LITTLE ROCK — The notion that Congressman Vic Snyder might need to be replaced is tinged with poignancy, although also a bit liberating.
He used to be a good congressman. Many of us thought he was the best, but Snyder's latest pronouncements on health insurance reform are beyond comprehension.
If there is to be no "public option," as Snyder suggests, why bother with this mind-numbing, frustrating, degrading debacle that somehow passes for a debate? Enacting any package without some form of a government option would seem to be just another name for corporate welfare.
Without the strong federal presence in the health insurance sector, what possible incentive would there be to contain costs? It is absolutely mystifying to imagine how one could support a program that serves only some Americans while simultaneously enriching the very insurance companies that already call the shots.
The gun-toting, insult-hurling, rage filled protesters of the far right have just about completely shut down all discussion, and that is too bad. Otherwise, we might have learned a lot of useful things. For example, Europe has many different styles of health delivery and some work better than others. The British system, as a case in point, seems to operate reasonably well most of the time.
There will always be that amplified and strident voice reciting the one or two instances when the train went off the tracks. When you're having so much fun bringing levelheaded conversation to a halt, it's a darned shame to shut up long enough to let somebody else have a word.
This talk going around about cost control sounds good, but seems eerily similar to those discussions 40 years ago about how health maintenance organizations would bring down medical expenses. While that stated goal might not have materialized so well, it became a wonderful opportunity to ration health care.
Insurance companies save themselves millions by "rescinding" the policies of those so unfortunate as to have gotten ill. The claim is that policyholders knowingly did not report pre-existing conditions. This tactic has saved insurers millions, and it is a brutal form of rationing.
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee has conducted hearings on this practice. One insurance company was found to have reviewed employee performance on the basis of the dollar amount saved by their decisions to terminate insurance coverage. You may talk about some theoretical, and completely nonexistent, death committee, but this looks like the real thing.
Self-employed people deal with the rationing of health care by price. If you buy an individual policy, you may end up with one of those high-deductible versions that cost a ton and do not pay unless you happen to hit the medical catastrophe jackpot and have "the big one."
Most reasonable people understand that something is badly wrong, but the tenor of this public policy rendition of mud-wrestling has damaged our ability to exchange ideas and find solutions. It's always all about winning. Whatever it takes to win is always justifiable.
The definition of winning is ultimately narrow. It consists of what is personally beneficial in the present moment. Thinking about the other guy or the future is for losers.
Instead of casting the deeper perils of this awful situation in the terms of a political social or spiritual equation, it might bemore useful to explain things in the context of old-fashioned free-market economics. The "in your face" tactics of personal intimidation are not only destructive of discourse, they are bad for business.
When this dark moment of harsh confrontation is passed, we will still need to find ways of doing business with each other. Virulent distrust cannot be conducive to the ordinary activities involved with buying and selling. Put simply, how are you going to ever make a buck off of your mortal enemy?
Having created a viable, living political organism that thrives on unreasoning anger and insult, Republicans may find themselves in the unhappy position of Dr. Frankenstein. They dug up the discarded remnants of resentment and fear from the graveyard of discredited social theories. The political right has patched together the hideous organs of a fully functioning ogre, but it may be impossible to control the darned thing.
None of this lets Snyder off the hook, or any other Arkansas representative for that matter. Considering the many poor and uninsured people living in Arkansas, one would think their sensitivity would be heightened and not diminished. Nonetheless, a true public option, something nationwide and on the scale of Medicare, looks like the best hope to bring down the price of medical care.
Snyder is way above the curve on intelligence and decency, so it is possible that he might eventually see the light on health insurance reform and come home. Congress may pass something, but it ought to be more than a direct cash transfer to the insurance companies and drug manufacturers.
Free-lance columnist Pat Lynch has been a radio broadcaster in Central Arkansas for more than 20 years.
Editorial, Pages 11 on 08/24/2009