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ARLEN SPECTER ON HEALTH REFORM.
When Arlen Specter originally switched parties, I didn't think it meant much for health reform. So far as Republicans went, Specter was a likely get. His switch to the Democratic side made him yet likelier. But it was hard to say anything more definitive than that.
Since then, Barack Obama and Arlen Specter have both dropped hints that their conversations are considerably advanced on one issue in particular: Health care. At last night's press conference, Obama was asked about Specter's defection. He spent a couple minutes echoing Arlen on Arlen: He's not a rubber stamp, long and distinguished record, streak of independence, etc. But then Obama said something telling:
I do think that having Arlen Specter in the Dem Caucus will liberate him to cooperate on critical issues like health care, like infrastructure and job creation, areas where his inclination was to work with us but he was feeling pressure not to.
That doesn't read like a speculative comment. It reads like Specter told Obama that "his inclination was to work with us but he was feeling pressure not to." Which suggests, in turn, that he's a solid vote on health reform. Or at least inclined to be.
Arlen Specter has had a tough few years. In 2005, he was diagnosed with an advanced form of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Chemotherapy took months. His hair fell out. His friend John Sununu shaved his own head in solidarity. But treatment was successful, or seemed so. In 2008, however, the cancer returned. His second round of treatment ended last July. It's been, in other words, a few years of the sort that leave you rather impressed with the importance of health care coverage. And that seems to have been Specter's takeaway. In his press conference yesterday, he ticked off his interests in this order: "I’ve been deeply involved in health care reform, and global warming, climate control, and immigration, and will continue to be so." A paragraph later, he said that "one matter that especially concerns me is medical research."
And it's not just rhetoric. When Specter helped broker the stimulus deal, he took a special interest in funding medical research. His centrality to the compromise was singularly responsible for $10 billion going to the National Institute of Health.
If you had told me three months ago that you could guarantee Specter's vote on health care reform, I'd have probably thought that enough to pass the bill. It's true, of course, that his vote probably had more cache when it came from a Republican. But a vote is a vote.
COMMENTS (48)
I will say, that his effort to get more money for the NIH is leading to the lab I work at to seek more funding that will (if awarded) lead to new equipment and a new hire. So, I can't complain about Specter too much.
Posted by: Zed | April 29, 2009 11:25 PM
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Posted by: sunvalleyus | April 29, 2009 11:52 PM
I survived a childhood struggle with Hodgkin's. In the process, the company my dad worked for went from offering a good health care plan to having to drop it entirely (and the company went bankrupt; I think I am a lot responsible for the latter and not for the latter). This was the '80's, when health care was doing its morphing into the terrible system it is today.
I would feel a lot better about Specter's health care votes if the Senate plan had jerked him around a little and caused a little external grief.
Posted by: flounder | April 30, 2009 12:23 AM
I would feel a lot better about Specter's health care votes if the Senate plan had jerked him around a little and caused a little external grief.
We don't know that it didn't; even a presumably gold-plated plan for Senators might have some questions when it comes to serious cancer treatments.
Along similar lines, I think the vote is less the issue than Specter actually applying some of his own experiences to the discussion of necessary reforms; if he's serious - and really, that's anyone's guess, these days, with him - he could have an impact just by linking ideas for reform to actual issues in care. That would be, in many ways, a missing link and a good grounding for the policy decisions to come. As with a lot of the healthcare debate, I think the politics - especially for folks like Ezra in DC - have overtaken the discussion of actual healthcare, actual reforms that are needed, and the real changes that would make a difference. If Specter refocuses the discussion that way... I'd probably have all I need to say the switch was worth it.
Posted by: weboy | April 30, 2009 12:37 AM
his vote probably had more cache
You want "cachet" meaning "status appeal" and pronounced "cashay"
rather than "cache" meaning "short-term local storage place" and pronounced "cash"
Yes, I'm an annoying pedant.
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The advantage of having Specter as a Dem is you can now lose Ben Nelson and try to replace his vote with Snowe's or Collin's and in the process have a better bill.
Posted by: Ron E. | April 30, 2009 9:16 AM
I'm so sick of politicians that get religion on health issues only because of personal experience. The poster child for this Republicans with Empathy syndrome is Pete Domenici and his crusade for mental health spurred on by his daughter's schizophrenia diagnosis. A distinguishing characteristic of most Democrats is that they don't need a personal connection to a problem to recognize that it is a real problem.
Posted by: Sean | April 30, 2009 9:42 AM
a) Sean, that's kind of silly - plenty of politicians, Dem and Repub alike, take issues on as "passions" because of experience. Vietnam was that issue for almost a whole generation. And is especially true in mental health, where people dealing with schizophrenics, deeply depressed people or addicts discover, to their horror, just how little service is available. Who wouldn't get passionate?
b) one of the left's great slogans is "the personal is political"... and it is.
c) and what's wrong with personal? It gets us to apply theoretical solutions to our actual lives, and figure out if a solution, well, actually solves something. A personal stake is a good thing - and as many point out, if more congresspeople had kids in military service, or if or last President and much of team had done service, perhaps we'd have approached war a lot differently.
Posted by: weboy | April 30, 2009 10:19 AM
I was going to respond, but it got a little longer, so I'll link and summarize:
http://www.below-the-fold.com/2009/04/what-specter-means-for-healthcare/
Shorter me: healthcare reform was inevitable, it's a little more inevitable now.
Posted by: Brien Jackson | April 30, 2009 10:39 AM
Yes, I'm an annoying pedant.
Posted by: joel hanes | April 30, 2009 1:52 AM
No you're not. People who make their living by writing ought to know what the words they use mean.
Posted by: gordonminor | April 30, 2009 1:08 PM
On another aspect of this, I think it's incredibly irresponsible for people in their late 70s who are seriously ill (Kennedy is another) to continue to hold on to their office and pretend that they are capable of fulfilling their responsibilities. Even if they were healthy, at that age they are not capable of measuring up to the work load. And certainly not if they have had recurring bouts of cancer.
Why is a 79 year old with cancer even talking about running for reelection? How can anyone in that situation seriously claim that they are the best qualified in their state to do the job? They are not.
We desperately need term limits for Congress. And I wouldn't mind an age limit as well.
Posted by: mike | April 30, 2009 2:32 PM
If you're American, never use a French word unless you use it correctly. (If you're British of course, go ahead and mangle it contemptuously.)
Also, I'm with weboy, all three points.
And mike, could we hold off on that age limit? The elder factor is traditionally one of wisdom and perspective, while the youngsters do the actual sweat work. And who knows, the aging, dying boomers may be one of the greater forces for equitable change in the world over the next 20-30 years.
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