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DC Hubbub and What it Means For the Climate Bill

As I sit here writing, I have the White House Health Care Summit running in the background.  This is the meeting where President Obama invited Congressional leaders to sit down at the table in front of the American public and talk about how to find common ground over what has become a very divisive, political debate about healthcare.  

So far, I am hearing the Republicans say “start over” and Democrats say “we can’t wait” ad nauseum. I say, “Lock them in the room, get out a piece of paper and pencils, and start writing.”  

But despite the discouraging aspects of this Blair House rhetorical rumble, I think there are a few signs of hope — and those signs may bode well for action on clean energy and climate change.  

Transparency.  As annoying as I find much of the actual healthcare summit oratory, I love that this speechifying smackdown is being done on TV.  I thought both sides articulated their views very well and I think that those watching walked away with a better understanding of where everyone stands.  It was a very thoughtful debate.  (I also think that a lot of their points led to a collective shrug from the public because, well, I hate to break it to them but they kind of agreed most of the time.  It leads me to ask – so, what is the hold up?  But, back to the point.)  I also thought it was great last month when President Obama spent a significant amount of time debating the Republicans at their retreat about everything from clean energy and climate legislation to foreign policy.  Once again, the public was given the opportunity to understand the issue with fewer soundbites and more substance.  I think that this trend toward a transparent, televised process would bode well for a climate bill.  

Whether it is the grossly exaggerated claims of consumer cost or the inaccurate, overstated accusations of scientific error, climate legislation has been seriously wounded by the 30-second misinformed soundbite.  A televised debate would hopefully reveal the very real benefits of addressing climate change and properly explain why a cap on global warming pollution is necessary not only to ensure a cleaner environment – but to give companies the incentive they need to invest in clean energy technologies , create jobs, and make us less dependent on oil-rich, terror-sympathizing countries.  

Signs of Bipartisanship.  With healthcare, just having the two sides argue in public is a move toward bipartisanship, but on climate, folks from both parties have already taken the step of locking themselves in a room together with paper and pencils.  Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been working  with Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) for weeks as they draft a comprehensive climate and energy bill.  His willingness to put politics aside is the first step towards finding a solution.  

And there are other positive signs.  Last week, five Senate Republicans voted with Democrats to overcome a procedural hurdle on the jobs bill. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Kit Bond (R-MO) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio)–

voted to end a filibuster so that the bill, a $13 billion program to give companies a break from paying Social Security taxes for the remainder of the year on new employees, could get a final vote.  

In almost all ways, comparing the jobs bill to energy and climate legislation is like comparing apples and oranges.  However, in the way that may matter most – getting moderates from both parties to vote their minds instead of their parties – it opened the door to bipartisanship.  That is hopefully where we can resume building momentum on climate.

Signs of Accountability.  One of the greatest things that started today in tandem with the healthcare summit is a new age of accountability.  The visionaries over at The Sunlight Foundation provided its own interactive broadcast of the proceedings over the Internet.  Broadcasting over the web isn’t the revolutionary part — what is really terrific is that as each politician spoke, Sunlight would post campaign contributions that the person speaking has received, “their connections to lobbyists and industry, personal finances, and key votes that the leaders have made on health care in the past.”  

As these Members spoke, you could learn about their ties and it was fascinating to see the dots so clearly connected.  Now, having worked for Members of Congress, I can certainly tell you that elected officials don’t always vote they way their donors ask.  However, it was incredibly enlightening to have that background available as they spoke.  In a world where there are approximately eight healthcare lobbyists for each Member of Congress, it was very good to be able to really view the playing field and now the full scope of influence.

Greater accountability is also catching fire in the clean energy debate where bloggers, public interest groups, and media outlets are starting to ask who has their pockets lined by big polluters.  Just go to http://www.polluterharmony.org and you can see who has found their “true political love” with dirty fuels.  By putting all the pieces together, we can get a fuller picture of someone’s intentions and that can only lead to better legislation that is written in the interest of the people.  

In many ways, Washington should co-opt Chicago’s title as the “Windy City” after today’s healthcare summit.  But there is reason to hope.  Transparency, bipartisanship, and accountability will hopefully emerge as long-term trends that offer hope to every progressive issue.  

Health Care

The Reform That, to the White House, Dare Not Speak Its Name

“In this effort, every voice must be heard. Every idea must be considered. Every option must be on the table.” — President Obama, opening the White House health care summit.

Except one idea, apparently. The one reform that will actually contain health care costs, cited by the President as his main goal, and, as a bonus, solve the healthcare crisis —  single payer, or expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone.

In the weeks leading up to the summit, the White House made sure all the people it wanted in the room were there. The insurers, drug companies, corporate lobbyists, and those consumer and advocacy groups willing to play by the script.

One group, however, was conspicuously absent, advocates of single payer reform. Who happen to include, nurses and doctors, the people who have the most daily experience with the collapsing health care system and who by large margins support single payer.

Why were they excluded? When the dean of the press core, Helen Thomas, asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that question yesterday, he came up with this charmer:

MR. GIBBS:  I will certainly check on — I told Chip we rented a big room, but we didn’t get the Nationals’ baseball stadium.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_…

 

So despite their years of experience in fighting for real reform, the single payer proponents had to take to the streets (again), to pound their way in. Just a few hours before the meeting, and apparently hoping to head off the announced protest at the gates of the White House, invitations were hurriedly and belatedly extended to Rep. John Conyers, author of HR 676, the Medicare for all bill in Congress, and Oliver Fein, MD, president of the Physicians for a National Health Program.

Two seats out of some 120, not exactly a message of inclusion. And there was no space for their voices in the tightly scripted sessions.

As John Nichols wrote on the Nation website afterwards:

while the doctor was not included on any of the lists of breakout session speakers, the CEOs were, along with representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the Business Roundtable.

In other words, the overwhelming weight of opinion at what was supposed to be a wide-ranging discussion of health reform was — at best — on the side of tinkering with the existing for-profit system. Change we can believe in was not on the agenda.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs…

Maybe the redoubtable Mr. Gibbs can explain:

Helen Thomas:    Why is the President against single-payer?

MR. GIBBS:  The President doesn’t believe that’s the best way to achieve the goal of cutting costs and increasing access.

Or perhaps there’s the reason suggested by Harper’s Magazine editor Luke Mitchell on Democracy Now this morning:

it’s a threat to a great deal of people who are making a lot of money right now, which is to say the insurance companies. A single-payer system would take a lot of money out of the insurance system, the private insurance system. And it’s also something that a lot of people in Washington understand as ideologically threatening,

http://www.democracynow.org/20…

And, as Democracy Now host Amy Goodman noted, the silence in the summit is largely echoed in the exclusion of single payer voices in the major media:

A new study being released today by FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, found the views of advocates of single payer have only been aired five times in the hundreds of major newspaper, broadcasts and cable stories about healthcare reform over the past week. No single-payer advocate has appeared on a major TV broadcast or cable network to talk about the policy during that period.

It’s not single payer advocates who are harmed by this wall of exclusion, it’s all the American families and patients who yearn for real reform and will almost surely be disillusioned by proposals that fail to achieve it.

Because you can’t genuinely rein in costs without tackling them at the source — the insurance companies and their built in incentive to perennially jack up premiums, co-pays, deductibles and all the other ATM-type fees that are bankrupting families and crushing businesses. Nor can you begin to address the callous and routine denial of care for those already insured by the claims adjustors and bean counters who don’t want to pay for it.

There’s another potential casualty here as well, President Obama who himself famously said in 2003 that he was a proponent of single payer and must surely know it is best approach. A lot of political capital will be expended to pass reform this year, it ought to be devoted to a reform that will actually work.