The Public Option Isn’t Optional

by Jim Washburn

Let Your Representative Know

I sent a letter to my congressman.

I live in California’s 46th District, and my congressman is Dana Rohrabacher.

I know what you’re thinking: “Didn’t John Lennon play a Rohrabacher?”

Yes, but only after he changed the stock Kauffman Vibrola for a Bigsby. Congressman Rohrabacher, on the other hand, doesn’t need a vibrato unit because he never wavers: he’s consistently been one of the most conservative conservatives in Congress. When he was first elected 21 years ago, fresh from a gig as one of Ronald Reagan’s speechwriters, Dana was considered to be just the latest in a long line of OC right-wing extremists, in the footsteps of Bob “Lesbian Spearchucker” Dornan and James “Rock and Roll is a Communist Plot” Utt. The country has moved so far to the right since then that Rohrabacher’s practically mainstream these days. Sure, he’s going to be the last man standing to believe that human-spurred global warming is a hoax, and will continue to believe that unless you can show it’s caused by illegal aliens. But that’s not extreme; it’s practically the party line these days. Meanwhile Dana at times breaks rank with his elephantine fellows and can sound surprisingly sane on issues such as Afghanistan troop levels and medical marijuana.

Lennon and not-quite-Rohrabacher

As you doubtless know, Congress is crafting a health care reform measure that has the possibility of being the most significant legislation of our lifetimes, both in its practical effect in fixing a seriously broken and corrupted system and in its larger effect of showing whether we as a nation are even still capable of major change or if America has become Nixon’s “pitiful helpless giant,” no longer able to shift its moribund weight. (Disclaimer: Nixon wasn’t wondering about health care reform, of course, but about whether we had what it takes to persevere in a senseless, winless war.)

We have a medical system that’s by far the most expensive in the world, while lagging behind much of the world in quality, compassion, fairness and results. At its worst, our system is downright predatory, where obscene profits are made off human suffering and insurance companies benefit from denying care to their customers. As a result, a majority of the American people favor a “public option” single-payer system, such as nearly all the other industrialized nations have.

In recent months we’ve had the disheartening situation where the solution favored by most Americans, and proven by much of the world, was labeled “off the table” by our congressfolk, a non-starter that wasn’t even being considered, for reasons they couldn’t even bother to divulge.

Despite the hundreds of millions that insurance companies, pharmaceutical giants, and such are spending to fight single-payer, the public is still behind the public option, and suddenly it’s gaining traction in Congress. If you’ve never written your congressperson, now is the time, folks. They are supposed to represent you, you know, and it’s not entirely their fault if they don’t when you never let them know what you want.

Will your voice matter as much as a cash-laden lobbyist’s? No. But enough of our voices can, because all a lobbyist can offer politicians is money to fuel their elections to lure your vote and preserve their power (OK, and plush jobs once they leave office, and jobs for their friends and relatives, and free junkets, and private jets, golf in Scotland, hookers in Hong Kong, etc.). But the money-equals-votes equation only works with a docile, unengaged public. If enough of us make it clear that this issue matters enough to us that the slick TV ads aren’t working, and that the next time we vote we’re going to remember how our representatives voted on health care, then maybe we stand a chance.

Here’s what I wrote my congressman: 

Dear Congressman Rohrabacher,

Though we're entirely on the other side of the fence on most issues, I appreciate that you are always forthright on your positions and that you do a conscientious job of representing our district. I also appreciate that you are not always in lock step with the rest of your party. Though I don't doubt that you are ideologically opposed to a single-payer option in health reform, I'm asking that you please put the fixed ideas aside and ask "What works? What best and most efficiently serves the interests and welfare of the people I represent?"

 I've been fortunate to visit and have friends in many other countries, all with a single-payer system. Sure it's anecdotal, but all these persons have had almost entirely positive experiences under their systems, as have their friends and families, at less cost than our system, and they wonder why we're still hobbled with our oftimes predatory system.

When there are diseases that claim more lives than 100s of 9/11s would, it doesn't make much sense to insist that our enemies have a human face before we'll provide for the common defense. There are some things government does best, our military defense being one of them. I think you'll agree that the massive privatizing of military services in recent decades has weakened our armed forces. Meanwhile, most of our fellow nations have found that their citizens are better defended by a medical system where profit is mitigated by the public good.

As you know all too well, plenty of our tax dollars already and always will go toward health care, and a lot of that money or the discoveries it funds winds up in private hands. I don't see that it's un-Republican to try to get your constituents the most bang for their health care buck, and I hope you will not reject a single-payer system out of hand.

Best regards—Jim Washburn

I actually mean the complimentary stuff I said about Rohrabacher. Though I’m sure he wouldn’t remember, I met him a couple of times via our mutual friend, the late John Crean, and he’s a likable sort. I’ve seen him riding in a parade or two in years past, when he’s looked amiably shitfaced, and I like that in a politician too. I’ve seen Dana debate, and he’s been personable and considerate, not at all the blustery demagogue one might expect. Unlike his blandly parsing opponents, he seems comfortable saying what he thinks, which I admire even if I disagree with nearly all of it.

In his health care position piece on his website, Rohrabacher says he’s open to exploring all options. I’d like to think he means that, though, for all I know, he could already be on the delegation charged with drowning Olympia Snowe’s cat.

On the site, he does talk about wanting to shift the insurance burden away from employers. This would be a boon for his corporate contributors—and why not? They have to compete with firms in other nations where the government handles health care—but Dana focuses instead on how employees suffer because the insurance lacks portability. He’d rather that the tax incentive aimed at businesses to provide insurance be shifted to individuals. As a self-employed individual who pays for his own insurance, I can tell you what an unfettered joy that is, and how little clout an individual has in negotiating with insurance companies.

While you can probably get Dana’s drift on single-payer by his comments about wanting to keep government from interfering between individuals and insurers, the only specific reservation he mentions about a public option is that illegal immigrants would inevitably manage to eke some free services from it. That position isn’t consistent with some of Dana’s other ones—don’t expect him to come out for banning guns just because some are misused by criminals—and also seems to place spitefulness above the common good. It’s like refusing to feed your family because you’re concerned a neighbor kid might steal a slice of bread from the table.

I doubt that one letter, or even 10,000, would sway Rohrabacher’s thinking much, but it’s our job as citizens in a representative democracy to try, just as it’s our job to try to get someone better for the job if he doesn’t represent our interests. He’s been untouchable in his conservative district, but that may be changing. He handily won reelection last year, with an 11 percent lead over his Democratic challenger, former Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook, but that’s less than half the 23 percent lead he had in the election two years before that.

There are many, many other people in Congress who are not so sanguine about their perch, and they can be moved by your mail to them. Be courteous. Be to the point. But make it clear that if they thwart the clear will of the American people, we will throw the bums out. 

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