August 18 Letter to Grassley

Dear Senator Grassley,

I attended your town hall in Afton, Ia., on Wed., Aug. 12, and I was disappointed to see you reinforce erroneous political talking points on health care instead of focusing on Iowans’ needs. I would also like to respond to your Aug. 4 letter, which references “independent analysis” which you subsequently don’t cite. I would guess this is the Lewin Report financed by the Heritage Foundation and conducted by a firm owned by UnitedHealth. Obviously, this report is not an unbiased independent source, which is probably why you didn’t cite it.

In your letter you also indicate we must “bolster the individual and employer-based insurance markets by crafting a public policy that encourages affordable, accessible coverage. We must lower costs for consumers by promoting efficiency, encouraging prevention and rewarding quality.”

I would remind you employer-based insurance has broken the U.S. auto industry and other manufacturing companies, forcing them to leave the country. Additionally, our nation cannot attract replacement industries due to this requirement. Instead companies settle across the border in Mexico and Canada where they have national health care. And as I have told your staff via phone calls, individuals with ideas for new businesses find health care costs prohibitive. Thus, the share of our economy held by new business ventures is shrinking. These are facts, not simply what I choose to believe. Meanwhile, the percentage of GDP eaten up by health costs is growing.

Still you deny these realities. And in fact, as I observed in Afton (and your Aug. 4 letter), you deliberately mislead ill-informed Iowans to stoke their fears and support the status quo against their own best interests. Shame on you! As a leader, you have a responsibility to educate and help these people, not frighten them. Also your allusions to “death panels,” though more subtle in Afton than in Winterset, strike a sour note with me. You see, 10 years ago, I went through such a situation with both my parents.

End of life consultations are an important part of the process of helping families decide how to help their loved ones die with dignity. For both Mom and Dad, who had terminal cancer, we needed to know what was available in rural Iowa, what Medicare and their insurance would cover, and what our role in care might be. This was especially important as we chose to allow our parents to die in their home. My sister and I provided daily care with the help of the Montgomery County Hospice program. You and other Republicans’ portrayal of these consultations as death panels determining who lives and dies is a lie and an outrage.

Instead of working to help Iowans, you have chosen to take up arms as a Republican warrior fighting Democrats as the enemy. You’ve bought into Newt Gingrich’s old lies.

But I see us all as Americans. And for the last 40 years, conservative ideas have shaped our government. It’s been self-fulfilling prophecy because you believe, “Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem!” You’ve made government the problem; you’ve made sure you strangle it. Tax cuts, deregulation and corporate-friendly policies have gutted our economy. To improve our conditions, we must change course. That means the pendulum needs to swing back the other way. As a pragmatist, I expect we’ll surely have to change course again in the future. However, in 2009, we need to try some progressive ideas.

Which leads me back to health care and our economy.

You and the rest of the Republicans in Congress have chosen to ignore poll after poll indicating Americans want a public health care option. And for me, even that is a compromise. I favor a universal single payer plan or nationalized health care. Yet you refuse to even allow the public option compromise.

What I heard from you in Afton was a very carefully orchestrated message to conflate voters’ fears about a change, to appear to be negotiating with the Obama Administration for political cover, and then to write a plan that protects the health insurers and the status quo. Essentially, the insurers will give up nothing.

So you remember this prediction if you’re successful. If our health care and insurance system in this country does not change, I believe the entire American economy will crash. Your plans will not control costs or improve access. It will not help businesses, small or large, free up dollars for new ventures and jobs. Instead, the status quo will only increase the misery.

You have a choice to perform public service or to play politics. I think you’ve made your choice.

But I won’t support you. And because I care about my family, friends and neighbors, I’m going to fight for their best interests. That’s a promise.