BETWEEN THE LINES Q&A with John Nichol

Between the Lines Q&A

With Bipartisan Health Reform Dead,
White House Should Push for
Single-Payer or Strong Public Option

RealAudio

MP3

Interview with John Nichols,
Washington correspondent with the Nation magazine,
conducted by Scott Harris

singlepayer

As President Obama headed to Martha's Vineyard for a family vacation, the debate on reforming the nation's failed health care system rages on. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 55 percent of those surveyed believed reform legislation would cover illegal immigrants, 50 percent believed proposed bills would pay for abortions, and 45 percent believed reform measures would authorize "death panels" to deny care to senior citizens. All of these claims are patently false. A Pew Research Center poll found that "regular viewers of the Fox News channel are far more likely than viewers of other cable news channels to say claims of death panels are true."

As the congressional August recess draws to a close, the public insurance option has emerged as a central focus of the health care reform debate, with the U.S. Senate likely playing a pivotal role in the legislative outcome. In recent days, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona has rejected passage of a government-run health care plan and Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut urged the postponement of such a plan until the economy improves. The White House projection that the national deficit will top $9 trillion within 10 years, has prompted some to say we can't afford healthcare reform now. But Peter Orszag, President Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget insists the impact of rising Medicare costs on the deficit "is precisely why we must enact fiscally well-designed healthcare reform now."

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with John Nichols, Washington Correspondent with the Nation Magazine, who urges President Obama to acknowledge there will be no bipartisan cooperation from Republicans on healthcare reform, and to switch tactics and push for a single-payer plan or a strong public option.

JOHN NICHOLS: The debate got ruined, if you will, and pulled dramatically off course by the failure of the Democrats to stand for the only practical alternative to the current health care system. If the crisis of health care is profiteering that puts the bottom line of insurance companies in health care corporations ahead of the lives of our children, our parents, our selves, then the logical alternative is to remove the profit motive. The way to do that is not to set up a so-called competing public option; it's not to do consumer regulations, it's to establish a single-payer health care system designed to deliver care to all Americans at the most affordable cost with the greatest flexibility.

This was the logical approach, and when the Democrats abandoned, at least at the leadership level, this approach to health care reform, they opened up a huge space. Now this is not to condemn Obama, or even the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. It is simply to say that you cannot fight the combined power of the insurance industry and a Republican base that simply hates Barack Obama and hates Democrats being in power -- with a weak, very complicated difficult to understand so-called reform. It's not something you can sell. And so what has happened is that the debate has been defined by those who say "no."

And those who would say "yes" to health care reform by and large have not showed up. You know, the reason the town hall meetings look so crazy is because the people who really fundamentally do want health care reform want single-payer. And no, they're not inclined to go out and bang away and get all excited about a public option. And so, I think the Democrats, by being so soft and by offering so little, have not given their base enough to fight for and that has then tipped the debate toward those who are passionate - not logical, but passionate.

BETWEEN THE LINES: President Obama seems to be on the run here, losing credibility with activists on the left and right. And the debate now centering on the establishment of a public health insurance option to compete with large private health insurance companies, Obama has made indications that he wants to take that off the table too, calling it recently just a "sliver" of his overall plan. Where is the White House going with this? It seems like these loudmouths at the town hall meetings have put him into full retreat.

JOHN NICHOLS: Well, I don't know that it's put Obama into full retreat, but it has put a number of critical Democrats, the people he had to have to pass a plan, into retreat. And as a result, the president is then radically restructuring his approaches and doing so in an incredibly inept, seemingly unconscious manner. Look, this is a disaster. Anybody who tells you differently is spinning and trying to cling to some fantasy. The way that the Obama administration has handled this is every bit as inept and every bit as unwise as the way in which the Clinton administration handled health care reform back in the mid-'90s.

I don't have any problem with the president going off to Martha's Vineyard to take a week off. I think that's great. I think what he should do is sit down in front of a mirror and look at himself, look at his conscience, and ask what he wants to accomplish. He needs to rethink very rapidly and come back with something very, very bold. I would like him to do single-payer. I understand that may be too much to ask, but if he doesn't do that, then he has to have the most robust public option imaginable. It must be a sufficient public option to be able to compete head-to-head at every turn with the insurance companies' offerings. If he doesn't do that, if he doesn't at least do that, he will lose the health care fight. He will lose it, because A) He's got a united conservative opposition, but B) because progressives will not go to the mat for something so uninspired, and potentially even damaging. So this is a critical moment, this next week or so. Barack Obama either muscles up and does the right thing, or he essentially becomes a more, somewhat more appealing Bill Clinton.

John Nichols is author of "The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism." Read Nichols' columns online at www.thenation.com

Related links:

"Don't Let the White House Spin the Public Option Debate," by John Nichols, The Nation, Aug. 18, 2009

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Harris is an executive producer of Between The Lines, which can be heard on more than 45 radio stations and in RealAudio and MP3 on our website at www.btlonline.org. This interview excerpt was featured on the award-winning, syndicated weekly radio newsmagazine, Between The Lines, for the week ending Sept. 4, 2009. This Between The Lines Q&A was compiled by Anna Manzo.

To donate to Between The Lines, please send your check made payable to "The Global Center" and mail to:
Squeaky Wheel Productions
P.O. Box 110176
Trumbull, CT 06611

To get details on subscribing to the radio program or to publish this column in print or online media, contact us at (203) 268-8446.