Legislative Kabuki

I've been annoyed at the discussion on health care. First, I am convinced that moving more of our health care system under direct governmental control (we currently between the VA and Medicare and Medicaid have about 46% there) is not the right way to solve the problem that some people do not have insurance and costs are escalating. Second, while I believe that the town hall meeting format used by politicians is not actually an attempt by our elected officials to understand public opinion, I believe that the grumpiness that members of congress have encountered this August is real. A friend coined the phrase Legislative Kabuki to describe that condition when politicians go through stylized debates without any real attempt at having a discussion. I think that is where we are on health care.

Over last weekend two administration officials seemed to say that the Administration would back off on the "public option" only to be slapped back into liberal orthodoxy by Speaker Pelosi (Chief Kabuki player in Washington). Clearly our elected officials are not listening to legitimate dissent and concern. That in turn frustrates more Americans. Which seems to in turn move our elected officials into more stylized debate. We've heard more than one "leader" imply that we, their bosses, are just too dumb to understand how to solve this problem. It is odd when we have elected officials yammering about the superiority of their knowledge on an issue when the vast majority have not even bothered to read the legislative proposals they are trying to force us to accept.

So it was especially refreshing to read a David Ignatious Column in the Washington Post which presented the ideas of the Chief of the Mayo Clinic. He makes two very simple suggestions. First, he suggests that having a discussion about health insurance is the wrong one to have. We should be thinking about ways to improve the health system for Americans - that may or may not involve insurance questions. Some in the majority in congress want a bogeyman and insurance is an easy target. Second, he suggests that rather than expanding the public option that supporters think up creative ways to make the existing public options in the VA and Medicare and Medicaid more efficient and cost effective. Both ideas are worthy of serious consideration if only our politicians would be willing to take off their stage make-up.