'What Rockefeller understands'

by: Carnacki

Wed Sep 30, 2009 at 11:16:22 AM EDT

The New Republic:

But Rockefeller gets something better than almost anybody I've seen--something he's expressed in interviews and, most recently, during this weeks hearings of the Senate Finance Committee. It's how everyday people, particularly those without a lot of money, interact with the health care system. It's easy to treat health care as an abstraction--to make it all about economic theories and Congressional Budget Office projections. (I'm surely guilty of this myself.) Rockefeller sees it through the eyes of West Virginians making $30,000 a year--people who just want to know they can pay their premiums and that, if they do, the insurance they get will protect them when they get sick.

Rockefeller's ability to channel these feelings may seem odd, given his privileged pedigree. But it makes sense given what he's done with his career. Remember, West Virginia didn't choose him. He chose West Virginia, starting with his service as a VISTA volunteer. He knows his constituents very well. And he acts that way.

You see this in his advocacy for the public plan. The arguments you hear in the debate are mostly about costs, payment rates, and how best to make a market function. But for Rockefeller, it really boils down to a simple proposition: A public plan is good because you know it will always be there for you.

The government isn't going to point to an obscure provision on page 152 of your manual and deny you essential services. The government isn't going to comb through your medical records and decide that, having taken your premiums for several months, you're not eligible for coverage after all. The government isn't going to stop offering coverage next year because it can't make a profit big enough to satisfy Wall Street.

That sounds about right.