(He) spoke of his wife, Margaret, who died in the 1980s of breast cancer and asked Griffith if the bill that does pass would prevent others from getting the care they needed.
“Margaret was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1978, and she received state-of-the-art care and lived 10 years more to raise our two children,” he said. “The health care we have is better than what we realize. I like to think of it as a Mercedes with a bad transmission. The president wants to put us in a Yugo, but I’d like to see us fix the transmission. With this bill, would future Margarets die and be unable to raise their children?”
My father is a colleague of Ott’s, and I remember Margaret’s brave battle with cancer. She was lucky: too many Americans find out halfway through cancer treatment that their lifetime coverage limits have been exceeded, and they are now paying out-of-pocket. Others suffer “rescission” of their policies just as they really need them. Present-day Margarets are already dying and unable to raise their children, thanks to the tender mercies of free-market health care.
Moreover, no one is trying to fit Tom Ott for a Yugo. Indeed, one of the primary features of H.R. 3200 is that it doesn’t force anyone to buy into a public option. Dr. Ott can keep his Mercedes.
In fact, the insurance regulations in H.R. 3200 will exert some measure of quality-control so the Mercedes doesn’t fall apart at 80 m.p.h. and kill him. Reform will also keep his “car payments” from breaking the bank; without reform, in a decade no one will be able to afford health insurance.
Meanwhile, a public option will give access to everyone who doesn’t have health care. There are about 47 million Americans who’d gladly take the Yugo; indeed, tens of millions are desperately trying to get someone, anyone to sell them a health care policy.
Griffith himself tried to channel this reality last night when he remarked that 600,000 Alabamians “go to work and do everything we ask them to do, but can’t get health insurance.” You absolutely DO NOT have to become an unemployed couch potato to lack insurance. In fact, the hardest-working Americans are the least likely to have insurance. Convenience store cashiers have one of the most dangerous jobs in America, but almost none have health insurance.
The deficit hawks who cheered last night should also understand that reform without a public option amounts to a new, gigantic insurance and drug industry bailout:
(I)t’s the only thing that can keep costs low and thus prevent this bill from being nothing more than a glorified bailout of the insurance and drug industries, which is exactly what will happen if 50 million people are forced by law to buy their products with no cost-control mechanism but ample government subsidies.
I like Tom Ott. I sympathize with his loss and respect his career. But his comment is zero-sum, screw-you, I’ve-got-mine Republicanism of Teh Stupid™ kind.
