Excuse me, Senator Coburn?

by Karoli on December 6, 2009 · 2 comments

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I try to stay neutral on gender-based issues and healthcare because I generally view them as wedge issues to distract from the larger moral question of whether, as Americans, we believe that the health of our citizens is a measure of the health of our country. There are times, however, where it’s necessary. Today is one.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has been one of the Senate Republicans’ lead voices on health care reform. He uses his knowledge as a ‘practicing OB/GYN’ to scare senior citizens on a daily basis, hammer on ‘government takeovers of health care’ while extolling Medicare, and generally making some flawed arguments that boil down to one central point: he believes access to health care is something that belongs to the privileged few, the elderly and begrudgingly, the poorest in this country.

Despite building a medical practice which exclusively serves female patients, he is never at a loss to use women as a wedge. Here’s one example, courtesy of Crooks & Liars:

Coburn: Because we know a larger percentage of the emotional attraction has to do with those things associated with women. So we pounded our chest and passed the Mikulski bill for preventative care for women and we ignored the preventative requirements of everybody else in this country.

What an interesting statement. The Mikulski bill provides for wellness screenings for women as part of health care reform. It was crafted partly because the Republicans were citing the recent recommendations of the US Preventative Services Task Force to delay mammograms until age 50 as evidence of rationing to come. It ensures women will have coverage for mammograms, cervical cancer screening and other preventative services.

Coming from an OB/GYN, Coburn’s statement is amazing enough. Aside from the obvious sneer at women (emotional attraction? Really? Our health is merely an ‘emotional thing’?), who exactly are the “everybody else”? Like it or not, we’re either male or female. So allowing for women’s health screenings serves at least half of the population, right?

Now as far as I know, there haven’t been any revisions to standards for prostate cancer screening. The Senate bill covers routine screenings, so it already covered men’s screenings. What the Mikulski amendment did was answer the ambiguities raised by the USPSTF report which is not universally accepted and which seems to be contradicted by anecdotal reports of women in their 40s benefiting from early detection of breast cancer.

Moving the ball down the field

During this entire health care reform debate, one theme rings true and clear: Women’s health is a political football to be tossed and wedged into health care reform as a way to defeat it while men’s health issues seem to remain off limits.

Tomorrow Senator Ben Nelson will co-sponsor an anti-abortion amendment with Orrin Hatch which will be perceived to be bipartisan. It will read like the Stupak amendment in the House bill, because it has been crafted by the same Catholic bishops who wrote Stupak’s. It will likely be defeated, but not before Coburn takes the podium and once again uses his bully pulpit to hammer women while extolling the virtues of his C-Street morality. He will use his medical degree to make a case that women should be forced, even in cases of rape, incest and extreme deformity, to give birth with no option.

Once again, conservatives will endeavor to make women the victims of their opposition to health care reform. It’s probably a good time to recall what happened with that Stupak amendment in the House bill. Thanks to a handful of Democrats working in “bipartisan” lockstep with House conservatives, it was included in the House bill. When the time came for those same conservatives to vote on the House bill, they voted against it, along with many of the Democrats who supported that amendment. We know the bill passed, but by a very slim margin and the vote of one courageous Republican.

When all the debate and fluff around it is done, it’s doubtful the Senate will have 60 votes to pass a similar amendment. It will fail, leaving this question on the table: Will Ben Nelson filibuster the entire bill, oppose cloture, and kill health care reform because it does not have Stupak language? Will women’s health be the scapegoat for Senators to kick all of health care reform down the field?

Calling their bluff

At this point, I see two big bargaining chips: women’s health (abortion) and the public option. If the public option is removed from the bill and no Stupak language added, there are still no guarantees that Democrats will muster the 60 votes for cloture, which means they will either have to pass it via the reconciliation process, lower the cloture threshhold (good luck with that), or let it die on the Senate floor.

But there are some other strategies with some big payloads, too. The provisions contained in both bills are the provisions most likely to survive in the joint committee (assuming Harry Reid can move this out of debate and forward to a vote).

The House Bill strips the anti-trust exemptions that insurers currently enjoy. The Senate bill does not. That’s a powerful lever for the Senate to use as a tool, since any Senator could bring such an amendment forward.
COBRA subsidies under the stimulus bill (ARRA) are expiring right now. That’s putting a lot of pressure on these legislators to take action, and it’s not partisan. When those subsidies expire, there will be tremendous pressure on the Senate to address the millions who will lose their health insurance at Christmas because they cannot afford the full COBRA premium.
If Republicans want to continue making Medicare the sacred cow that cannot be touched while simultaneously crying about “YET ANOTHER GOVERNMENT RUN PROGRAM”, I suggest an amendment expanding Medicare eligibility to Americans age 50 and above. Let the generational wars begin anew.
As a last-ditch effort, we the people can always revolt, tea party style. March in the streets, block entrance to hospitals, get arrested. It’s not my preferred way of doing things, but really, if Congress can’t get this done, it’s where I’ll be.

Reality is going to bite

Here’s reality: Conservatives understand that defeating health care reform wins a battle. What they don’t realize is that they will lose the war. The only real hope they have to be viable again is to listen to what people are saying, and what they are saying, beyond all measure, is that they cannot live with the status quo that people like Senator Coburn defend.

We’re not stupid. Our gut and our reality contradicts what the elites on the Senate floor are saying when they claim seniors will die sooner, that ‘everyone else’s preventive care is ignored’, that legislating abortion is the right thing to do.

This is not a debate about money. It’s a debate about whether this nation values the health and well-being of ALL of its citizens, or only the ones who fund campaigns. Let me close with a quote from my former-Republican, now Independent spouse, who is angry that insurance companies have already jacked up premiums by huge percentages in order to prevent people from buying health insurance. He notes that it mirrors banks and insurance companies raising interest rates to 29.99% on good cardholders in advance of credit card reform.

“The corporations want us to believe they’re on our side, but they aren’t. If I have a choice, I will trust government before I trust corporations.”

This is from someone who has been a conservative all his life, but he no longer is. Conservatives, take heed. When you eat your own, they turn on you.