COLUMN: It's a matter of packaging

Image via Wikipedia

By Tobin Barnes
Sure, it’s a tempest, but it belongs in a teapot.

Polls indicate that a massive majority of Americans want at least some, if not substantial, health care reform. For that majority, the overwhelming costs and frightening uncertainty of the current system is a nightmare that only worsens by the month.

Of course, on the other hand, a vociferously vocal minority would like to squash any such notions of any change, either because their medical bread is already currently well buttered, thank you very much, or this is a political opportunity to nail those uppity, bleeding-heart, socialist, communizing, Nazi Democrats to the wall. (Uh huh, a very strange mixture of adjectives has come into play this summer.)

But let’s consider the needs of the majority who want at least some changes. How do we bring about beneficial reform for their needs?

Do the multiple 1,000-page bills currently being bandied about in the two houses of Congress help solve the problems? Hardly. They only add to the confusion and suspicion.

In such massive bills that Congress now routinely uses for all sorts of laws and appropriations, there’s always something or numerous things for everybody to hate. But, nevertheless, the noxious weeds are always included to sway this or that holdout congressman or woman, often a selfish holdout. That’s what happens with those all-or-nothing, everything-but- the-kitchen-sink bills. You get everything, warts and all, or nothing, which oftentimes is worse.

Why not break these bills apart, especially our current number-one issue, health care reform?

I teach some American history. Easy, relax. This is going to be relatively short and painless, so stick with me. This will be a refresher for most. Besides, as Harry Truman said, “The only thing new is the history you don’t know.”

Back in pre-Civil War times, things were getting hot. The nation was coming apart at the seams over the question of the future of slavery. The acquisition of western territories was adding fuel to a fire that threatened to consume the fragile union of states.

Then, thankfully, the Compromise of 1850 cooled the agitation somewhat and delayed the inevitable Civil War for more than ten years. But those were a crucially important ten years. That time period insured that the North with its geometrically expanding economic strength and massive industrialization would be able to preserve the Union, if only it could muster the determination and leadership to accomplish that hard-won goal.

The Compromise came about through the political expertise of two men: Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas. Clay, the Great Compromiser from the border-state of Kentucky, had the overall vision of giving things to each side, North and South, but at first, included all elements in one bill. Of course, Southerners didn’t like what Northerners were getting and Northerners didn’t like what Southerners were getting. The bill was at a stalemate.

So in stepped Stephen Douglas, senator from Illinois, who broke the thing apart so that each of the elements of the overall compromise could be voted on one-by-one. That way, enough moderates could be found on one side or the other to pass each element, thus eventually passing the entire Union-saving Compromise.

How about doing the same thing with health care reform? Of course, the debate over health care may not be as cataclysmic as civil war, but we all know this reform will also produce profound effects upon the nature of our country.

So in the spirit of the Compromise of 1850, let’s start with things where there is most agreement as to failings of the current health care system. In other words, let’s simplify the issues rather than complexify them in a 1,000-page bill. For example, how about pre-existing conditions that leave gaping holes in people’s health insurance policies?

Insurance companies spend a huge percentage of health care funds ferreting out the health problems of potential policy holders that might cost the insurers profits down the road. It’s an understandable business practice, if the only business of America is business, but it’s of dubious value to the welfare of the general public who have sacrificed to make this country great.

Left without a choice, millions purchase increasingly more expensive policies with numerous troubling medical exclusions that may not help them at all when the rubber hits the road. Do we Americans want to continue that?

Sure, changing this business practice may be monetarily limiting for insurance companies, but we know for sure that the current system wrecks innocent lives every day.

So let’s have a vote in Congress. After all, it’s a republic. Up or down?

Okay, now let’s move on to another issue, health insurance policy portability. For whatever reason, people leave jobs where they have a fine health policy, but now their insurance situation is up in the air. One minute they’re fully insured, the next, who knows? Do we continue this system where health care choices determine career moves and even destroy lives? Well, let’s have a vote on a separate bill. Up or down?

Yeah, let’s concentrate on one issue at a time rather than a hundred issues, half of which, in the light of day, are not issues at all, like death panels. Gradually, maybe over the course of months, we’ll move on to even thornier issues, like the public option of government competition with private companies.

But that’s okay.

Even those issues will become clarified when isolated in the public mind from all the suspicion, name-calling and distracting blather.