One incoming Republican representative, Joe Walsh, is declining the health insurance offered to members of Congress, according to the CNN political ticker. Rep. Walsh said:
My wife and I now are going to have to go through the struggles that a lot of Americans go through, trying to find insurance in the individual market and having to deal with problems of preexisting conditions.
His wife apparently has a pre-existing condition, which he knows is going to make life difficult for him, and he's aware (as he states elsewhere) that the health care system is stacked against people who have to buy individual insurance. Of course, one of the goals of the bill is to make life easier for people in his position, and the most common progressive complaint is that it doesn't go far enough.
An interesting discussion I had with a "Massachusetts conservative" friend, along with other thoughts on this, below.
On Saturday, I was driving to a house party with some friends who are conservative. That is, they're conservative by Massachusetts standards. They were big Scott Brown supporters, one of them was elected ward boss in her town (unfortunately, she'll be very effective in that role) and all that, but I suspect in Texas (where she grew up) she'd be considered liberal. However, she's a nice person, and personally has a very warm heart towards people in need. But then the discussion got onto health care, and that's where things got interesting.
She said to me that she would be happy with a single payer system, as long as it only covered Americans.
I repeat, this dyed in the wool Republican ward boss said that she would be happy with a single payer system, at least on that condition. And she was very specific about "single payer".
We didn't have time to discuss the condition any further. I know from previous discussion that "illegal immigration" is one of her hot button issues, although I'm not aware of any personal issues she's had. She once said that she'd be willing to consider comprehensive immigration reform, as long as all of the people not legally in the country were kicked out first. And of course, we can all find all kinds of corner cases there. But this diary isn't about immigration, it's about health care.
So what does all of this have to do with freshman Rep. Joe Walsh? Well, I think most of us here agree that Medicare-for-all or something similar would probably be the quickest way of solving Rep. Walsh's problem. We're not necessarily all single payer supporters -- my own research suggests that countries with hybrid systems, such as Germany or France, have higher satisfaction than countries with single payer (such as Canada) or a completely nationalized system (such as the UK).
I'm personally not a strong single payer supporter, in part because I've been of the opinion that we'd have an easier time succeeding with an incremental bill such as what actually passed (call me an incrementalist if you like). And in the event, what passed (however ugly a beast it may be) was an incremental bill that's going to help a lot of people, although not immediately. But the combination of what Rep. Walsh said and the discussion with my friend is causing me to rethink my position. Given how many members of Congress are in the pockets of the insurance industry, and the opposition that was unified solely in defeating Democrats, Medicare for all probably couldn't have passed.
But maybe I was wrong. Maybe the people here who wanted to hold out for Medicare for all were right after all. Maybe there are enough moderates and conservatives who would, at least under the right conditions, go for a simple Medicare for all system.
Maybe Joe Walsh really does, deep inside, support single payer health care. It doesn't seem likely that a fire breathing Republican, who ran against "Obamacare" (we all know that the "Obama" part is really what they don't like), would actually agree with something far more "socialist" than the PPA.
But I can't help but think: what if he does?