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ANDY STERN: "EVERYONE HAS EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS."
I just got off the phone with Andy Stern, head of SEIU. For the past few years, Stern has been manically building coalitions. This, it seems, was the payoff: The ultimate health care coalition. Every major industry group. And SEIU was at the table with them.
Stern acknowledged that the early release is light on specifics. But that, he argued, was a function of it being early. "We set a deadline of June 1st to try to provide real proposals that can be costed. It'll be complicated to decide what goes in the legislation. But we'll have competent people providing verifiable savings." That deadline is important. June is when the Finance Committee's first bill drops. So if these stakeholders want to see their proposals in that bill, then they need to move quickly.
Asked about the possible flashpoints in the discussions, Stern said that "there was more of a recognition that we weren't going to agree on certain things. People came to the table with an admission that there were lines -- like the public plan, for SEIU -- that weren't going to be crossed and so weren't going to be a part of this conversation. Instead, we focused on what we could agree on on."
"I thought there was a level of seriousness on both sides about really finding the right way to cut costs, to look at health care as a system, and not just a system for payments, but a system for actually keeping people healthy," he continued. "So far, everyone has exceeded expectations."
COMMENTS (21)
I suspect strongly that 'exceeded expectations' will join many other phrases in the gallery of headfakes foisted upon the public to 'boost confidence'.
When you eliminate contentious matters as an element for discusion you get chicken soup with any chicken or chicken broth: People came to the table with an admission that there were lines -- like the public plan, for SEIU -- that weren't going to be crossed and so weren't going to be a part of this conversation.
So they will fight during 'negotiations' after midnight in congressional offices for their amputations and brain surgery on the patient (the bill), probably on the night before the bill is voted upon in each house.
I hope nobody takes this stuff they're saying seriously. It is kabuki theater.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 11, 2009 2:46 PM
error in mind-finger transmission:
you get chicken soup withOUT any chicken or chicken broth
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 11, 2009 2:48 PM
This seems like a lot more air unconnected to anything; unless Stern is prepared to talk about actual; cost cutting measures SEIU is actually prepared to do - cut union staff in hospitals? cuts in pay or benefits? - we're getting nowhere, fast. One things hospitals have done - which has been a boon to SEIU workers - is to do hospital work on the cheap by using fewer nurses, for instance, and relying more on less deeply trained hospital workers, who are cheaper. This is the kind of hing that doesn't reassure patients, trained to expect highest quality care from a doctor, or a nurse... and it's why figuring out how to reduce cost inflation is as much patient education as anything. Stern's he wrong person, I suspect, for doing that, or figuring out what needs to be done. More to the point of this discussion, though, is that all of these questions of controlling costs come down to individual hospitals and local decisions that these national groups have little say over. What Stern isn't saying... and what he's not being asked, seems far more crucial than what's here.
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