The USA legislative process has been held up as a model of democratic process to the world; but the homage may be ill deserved. Too often, the legislative process is corrupted by greed, unethical conduct and deceitful methods that prevent fulfillment of declared goals and aspirations. This concern is well illustrated in the current debate and legislative process involving reform of the health care system in the USA.
With slightly less than 300 million people in the richest country on the planet, it is shameful that over 50 million lack reliable access to health care services and health insurance coverage. This is exponentially embarrassing in a country supposedly founded upon the principle that government’s duty is to provide for the common welfare of its citizens. From the standpoint of Sociology and Psychology, the distorted use of legislative tricks seems abusive. There is a cognitive dissonance in claiming to be a government of the people committed to the welfare of all, with representatives sworn to uphold those principles, and at the same time allow use of disingenuous procedures to prevent the poor and disenfranchised from governmental protection and largesse. This is not a question of socialism, but rather a question whether government intervention is needed when individual and private commercial interests cannot or will not meet a critical public need. It is then that the national government is supposed to rise up as the champion and the protector of the lesser and indeed ALL citizens of the country.
Deception is so deeply embedded in the US legislative process and psyche that the term “honest politician” has become largely oxymoronic. People in the USA no longer generally expect their elected representatives to act honestly and with the best interests of the public or constituency in mind or heart. Sometimes that failure is a result of ignorance and incompetence, a failure to investigate or think through legislative measures before acting. Too often, however, the failures are a direct result of deceit and trickery intended to corrupt the process.
Historically, sleight of hand and semantics have played a critical role in the legislative process. When the founders of the nation spoke of “We the People,” they were not referring to women or people of color. That tradition of deception has been refined and repeatedly used to deprive people ostensibly protected by national and Constitutional principles of equal protection under the law. When the Civil Rights Acts were adopted in the 1960’s to protect against actions of willful discrimination in employment and housing, an amendment to cover gender was inserted with the insidious intent of derailing the legislation. National embarrassment over the treatment of Blacks and the backroom deals of Lyndon B. Johnson had forced a vote on legislation to ban overt discrimination against Blacks, but it was believed that extending such protection to women would galvanize Southern resistance and block passage of the laws. The underhanded ploy failed and women were extended protection under the law, accidentally.
In the current example, relying upon the same “poison amendment” strategy, Rep Stupak has engrafted an amendment to the Health Care Bill that prohibits any poor person from gaining access to government supported health insurance if the plan includes coverage for abortion services. It is like saying that the government will agree to provide necessary support for health care as long as coverage is denied to Black people or to Gays. The belief or strategy is that the amendment is so offensive to fair and decent Congressional representatives, that they would rather kill the entire legislative measure than adopt it with a provision that is morally and ethically offensive. This was a typical strategy of the Late Jessie Helms, representative from North Carolina who championed racism and bigotry through such deceit and indirection.
The Stupak Amendment has additional power to corrupt, by perverting the medical lexicon, which is an added twist and level of sophistication. Medically and scientifically, the D&C procedure [dilation and curettage] used to perform safe abortions is indistinguishable from routine medical procedures to treat such conditions as endometriosis and to remove cysts, ectopic pregnancies and polyps from the uterus. Indeed the procedure would even be denied when the fetus is dead and the risk of sepsis and death of the woman is involved. The procedure is coded the same for insurance and medical record purposes. As a result, poor people who may need any level of government subsidy to afford health insurance under the reform legislation would be denied access to virtually EVERY insurance plan currently available. In addition, Roe v. Wade and state insurance laws would probably prohibit insurance companies from drawing a line and provide coverage for D&C procedures, generally, while denying coverage for use of the procedure for abortion related purposes. So even if passed, the amendment may render health care reform legislation unconstitutional and invalid.
To be sure, the government cannot and should not be expected to do everything. And past failures of government, particularly in the last decade of the George W. Bush administration, urge caution against the government trying to do too much. There is a fair debate whether extensive use of government financial resources can be sustained in light of current economic struggles. At the same time, it is argued that the cost savings from employing health care reform will actually reduce the federal deficit over time, while reducing the growth of health care costs. This latter proposition is central to the debate, because reduction in health insurance industry profits is the primary reason why billions of dollars are being spent by these special interests to kill any type of reform. These economic projections do not even include the less tangible and less measurable positive impact on productivity for a healthier labor force and population. So the economic debate centers on saving money [actually, not spending it on health care is more accurate] in the short term, or investing in the general welfare of the citizens over a longer term.
Another very unfortunate aspect of this process is the insidious dishonesty involved, the parliamentary perversion. Rather than face these difficult questions directly and openly, the opposition would rather resort to backdoor measures to kill the legislation while pretending to take principled stances. Examination of the bank accounts of the campaigns of Congressmen Stupak, Sen. Lieberman* and others leaves little room for doubt that their motivation is more about garnering a share of the large purse of contributions doled out by health insurance lobbyists than about taking a moral stand. Playing a numbers game, however, Stupak and his ilk realize that mindless GOP opposition to reform plus a few negative votes from Democrat [or pseudo-Democrat] legislators could derail reform and thus create a potentially powerful bargaining position. Such manipulation is not inherently bad, if the intended use of power were for ethical and honorable purposes rather than simply to have power and for personal financial gain. But ethical use is not Stupak’s or Lieberman’s goal.
Perhaps the ultimate parliamentary perversion lies in the ulterior motives of legislative posturing. It is said that many GOP representatives actually want health care reform to pass, but are voting against it because they know that the majority support will assure passage. Yet they can posture publicly against the reform measure. In the case of Stupak, it may be even more subtle. His obstructionist Amendment can be stripped from the legislation in Conference as a concessionary move to gain passage, and the reform measure enacted while he keeps his treasure trove from the moneyed interests. This is the type of political corruption and chicanery that led to the Principate rule in Ancient Rome and to the Caesars declaring the ostensibly democratic, but in practice totally corrupt, Senate an irrelevancy. The Roman populace, the citizenry, was unable or unwilling to rise up and demand more honest government from an increasingly corrupt and insular Senate ruled by greed and venality. The experiment in representative democracy thus failed and Rome ultimately fell as a result of internal corruption. Will the USA experience the same fate? Will the US citizens rise up and demand more honesty of their “elected” representatives? The future of the nation hangs in the balance.
* Lieberman had taken a stance against inclusion of a “public option” in health care reform, a proposal that would allow for creation of a government alternative to private insurance in order to assure that insurance and health care costs will be restrained and health insurance will be truly available to all, a safety net. The device is different than the one used by Stupak, but the strategy is the same.
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