Words vs. Deeds on Health Care

The words vs. deeds debate continues, this time on health care.

Today, the New York Times’s Robin Toner purports to show the differences between Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on the issue.  He frames the topic in the familiar way: Republicans want to “empower consumers to buy it themselves, from private insurers,” while Democrats, in seeking to “strengthen the private-employer based system,” envision “a strong role for government…with substantial new government spending to subsidize coverage for people who cannot afford it.”

If we’re just looking at the candidates’ proposals — their words — Toner’s frame is fine.  I have serious doubts about how much empowerment the Republican proposals would actually provide, but Toner is boiling down the rhetoric of the two sides fairly accurately.

The problem comes in Toner’s uncritical assertion that, while Democrats and Republicans “argue over solutions, both parties acknowledge the problems and their political urgency.”

Toner forgets that “both sides” have acknowledged the urgency of the health care problem for a long time — but only one side has tried to do anything about it.

In the 1992 campaign, both Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush had substantive health care proposals.  Clinton’s plan guaranteed universal insurance coverage; Bush’s plan offered (among other things) a decently-sized health-insurance tax credit for low-income families.

Bush, of course, had not done anything in his term to promote health care.  But Clinton, within a year of being elected in 1992, proposed and sought to pass a universal health care bill.  He failed, of course — infamously so — due largely to the opposition of the health insurance industry and thus (by definition) the Republican Party.  But he tried.

Fast forward to the 2000 presidential campaign.  Again, each party’s candidate had a health care plan.  This time the proposals were scaled down, mostly because of the political fallout of Clinton’s failure.  Gore pushed for a strong patients’ bill of rights, expansion of Medicare to children, prescription drug coverage for seniors, and a gradual move toward universal coverage.  Bush, favoring less government intervention, nevertheless insisted he would be more effective on health care: “The difference is I can get it done [referring specifically to a patients’ bill of rights].  I can get something positive done on behalf of the people.  That’s what the question in this campaign is about.”

When Bush wound up in the White House, he took approximately zero steps to “get it done” on a patients’ bill of rights or much else on health care.  He did pass a massive handout for drug and insurance companies under the guise of helping seniors.  But Bush didn’t bother giving even a semblance of help to the vast majority of the population.

So we have a tale of three presidents.  The first Bush did nothing for an entire term, then claimed to care about health care once an election was approaching.  Clinton made a good faith effort that was thwarted by Republicans.  And the second Bush promised to “get it done” and, once in office, broke the promise.

As we go through the same rigmarole in 2008, I hope that voters will remember 1 John 3:17-18: “But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?  Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”