The Oregonian syndicates a column by David S.Broder of the Washington Post this morning, quoting Oregon Senator Ron Wyden calling on President Barack Obama to remove “the rock” of a national public health insurance option from his healthcare reform plan.

Oddly, Broder cites bipartisanship as the reason Obama should abandon the public plan. Broder writes that Wyden’s plan “in simplest terms—would have guaranteed portable, affordable health insurance to every American.”

But that’s just not true. Democrat Howard Dean argued in Portland last week that we should “throw bipartisanship over the side” if it means sacrificing a national public health insurance option—which Wyden’s plan doesn’t include.

“Meanwhile,” Broder writes, “there is a preliminary but intense debate shaping up about whether a government-sponsored plan should be made an option for people choosing from a menu of coverage options. Liberals want that included. And Obama has reiterated his support for it.”

“Liberals?!” Yes, Obama stated last week that he wants a national public health insurance option to give Americans a broader range of options and “keep insurance companies honest.” But the majority of small business owners support a national public health insurance option, too. And so do all of Oregon’s Democratic congressmen and its other US senator—even though they don’t seem to have the guts to call Wyden out on it.

Matt Davis was news editor of the Mercury from 2009 to May 2010.

17 replies on “Oregonian Misses Point on Wyden Health Reform”

  1. Matt,
    Gradual change is not always bad, sudden change is often riddled with problems. Healthcare reform has been a stagnant mess for 15 years.
    Let Wyden have his head. A national healthcare system can always follow on later.
    The government has a lot on its plate, much more than it can handle well as it is. Getting universal healthcare right in the US is going to be a gargantuan effort of years and we have to start somewhere.
    This is not a wave-of-the hand process.

  2. Yeah, liberals support national health insurance. Is that really a controversial statement, or even debatable?

    You’re from the UK. Want to have a conversation about the NHS? Or how about Canada’s system, where patients suffering from such severe incontinence that they go to the bathroom 12 times per night have to wait 3 years for a half-hour operation?

    http://www.canoe.com/infos/quebeccanada/archives/2009/06/20090610-092400.html

    That’s the reality of rationed care. National health insurance is the first step on the road to a single-payer system, which requires rationed care. This is what liberals want.

    For once, Wyden is on the right track here.

  3. @mr. voluptuous

    I still have yet to find a Canadian that will complain about their national health care system compared to ours. In fact most of them talk about how stupid our system is compared to theirs. The only people I hear talk about how “great” our health care system is are rich republican douchebags.

  4. The biggest complaint I’ve heard from Canadians about their health care system is US citizens sneaking across the border to use it. (They are talking about building a fence.)

  5. David Broder has a hard-on for faux bipartisanship. His version means Democrats should bend over and take it in the ass and coddle right-wing demagogues even though their views are in a decided minority. He’s been a running joke for years.

  6. $25 a month premium in Canada:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/opinion/…

    If the US wants to get competitive it needs to reduce health care spending. A public system could save only about 20%. Extending patent protection for drugs would help reduce costs, believe it or not. Rationing useless treatments with proven poor outcomes is a good thing, not a scare tactic. Everyone in the system making money today doesn’t want their subsidy reduced, but our current concept of health is irrational.

    BTW you can get bargain dental and medical which is perfectly good in India and many other countries, cheaper drugs in Mexico and Canada.

  7. > The only people I hear talk about how “great” our health care system is are rich republican douchebags.

    Really, Pauline Kael? Guess you haven’t talked to any of the people who fly here from around the world to get medical treatment. Mostly, of course, from countries with socialized systems. We have the most advanced health care system in the world – that’s why it’s expensive. There are treatments available here that are not available anywhere else in the world.

    > Rationing useless treatments with proven poor outcomes

    What, like dentistry? Angioplasty? Knee replacements? Neurological treatment? Are you saying those aren’t rationed in single-payer systems, and that they wouldn’t be rationed if we adopted such a system here? Of course they would.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124451570546396929.html

  8. mr. v – lots of people go to Mexico these days for healthcare. By your logic, Mexican healthcare is better than the US.

    Health care is being rationed *right now* in the United States, under the current system. And there are long waits, already. So I’m not sure what your point is.

    If you’re rich and can pay out-of-pocket, you can have all those benefits of the “the most advanced health care system in the world”, and that won’t change, ever.

  9. Analyzed from a free enterprise viewpoint, American companies are moving auto manufacturing to Canada because they cannot afford escalating employer-paid premiums for their employees.

    Health care is rationed today in the form of “coverage denied” or for those who cannot afford coverage. Rationing proven useless coverage is common business sense and plain common sense.

    A few years ago, Medicare spent over 66% (probably higher now) of costs in the last 6 months of the patient’s life. That would be an example of proven poor outcomes!

    Proven means outcomes-based research, it is a growing field with more data day by day.

  10. Mr V,

    Well hooray for rich, international playboys who can fly their private jets here to have Gregory House diagnose their exotic ailment. Meanwhile, close to 20,000 people per year die in America as a direct result of not having health insurance (i.e., not being able to afford a friggin’ check-up).

  11. > close to 20,000 people per year die in America as a direct result of not having health insurance [CITATION NEEDED]

    I don’t buy those numbers at all – how could you possibly say that someone dies “as a direct result” of not having insurance? The law requires hospitals to treat you regardless of your insurance status – if you are sick or injured, you go the ER and get treatment. (Another way in which our system is better than most, BTW – try that in China or Mexico.)

    That said, no one is saying our system is perfect. It would be better if more people had insurance, and if it was cheaper. But like democracy, we have the worst health care system in the world, except for all the others. Americans don’t understand what rationing care would be like. Once they experience waiting 18 months for an operation, socialized medicine will be history, assuming it ever gets off the ground to begin with.

  12. Here you go Mr. V. Actually 20,000 might be on the low side.

    http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Ne…

    When I say die as a result of not having health care, I’m not talking about people going to the ER with broken bones after an accident. I’m talking about people who can’t afford basic preventative care. Like a check-up in which a doctor might say, “I don’t like the looks of this mole,” or the patient might say, “I coughed up blood yesterday.” The fact is, people suffer and hope it goes away. Hell, I went to the ER with a 103 degree fever, and it cost me $3500. And I have health insurance!

    You can keep your GOP approved talking points Mr. V. No ones buying them.

  13. True story: Today I spent an hour on the phone trying (and failing) to get a prescription for epinephrine. See, if someone who is allergic to bees gets stung, then they need a shot of epinephrine within minutes or their throat will close up and they’ll die. And if you have a beehive in your back yard, (like I do,) then the odds of someone getting stung in your back yard are reasonably high, (I got stung two weeks ago for instance, I was mowing the grass directly in front of the hive and I squished a bee between my fingers accidentally and so it stung me.) Now, most people that are allergic to bees know it and carry their own shots, but not all of them know it, nor do they always have their shots with them. And so the socially responsible thing for me to do is have a shot on hand myself. Problem is, I’m not allergic, so even though I have very good health care (by even US standards,) I’d have to pay the full cost out of pocket for the shot and they can’t even write me a prescription for this medication without having to bill me the full cost for a doctors visit, because it isn’t technically “for me,” even though the 4 nurses and 1 doctor I spoke to all thought this was a good idea for me to have it. (I suggested that this medication was cheaper than the psychiatric treatment I’d need if someone died of a bee sting in front of me, and they agreed, but said that “that sort of preventative care wasn’t covered by your policy.”) You know what they suggested I do? Go to Canada and buy it there and it would be cheaper, (including travel,) because in Canada you don’t need a freaking prescription for bee sting kits in the first place, you just buy them over the counter at the pharmacy…

    Yes. We have the best health care in the world, as long as you can afford it.

  14. “You know what they suggested I do? Go to Canada and buy it there and it would be cheaper, (including travel,) because in Canada you don’t need a freaking prescription for bee sting kits in the first place, you just buy them over the counter at the pharmacy…”

    That’s absolutely classic.

  15. Or you can sit on your computer at home and order it.
    Australia and India have some great online pharmacies.
    There is an *American* law that says it is legal to import small quantities of drugs for personal use.

    Saving your own (or a visitor’s) life can definitely be considered reasonable personal use.

  16. What the Republicans are worried about is free enterprise (some House and Senate members too, who can get campaign contributions from healthcare special interests).

    A public option will be cheaper because it pays doctors 10-20% less per procedure and it’s overhead is about 20% cheaper. The Republican argument is that if a cheaper public plan is available, businesses will abandon the private insurance plans and they will go out of business.

    In other words, business has already lowered costs by shipping jobs overseas, hiring undocumented workers at substandard wages, adding contract workers with no benefits, eliminating unions, sourcing materials and manufacturing overseas. But should they dare to lower their costs in our free enterprise system by choosing lower cost health insurance? Nooooooo! (Says Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal)

    So push for single payer, as in other countries, and settle for a public option as a bridge. To get individual physicians on board bump up the reimbursement and subsidize electronic medical records and billing automation. We have one chance with Obama in his grace period.

  17. So I have a friend who is a doctor, and I asked them about this, (and she’s going to write me a prescription for it for free, although I’ll still have to pay for the medication,) and she said that the argument for why it is a prescription drug in the US is that there people that shouldn’t take it, (if you are on certain other drugs, it can interact badly.) However, she also said that if you are allergic to bees and don’t take it immediately, there is a good chance that by the time the ambulance shows up, (if you aren’t dead,) you will be in need of CPR, and so the EMTs won’t be able to probe you for your medical history and find out that you shouldn’t take it, and so they’ll give epinephrine to you anyways. In any case, the side effects of combining epinephrine with those certain other drugs aren’t usually fatal, (unlike a bee sting for someone with allergies in the first place,) so you actually are better off taking it even if you are on those other drugs…

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