Health Reform - Harry & Louise

Monday was the biggest day for health reform in a long time with the re-emergence of Harry & Louise. You'll recall how the Clinton's failed to get health reform legislation passed in 93-94. One of the reasons they didn't is because they waited clear until September of 93 to introduce specific ideas, and they hadn't worked with members of Congress at all to develop the ideas. Remember that Congress was Democrat at the time, but rather than having two chambers of allies, they had expended their political capital on the free trade agreement, the balanced budget, etc. By the time there were actual hearings on the Health Security Act, it was close to the midterm elections of 94, and Dole and Newt were telling Republicans to oppose the Clinton plan no matter what. To capitalize on the perception that the Clinton plan was bureacracy gone amock and that it was hugely complicated, etc, a number of groups came together and released a tv commercial featuring a fictional couple named Harry & Louise complaining about the gov't forcing them into a health plan they didn't like. The commercial only ran in DC for a limited time, but it got huge media coverage and quickly became the symbol of the demise of the Clinton health reform attempt. Here's the original video.



Now, many of these same organizations have teamed up (including the Nat'l Federation of Small Business Owners and the American Hospital Association, two groups that strongly opposed the original Clinton legislation) and released the new Harry & Louise ad to strongly SUPPORT health reform! Check out their website. They're not endorsing a particular candidate or a particular reform proposal, they're just working to ensure that health reform is one of the first things the new President tackles so it doesn't get pushed back until Sept 09 when his political capital is expended on other things. It's still too early to make a prediction of how this will play out, but this is huge, good news, in my opinion. Dr. Oberlander has reminded me to maintain some healthy scepticism, pointing out that it's easy to agree on the principle of reform, but things can splinter quickly when specific proposals are being debated.

My other reason for guarded optimism is that Obama's staff (it's no secret who I'm supporting, right?) is already meeting with Congressional leaders to lay the groundwork to get a jump start on health care, the economy, energy policy, etc, rather than losing control of the first 100 days like Pres. Clinton did in 93.

How will all this play out? On verra!