BETWEEN THE LINES: Talking About Health Care

By Brenda Blagg

Posted: November 18, 2009 at 5:19 a.m.

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Be honest. What do you really know about health care reform? Or, more specifically, about the proposals being considered by the Congress to accomplish reform?

The honest answer, for most of us, is that we know less than we think we know.

Oh, we’ve been listening — or think we’ve been listening — to the debate for months, for years even. But what exactly is it that will be voted on?

First of all, it is not “a” bill, as some of the TV advertising suggests, but several bills.

Yes, the U.S. House of Representatives passed “a” bill by a slim margin and sent it to the U.S. Senate, which was a major step historically in this long march toward reform. But don’t expect that House bill to be “the” bill the full Congress considers for final passage.

The focus is rightly on the Senate now, where several bills are still being reviewed. The one getting the most attention is offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but it’s not going to be “the” health reform bill either.

“The” bill is weeks, or months, away, if it happens then. That’s the process. The legislation will be tweaked repeatedly in the Senate and later in conference committee to win this senator’s vote or that representative’s vote; and, regardless of the names on the eventual bill, it will be whatever compromise is necessary to achieve some kind of reform.

It does seem likely the Congress will at least do something to address part, if not most, of the persistent complaints about a health care and health insurance system that has too many Americans uninsured or underserved and at too great a cost to us all.

The fundamental problem with actually achieving reform is that the Congress is full of senators and representatives being pulled in different directions as they try to respond to constituents, get bombarded by lobbyists and wrestle their own consciences to decide how to vote.

They are, in some respects, where their predecessors were in decades past as earlier Congresses enacted Social Security and Medicare and other long-lasting legislation that has so changed our nation.

This may be as critical, as transformative a vote as the current members of Congress will cast. It’s the kind of vote that will mark a career, not just an election cycle, and one that they are indeed considering carefully.

So, go back for a minute to that earlier question: What do you, as a constituent, really know about the legislation being considered? And how do you affect the debate?

What you know, or think you know, affects the feedback you are giving to your representative or to your senator, whether offered directly or indirectly, and how useful your input is to him or her.

Maybe you have read and understood specific proposals. Or maybe you’re taking your cues from the TV advertising that tends to scare people into thinking they could lose more than they’ll gain from reform. Too many of the messages are more about stopping health care reform or lessening its impact than on finding solutions.

We in Arkansas may be getting an unusually heavy dose of that kind of advertising. U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., faces re-election next year and the special interests behind those ads hope her constituents will take the bait and influence her vote for them.

Here’s a simple request: If you’re listening to those ads, relying on that message, be sure to look at the quick, silent imprint at the end of each ad to know who paid for the message. It might cause you to think twice about regurgitating that line to your senator or congressman.

It will be far more useful to them for you to relay your personal experiences with the health care system, your problems — or lack of them — with getting or using insurance.

That kind of information would at least reinforce why they’re having this debate and help them work out “the” as-yet-elusive health care reform bill.

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