Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Steamroller Blues
You'll find fewer more shining examples of bad public policy than the energy and Medicare reform bills that have come through the Republican steamroller in Congress in the last couple of days.
Democrats in the Senate are considering a filibuster of the energy bill, which was developed largely in secret by Vice President Cheney's anonymous task force of energy executives. Congressional Democrats were not permitted to see much of the bill until last Saturday, when its 1200 pages were dumped on them with notice that the bill would be voted on in 48 hours--the point of which was to keep them from raising objections to various devilish details that they simply wouldn't have time to find. (The last time the GOP did something like this, we got the Patriot Act.) Nevertheless, Democrats in Congress did well yesterday to accomplish what they did, even if Tom DeLay's reliable assassins in the House were able to kill a lot of it, saying "screw you" to renewable energy and embracing more coal, oil, and nuclear power. Republicans stripped out alternative fuels provisions that Republicans and Democrats in the Senate had agreed to. The bill makes it easier for polluters to polllute, and shifts the burden for cleaning up after them from the polluters to the taxpayers. That's yummy statesmanship.
The Medicare bill is also pretty bad. The glorious idea of requiring Medicare to compete with private insurers in six regions of the country is its centerpiece--Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), a health care expert, notes that Medicare was founded precisely because private insurers wouldn't offer the kind of coverage many senior citizens required. So Medicare will be put in a handicapped position competively to begin with, having to offer (and pay for, and thus charge for) services private companies will not, which is not the way to make sure Medicare survives and thrives. This is what the Bush Administration has in mind, of course--they're not so much interested in "saving" or "shoring up" Medicare for the long term as they are in crippling it now so they can kill it later, perhaps during a second Bush term.
The bill contains provisions intended to help senior citizens with the cost of prescription drugs, although one provision appears to do more for American drug companies than for their customers--banning the import of prescription drugs from Canada, where they're usually cheaper than in the United States. AARP supports the bill, but as Groom Lake observes, that's a flipflop from their position earlier this year, as the organization becomes "a shill for the insurance agencies" and "the American Association of Republican People."
Democrats will be, if these bills pass, in the position (yet again) of playing defense against adminstration claims that it did something but Democrats would have us do nothing. Democrat strategy is apparently to try and link the benefits of these bills to big Republican contributors as payoffs, but it's questionable how well that will work. I sometimes think that Americans don't really mind if successful corporations and the rich are able to work the levers of government to their benefit. After all, we might be rich someday, too, right? Then it will be our turn.
You'll find fewer more shining examples of bad public policy than the energy and Medicare reform bills that have come through the Republican steamroller in Congress in the last couple of days.
Democrats in the Senate are considering a filibuster of the energy bill, which was developed largely in secret by Vice President Cheney's anonymous task force of energy executives. Congressional Democrats were not permitted to see much of the bill until last Saturday, when its 1200 pages were dumped on them with notice that the bill would be voted on in 48 hours--the point of which was to keep them from raising objections to various devilish details that they simply wouldn't have time to find. (The last time the GOP did something like this, we got the Patriot Act.) Nevertheless, Democrats in Congress did well yesterday to accomplish what they did, even if Tom DeLay's reliable assassins in the House were able to kill a lot of it, saying "screw you" to renewable energy and embracing more coal, oil, and nuclear power. Republicans stripped out alternative fuels provisions that Republicans and Democrats in the Senate had agreed to. The bill makes it easier for polluters to polllute, and shifts the burden for cleaning up after them from the polluters to the taxpayers. That's yummy statesmanship.
The Medicare bill is also pretty bad. The glorious idea of requiring Medicare to compete with private insurers in six regions of the country is its centerpiece--Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), a health care expert, notes that Medicare was founded precisely because private insurers wouldn't offer the kind of coverage many senior citizens required. So Medicare will be put in a handicapped position competively to begin with, having to offer (and pay for, and thus charge for) services private companies will not, which is not the way to make sure Medicare survives and thrives. This is what the Bush Administration has in mind, of course--they're not so much interested in "saving" or "shoring up" Medicare for the long term as they are in crippling it now so they can kill it later, perhaps during a second Bush term.
The bill contains provisions intended to help senior citizens with the cost of prescription drugs, although one provision appears to do more for American drug companies than for their customers--banning the import of prescription drugs from Canada, where they're usually cheaper than in the United States. AARP supports the bill, but as Groom Lake observes, that's a flipflop from their position earlier this year, as the organization becomes "a shill for the insurance agencies" and "the American Association of Republican People."
Democrats will be, if these bills pass, in the position (yet again) of playing defense against adminstration claims that it did something but Democrats would have us do nothing. Democrat strategy is apparently to try and link the benefits of these bills to big Republican contributors as payoffs, but it's questionable how well that will work. I sometimes think that Americans don't really mind if successful corporations and the rich are able to work the levers of government to their benefit. After all, we might be rich someday, too, right? Then it will be our turn.
