I decided to cut out of my cubicle a bit early this afternoon and go downtown to lend my thoughts to the kind staffers at Senator Baucus and Senator Tester's offices. Below, I shall describe the experience.
First I visited Sen. Baucus' office. I entered and introduced myself to a young gentleman who took note of my thoughts as I tried to outline them as clearly as I could (I'm not the greatest oral communicator, but then again neither is Sen. Baucus).
I concentrated on making three points as clearly as I could: First, I wanted to know why there seemed to be a lack of clarity and a singular message coming from the Democratic leaders regarding which direction to take. It seems to me that having the disparity of messages from the President, the leading Senators, and the House would serve to undermine the momentum behind any push for reforming the system. I offered up a suggestion for a direction to take- just keep it simple. We have plenty of experience with government coverage of health care costs in this country in the guise of Medicare and the VA. Why not either expand Medicare or create a similar program without any age or income eligibility requirements? "If you want to opt in to *care, you're welcome to it. No questions asked." Those are both popular, effective, and economical programs, and most importantly: they work. There's no theorizing to do, empiricism will work just fine.
My second point was to call into question the emphasis on bipartisanship, given the recent sour tone coming from the right, and general opposition to any effort to change our health care system. I noted Sen. DeMint's comments early in this process regarding his desire to make this debate into the President's Waterloo, and that such discourse only serves to inflame and spark an emotional response. We have yet to see any efforts toward constructive debate coming from the right, and we're into the third month of this process.
My third point was to say that, while I enjoy the job that I have now, I can see a day in the future when the desire to strike out on my own and start a business built around any of the constellation of crazy ideas in my head might come to fruition. Yet whenever I go through the calculus of whether such an idea would be capable of being implemented, I look at the decisions my boss has had to make about how to choose amongst the crappy health care plans for us employees, and despair. Last year, our business had to choose between staying with the kind-of-okay insurance that we already had, and paying a 40% increase in premiums, or going to a shitty-farty insurance plan that was "only" 20% more. We went with the shitty-farty one. I would hate to be the one having to make such a decision. And besides that, many a fine business plan hits a dealbreaking roadblock if one of the biggest costs associated with doing business (providing a necessary benefit to skilled labor), is routinely increasing in price by 20 or 40%. I can't be the only person in the country to be thinking the same thing, so imagine how many new businesses are on ice due to this issue. Not to mention, all the artists working at crappy jobs instead of creating works of beauty, or musicians stuck toiling away rather than writing songs.
So, as I made these points, Baucus' staffer dutifully scribbled down notes, and promised to pass them along. As I made my exit, he made sure to say that Baucus was going to fight and make sure that this happened. I've got a lot of grievances about how Baucus has gone about this, but I wanted to keep things positive and thanked him.
I then went into Sen. Tester's office (conveniently only 3 blocks away). I related the same points to his staffer, and while she was taking note of what I said, she would rebut my points as I made them. To my first point, she said that Sen. Tester would back a public plan, but being as he's not on either of the relevant committees, he doesn't have much influence until a final bill hits the floor. To my second point, she went to great lenghts to explain that the emphasis on bipartisanship was solely because there is a need to get 60 votes, and it was unclear whether Sen. Kennedy or Byrd would be able to make the vote, and they may not have a number of the Blue Dogs. I asked her if she honestly believed that Sen. Kennedy would miss this vote, and she said that she just wasn't sure. In any case, I simply left it at saying that part of the job of being a Senator is to make deals and get things done.
So, I made my case. Apparently they've been getting a ton of calls in opposition to any reform. So make calls. I told Tester's staffer that I have a day job, so I can't call all the time, and she was aware of the polling data of recent months indicating the broad levels of support for a public option. But I get the sense, and perhaps it's wishful thinking, that such efforts have an effect on the process.
Thanks for reading.