Utah's senators are being styled as key players in a frenzied Democratic push to fundamentally alter the American health-insurance system.
According to a Washington Post pundit, "Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch may hail from one of the most Republican states in the country, but both men are seen by Democrats as critical to their efforts to sell the bill."
If that's the case, then it might be argued that it's more urgent than ever that Bennett and Hatch use their clout to stop such reforms. Any attempt in Washington to tinker with health insurance right now courts disaster.
Clearly, there are some features of the health care system that should be changed. Bennett in particular has floated some interesting ideas. Republicans are working out their own proposals that, at the proper time, may well be worthy of serious consideration.
One might wonder if today is premature. The nation is listing badly and taking on water as a result of economic strains, so it might be prudent to put aside health care legislation until the ship is secure -- meaning after federal spending is reined in and the issues can be considered calmly and rationally.
Look at the news from Monday, for instance. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of national health care plan put forward by Democratic Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. Although President Obama says health-insurance changes would save money, the CBO said the plan would cost at least $1 trillion over the first decade.
Moreover, the scheme would fail on its own terms. One of the reasons Democrats have long pushed the idea is to cover people with no health insurance. But the Kennedy/Dodd plan would still leave 36 million people uninsured.
Thus, the nation would add to its spiraling debt, yet fall short of the main goal.
Democrats have been scrambling for ways to cut costs. But that only means that any final plan will fall even further short of its original goals. Congress is in such disarray that any health-insurance legislation passed this year will likely disappoint everyone.
Consider another key wrinkle: a government-run health-insurance plan that's called a "public plan." The problem is that the government plan would undercut the private insurance industry and conceivably damage or drive it out of business. That's not just GOP rhetoric, either. The CBO estimate of the Kennedy-Dodd bill says it would cause 23 million people to lose their private coverage. Analyses of similar proposals yield similar results.
"A public plan is a non-starter," Hatch said. "They are trying several ways to come up with a public plan without calling it that. I just don't see that as working."
Bennett was also critical: "The sticking point in this entire debate is the demand on the part of the Obama administration that the final product have a government plan as one of the options; and if that happens, I will do everything I can to say no because I am convinced we would end up with only one option that survives.
"Right now, nearly 1.8 million Britons are waiting for hospital or outpatient treatments at any given time. Let's realize that the American voter will never stand for the kind of rationing by delay that seems to have crept into every other government-run health care system."
That's the kind of role Utahns should hope their senators continue to play. Both Bennett and Hatch have been around for awhile and have earned respect in Washington. They're in a position to say "Whoa!"
The danger, however, is that Republicans will get sucked into the debate this summer. Washington has been in chaos since the financial meltdown began last fall. In just months, the inconceivable has become routine on Capitol Hill. For example, a year ago even the most fanatical socialist or paranoid right-winger wouldn't have thought the government would end up running General Motors and Chrysler, but it happened. In this political cyclone, keeping a stable footing is difficult or impossible.
And that's what proponents of national health care appear to be counting on. It was best put by New York Times columnist David Brooks, who recently wrote that Obama wants to lure Republicans and the health care industry into "the final stage, the scrum."
"This is the set of all-night meetings at the end of the Congressional summer session when all the different pieces actually get put together," Brooks wrote.
In the hurly-burly of those sessions, laws can be passed without even being read by the lawmakers, much less understood. (Remember the bailout package?) Before the American people realize it, government might be running health care and telling you what medical procedures you can or can't have.
The longer the debate goes on, the worse the reforms look. No wonder the majority party is in a hurry to pass them. As Hatch has said, among other criticisms of the big push to get this done by August, "Why? What is the rush? What are we trying to hide?"
Should Bennett and Hatch go along? Or should they do everything possible to put health-insurance changes on hold until some sanity returns to Washington?
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_0279c458-1495-520e-afa8-9eeccef4c5af.html
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