Politicians Scared of Health Care Reform?

An interesting turn of events has been occurring lately revolving around the politics of health care, and it revolves around a single emotion…fear. The longer the debate goes on, the more politicians seem to be shying away from it. This point was brought up in a New York Times article entitled, “Health Care Experts Must Face What Politicians Won’t.” The title is a little off so I’ll explain.

Next week, President Obama is going to be holding a summit on health care, and many republicans are reluctant to attend. The article paints one part of the story much better than I could, so I’ll quote it here:

The comedian Jon Stewart has even mocked the House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, who has fretted about walking into a “trap.” On his TV show, Mr. Stewart said the summit would be “a public dialogue about important legislation — not Little Big Horn.”

The author then, instead of talking to politicians who are nervous to wander into the “Death Valley of American politics”, talks to health care experts and asks them what they would tell politicians if they were invited to the President’s summit. The answers were pretty interesting, and politicians on both sides of the isle get slammed. “First, I’d ask the president and the Democrats if they have anything more innovative — or anything to promote efficiency and save money — beyond slashing a zero off the amount they pay doctors,” said one health professor, David Dranove of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.

He then said, to Republicans, “Do you have anything meaningful to offer in the debate?” Michelle Gittler, medical director of the spinal cord injury program at Schwab Rehabilitation Institute in Chicago, has another opinion, “It seems that no one has an interest in putting care back into health care, least of all the people we elect and trust to make thoughtful, big decisions.” Dr. Glitter also invited politicians to follow her on her rounds to see how patients are treated in today’s health care system. In a few words, it’s not good.

Overall, this was a very telling article about the possibilities as to why so little is actually getting accomplished in within the realms of health care reform. There seems to be a lot of fear in dealing with this topic from our elected politicians, which is sad. We want to think they’re working for our best interest, but in cases like this, it makes one wonder if they’re only working for theirs.