entitled “limitations and exclusions”.
People’s health is not a product that needs to be left to the whims of money motivated CEO’s and stockholders.
If that is your thinking, you might as well have your police and fire department protection based on insurance premiums you pay.
Then you can go to the police and fire protection insurance page for ‘limitations and exclusions’ on whether or not the police or fire department would come out to your house in the event of an emergency.
The point is, you would never think of discriminating against another citizen if he was the victim of a fire or crime.
So why would you be ok with health insurance companies discriminating against fellow citizens who have pre-existing medical conditions?
You are good!
#1 Thank you. That is exactly it isn’t it.
Thanks, Eli! How about the other reps? I read where Rick White is a bit flaky on this…really appreciate your getting the info out. Please call, folks, we need public option health insurance!
I’ve really appreciated the coverage The Stranger has given this topic. This info is great, I’ll be making phone calls next week in addition to the letters I wrote today.
Along with #4, I’m curious about our other reps. Any details, Eli, on the current stance of Adam Smith? Thanks again!
I am particularly tickled by Ms. Rodgers saying that your pharmacist knows you better than you government does! I never even see my pharmacist, only the peon at the counter when I come to pick up my prescription. And it’s never the same peon twice. Pharmacy is a very impersonal business these days, and your pharmacist doesn’t know anything about you except who your doctor is and what drugs your doctor thinks you should take.
“The product of health insurance is to provide you with medical coverage when you need it.
Unlike other businesses that need to provide you with their product in order to make any money, health insurance companies actually make more money for themselves when they restrict and do not pay claims.
In other words, they make more money when they do NOT provide the product that you have paid them for.”
I agree with that!
Todd DiRoberto
http://www.newsguide.us/art-entertainmen…
#1 – There are limitations on whether police or fire responds to your residence. There are boundaries (limitations and exclusions) called fire districts and political boundaries i.e. city limits that restrict whether or not they respond and it’s based on who pays for the service. The point is they do discriminate.