Congress should answer to their stockholders

Rod Haxton, editor

By Rod Haxton, editor

We are an admitted movie buff.

We are drawn to movies in which the central character takes a stand on moral principle such as “Lawrence of Arabia” or “Serpico,” or defies the odds, as in “Papillon.”

As a political idealist, we can’t help but watch “Dave” whenever it’s on the air. For someone not familiar with the story line, the President suffers a brain aneurism that incapacitates him and, because those in power want to remain in power, they get a “double” (Kevin Kline) to become the President.

Not content to let someone pull his strings, Dave sees this as an opportunity to do good instead of what’s politically expedient, which isn’t popular with his Chief of Staff.

To make a long story short, Dave’s tenure as President comes to an end when it’s revealed the actual president had broken laws and Congress is talking impeachment. In a speech to Congress, and to the American people, the presidential stand-in issues an apology for something he didn’t actually do.

“I didn’t live up to my part of the bargain,” he says. “I ought to care more about you than me; I ought to care more about doing what’s right than what’s popular; I ought to be willing to give up this whole thing for something I believe in.”

There must have been a time when that was true in politics.

Didn’t the Founding Fathers risk everything for something they believed in? They certainly didn’t do it for the money or fame. In fact, they were guilty of treason.

They didn’t test the political winds or yield to special interest groups. They took the biggest gamble in American history because of something they believed in.

Seemed like a nice idea some 230 years ago. But what about today?

We have a Tea Party movement that claims to represent a defiant act from our American revolution without even understanding that act. The Boston Tea Party was about unfair taxation - taxation without representation. They took on the corporate and political structure of the 1700s.

Today’s Tea Party movement is more interested in protecting big business at the expense of our citizens.

We’re seeing the result of this thinking played out in the health care industry.

No one chooses to have insurance priced beyond their ability to pay, to be faced with deciding whether a family member can get the care they need because they can’t afford the medical bills, or to be forced into bankruptcy because of a life-threatening illness.

Yet this is the situation threatening about 50 million Americans every day.

It’s not about being anti-profit or anti-business. The insurance industry saw its profits increase by 56 percent last year; that calculates to $4.6 billion more than in 2008. This came at the same time the insurance industry dropped 2.7 million customers.

The game is obvious. Shed the high risk people and keep everyone else - until they become high risk. Eventually, at some point in our lives, we all become “high risk.” The best we can hope for under the current health care system is that we don’t attain high risk status until after we qualify for Medicare.

There is story after story about people who have been dropped for pre-existing conditions or told the insurance company won’t pay for life-saving medications. These aren’t isolated situations, but standard operating procedure for an industry interested in protecting its bottom line.

As much as we’d like to make the insurance industry the bad guys in this scenario, we can’t blame them entirely. The insurance industry is a business answerable to their stockholders. And their stockholders demand a profit.

However, our members of Congress are not responsible for seeing that the insurance industry is profitable. They should answer to a different set of stockholders - the American people. And about 50 million of their stockholders are telling them the current system isn’t working.

When Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-New York) calls the Republican Party on the carpet for being “a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry” they howl in protest. They demand that he retract his statement from the Congressional record.

If Republicans aren’t in the pockets of the insurance industry then prove it. Pass a bill that gives your stockholders another option for health insurance coverage. Provide your stockholders with an option that won’t bankrupt them or deny their claims when they need a life-saving drug for their sick child.

“There are certain things you should expect from your President,” Dave told Congress.

Likewise, there are certain things people should expect from their Congress.

Right now, neither one is living up to their end of the bargain.

Rod Haxton can be reached at editor@screcord.com