Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 29, 1994 TAG: 9410040056
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Clinton plan was written without any attempt to draw in reform-minded Republicans. The assumption at the start seemed to be that any plan capable of achieving consensus would compromise the Clintons' ambitious social agenda. Not surprisingly, there was no consensus for the end product - and not enough party discipline to ensure passage with Democratic votes alone.
The result: no change to a health-care system that leaves millions of Americans without coverage or at risk of losing it, while taking up a greater share of gross domestic product than in any other nation.
When the laborious and unnecessarily secretive job of drafting the legislation was finally complete, the product was so complicated that even lawmakers who were expected to vote on it never fully understood how the pieces fit together. It depended too much on government regulation. It didn't deal sufficiently with spiraling health costs. But it was something, and at the very least a good start for discussion.
President Clinton then drew his line in the sand - he would veto any measure that didn't provide universal coverage - and invited lawmakers to make whatever changes they deemed necessary. Whereupon he proceeded to step back and draw a new line at every critical juncture of the debate. Uh, universal doesn't have to mean 100 percent, exactly. Well, as long as there is some mechanism that would kick in if not everybody was covered within a certain number of years, that would be universal - eventually ... It is hardly surprising that there was no last-minute rally to the cause when the reform banner kept fading farther into the distance.
Even so, if the president and first lady must shoulder a share of the blame for the effort's failure, it should not be forgotten that they, at least, were fighting on the side of change - and meaningful change, in the form of universal coverage. While the need for such reform has been evident for years, previous presidents have run away from the challenge.
The trouble with change is that it means the system we have will, well, change. And for every hope of improvement, someone fears what might be lost. With something as important to people as health care, it must be made clear that the gains are large and secure enough to more than balance out the losses.
Enter the monied special interests and political opportunists, nurturing and exploiting middle-class ambivalence. Launching an advertising blitz to rival that of a presidential campaign, the insurance, medical, pharmaceutical and legal industries attacked whatever reform bits might adversely affect them, sometimes raising legitimate issues, but often presenting them so narrowly as to distort rather than clarify.
And the Doleful opposition in Congress was more eager to deny a Democratic president a legislative victory than to pass reform that would improve the lives of Americans.
The Republicans can claim their motives were strategic - they blocked what they considered a poor plan, now hope to make gains in the fall congressional elections, and expect to come back with enough strength to pass their own version.
But as Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole joined the obstructionists and went from supporting universal coverage to something less, and less, and less, it has become harder to imagine what meaningful changes can be hoped for under such a scenario.
Will there be health-care reform next year? Maybe. Maybe not. But there will have to be sometime, and it shouldn't take a miracle to get it - only the resolve of the American people to demand reform.
by CNB