I spent my morning today at a healthcare panel called “Winning Healthcare Reform in 2009″ hosted/moderated by the SEIU’s Andy Stern and Ron Pollack from Families USA. I was thrilled to get to hear Stern speak after reading so much about him and talking so much about his decision to endorse Obama in various discussion groups on campus. He proved to be very exuberant and very much an Obama supporter; however, he failed to lay out what he felt needed to be done to make healthcare universal and affordable. Nevertheless, I admire his pledge to make sure some accomplishment in this area is made in the next president’s/Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office.
What was most surprising about this panel discussion, which had about 200 attendees, was that nearly everyone on the “invited” list in the program showed up. The panelists that came included
-Gov. Kathleen Sibelius
-Representative John Dingell
-Gov. Deval Patrick
-Gov. Ted Strickland
-Gov. Ed Rendell
-Representative Hilda Solis
-Tom Daschle
-And with a surprise finale by Hillary Clinton.
Each panelist addressed various aspects of our current failed healthcare situation, from inefficiency to unions to children. Some, such as Stickland and Patrick and, to some extent, Sibelius, were able to talk about what has worked in their own states. The only two people who laid out definitive steps that need to be started tomorrow where Daschle and Clinton. In fact, their ideas were so similar that it gave the impression that Daschle was covering for the fact that Clinton maybe wasn’t going to show up.
Their steps included destroying the myths about the current healthcare system in America (which is not as fabulous as we pretend it is), that we need to modernize the system, that we need to end rationing, that we need to make the system more transparent and that we need to stay on the offensive (that was my favorite point). I won’t go into an analysis of all of the talking points here, but I will say this, the common thread between all the speakers was that the biggest obstacle in the last decade to accomplish anything related to healthcare has been the president. Thus, all the panelists asked the attendees to pledge to do everything they could to elect not only Barack Obama, but as many Democrats as possible so that some of the major obstacles to a reformed healthcare system are no longer present.
