New Haven Independent

“We’ve Never Been So Close”

by Paul Bass | May 7, 2009 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Visitors to the Lawn Club were in full campaign mode to pass sweeping health care reform in 2009 — and to propel an old favorite into the governor’s race in 2010.

The occasion Wednesday night was the monthly meeting of New Haven’s chapter of Democracy for America (DFA), the national liberal activist group founded by Howard Dean’. The group (now run by Howard’s brother, Jim) draws Connecticut activists originally drawn to the 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign, then the 2006 Ned Lamont for U.S. Senate quest.

The group usually meets at Wall St. Pizza (formerly Naples Pizza). It had two reasons to rent a bigger room, at the swanky Lawn Club, for Wednesday’s gathering.

Reason One: The group’s signature policy priority, “health care for all,” has a once-in-a-generation chance of passing both in Connecticut and nationally in coming months.

Reason Two: Lamont has been laying the groundwork to jump into the race for the Democratic nomination for governor next year. So Lamont and his ally Dean, along with a few others, paid for the ballroom rental and the free cheese hors d’oeuvres and dessert cakes. (It was a cash bar, though, which kept the mood sober.)

It felt like Old Home Week for the 2006 Lamont campaign with staffers and bloggers like Aldon Hynes (pictured) gathered among 50 activists.

One of the speakers was Tom Swan, manager of Lamont’s campaign and current head of the state’s leading progressive-issues activist group, the Connecticut Citizen Action Group.

Swan noted that a sweeping health reform plan, SustiNet, just passed its fourth state legislative committee Wednesday. The plan seeks to cover the state’s uninsured and underinsured by lowering health costs (through digitized medical records, “medical homes,” “periodic quality reviews” based on “evidence-based medicine) and expanding the state employee medical pool to include self-employed people, small businesses and non-profits.

The plan now advances to the full State House of Representatives, where a safe Democratic majority promises easy passage. From there a tougher fight looms in the State Senate; then, if it gets that far, a reprise showdown with Gov. M. Jodi Rell.

“We’ve never been so close,” Swan (at left in photo) told the crowd as organizers from a universal health care group handed out pro-reform cards to send to elected officials. “The next five months are arguably the most important five months in this issue that we’ve seen in our lifetimes.”

Jim Dean echoed Swan’s assessment in describing the scene in Washington, D.C., where President Obama and leading Democrats are pushing a health reform bill similar to SustiNet. It would create a Medicare-like government insurance plan for the 47 million Americans without health insurance as well as the many more who have some coverage, but either can’t afford it or receive too little in benefits.

Dean noted how times have changed politically. President Clinton last tried to reform health care in 1993 with a narrower effort, and even that failed. Obama campaigned on this more expansive plan, and won. Public opinion supports it; health insurers who declared war on the Clinton plan are seeking to make concessions to the Obama plan in order to water it down. As in Connecticut, the House of Representatives in D.C. seems to have a good shot of passing the plan.

One difference between 2009 and 1993: Universal health advocates are trying to seize the “choice” mantle from the insurance lobby.

Insurers convinced voters (with the “Harry and Louise” ads, for instance) that a government-run insurance plan would take away their ability to choose their own doctors and make health-care decisions, while bloating bureaucracy with inefficiencies.

This time around, Obama, Dean & co. have taken the lead from John Edwards’ 2008 presidential campaign: They propose to create a government-run plan, but keep private insurance in place, too, and let people decide which one to join.

Dean Wednesday night told the assembled activists that, like many of them, he’d prefer an out-and-out “single-payer” government plan similar to the one proposed by U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. Advocates believe such a plan would cost less and provide better care than profit-driven private plans.

But Obama’s plan represents the best shot at bringing historic progress, Dean said. Giving people a taste of an alternative to private insurance plans could build support for moving to a complete single-payer plan down the road, the argument goes.

“We have single-payer health care in America for people over 65” through Medicare, Dean noted. The current goal is to offer that option for people under 65, without forcing them to abandon private insurance plans.

The evening’s headlining speaking slot was reserved for Lamont (pictured). He offered a spirited campaign-style talk. He thanked former campaign supporters. He threw out sound bites (about iconic voters like “that dad from Sikorsky” worried about health coverage for his child with a pre-existing condition). And threw in a gibe at the end against Republican Gov. Rell. Many in the room expect him to take her on next year, if he first wins a Democratic primary challenge.

Click on the play arrow to watch a chunk of the speech, as recorded by the Advocate’s Andy Bromage.

“We’re going to have to push. We’re going to push hard!” Lamont told the crowd.

“They’re [the insurance lobby] going to push. We’re going to push back.”

His 2006 campaign against U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman was characterized as a referendum on the Iraq war. On the hustings, it turned out to be just as much about affordable, universal health care, Lamont said. “Wherever I went I heard about health care. It was hitting their wallets. It was hurting their hearts.” (He beat Lieberman in a Democratic primary, then lost in the general election when Lieberman ran as a Bush administration-supported “independent.”)

Lamont cited the recent crowd (1,000-plus strong) that gathered outside Hillhouse High School starting at 4 a.m. when a group called Mission of Mercy offered free dental care. Most of the people desperate for care have jobs, he noted.

“That’s what wrong with health care today,” he said.

And he made a point of arguing that Gov. Rell has failed to use her high popularity ratings to tackle that or other policy challenges.

For the record, Lamont isn’t talking about running for governor. He talks about “getting stuff done” and the need for a governor to lead that charge, as he did in this Advocate interview, for instance.

Wednesday night he repeated for now he’s busy working on statewide issues and has no plans to make any kind of announcement about a gubernatorial run “for a long time. There’s plenty of time to figure that stuff out.”

Other leading Democrats — Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, and former state House Speaker Jim Amann — have already started running hard. The conventional wisdom is that unlike them, Lamont can afford to wait until early next year to start a formal campaign. His personal wealth means he doesn’t need to raise as much money as they do. And his 2006 campaign against Lieberman gave him statewide, even for a time worldwide, name recognition.

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd has also not officially announced he’s running again in 2010. But unlike Lamont, he has a team hired and already working hard on the ground, including a new campaign manager, Jay Howser (pictured). Howser is a veteran Democratic campaign staffer whose previous bosses include U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and, in his last quest in 2002, the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. Dodd has been racing around the state himself, including repeated stops in New Haven, to try to resuscitate his career amid a series of debilitating scandals. Howser and crew were on hand at the Lawn Club Wednesday night.

From the podium Tom Swan promoted Dodd from the podium as an “instrumental” leader in the D.C. fight for universal health care. Swan has helped Dodd burnish his progressive bonafides in the senator’s Career Resuscitation Tour.

Click on the play arrow to watch a recent example.

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Comments

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 7, 2009 11:53 AM

Susan Bysiewicz now Lamont wow I am feeling hopeful about the Gov's spot. hmmm Still want Richard to run but these two will do.

And side note...where have I been, when did Naples turn into Wall st. pizza??? And why the heck would you change the name of such a piece of New Haven. It's like calling Lou's Lunch, Bert Hamburgers. hmm I do modern anyway.

Posted by: Boristt | May 7, 2009 12:24 PM

Health care reform its not going to work,it doesnt work, look at canada.We cant just insure everyone at the expense of the working people like myself who works a crappy job because of the insurance, and now with this reform my medicle is going to go up and up and up. Stupid liberals./

Posted by: Jonathan Link | May 7, 2009 12:38 PM

Call a Canadian
Want to know what universal single-payer health care is really like? Do people die on gurneys waiting for operations? Would you pay through the nose in taxes? Is it really worry free?

Instead of listening to "experts" from the health insurance industry, lobbyists, the government, or even Michael Moore, why not call an average Canadian and find out for yourself?

Substitute your area code for a Canadian one listed below and call your own phone number. Introduce yourself and ask the person at the end of the line what they think about their health care system. Ask about their own experience. The service, the price, the choice, whatever.

Then make up your mind if single-payer universal health care is a good idea for the USA.

Jonathan Link

Canadian Area Codes:
709 Atlantic Time plus a half hour

506 and 902 Atlantic Time

819, 418, 581, 450, 613, 514, 438, 343, 416, 647, 905, 289, 705, 519, 226, 807 Eastern Time

204, 306 Central Time

867, 780, 587, 403, 587 Mountain Time

250, 778, 604 Pacific Time

Posted by: Boristt | May 7, 2009 12:53 PM

Posted by: TrueBlueCT | May 7, 2009 1:41 PM

Medicare has been such a complete failure...damnable socialized medicine.

And me, I really trust my private insurance company not to screw with me were I to get some chronic disease.

Posted by: iBlogWestHartford | May 7, 2009 2:40 PM

Great piece on THE burning issue of the day.

Did you know that half of the people who lost their homes to foreclosures in Connecticut in the last year were in serious medical debt?

[Don't worry about the "Great Canadian Health Care Myth." It's made up of unverifiable anecdotes and my-cousin's-ex-boyfriend's-aunt-told-me-that... stories. Fact: Canadians have guaranteed, quality, free health care from cradle-to-grave. Fact: Canada spends half of what the US spends per-person on health care. Fact: Canadians live two years longer than Americans.]

The SustiNet plan described above is moving fast toward the House and Senate floors for a vote.

WE CAN'T WAIT.

NOW is the time to call your senator (where your voice is needed most) and tell him/her to support SustiNet and fix the health care system NOW.

It's quick and easy at: http://www.healthcare4every1.org/site/PageServer?pagename=action_callyourlegislator.

Thanx!!!

Posted by: Lee | May 7, 2009 3:15 PM

Boristt, there are times when we should all just be quiet and THINK before we speak or write. You know NOTHING of which you speak. Neither "stupid liberals" nor grossly ignorant conservatives should spout off when they have NO CLUE what they are talking about.

While there are glitches in the Canadian health care system (and there are also many potholes in the USA's very expensive and discriminatory system), for those in the USA who work every day & sometimes in two jobs, yet cannot get health care coverage-- the Canadian system is FAR superior to not having any access at all to health care. The reason many poor and working class people in America die of preventable diseases is exactly because they do not have coverage. When they cannot take the suffering any longer, or they collapse and end up in our OVERLY expensive hospitals, their diseases are too advance and they die young. That does not happen in Canada or Sweeden because whether you have money or not, you have access to health care.

Why are you so invested in seeing other people suffer? Do you know how many people die in our overbloated, expensive system because they get the wrong medication in our hospitals? Do you know that without a private doctor to whose service you get admitted to a hospital in the USA, you might suffer a fate worse than you would anywhere in the Canadaian system? Have you ever been hospitalized in Canada and in the USA? Try using your brain before your fingers; don't add to the ignorance that is already so evident. Get your facts straight first.

Posted by: Streever | May 7, 2009 5:35 PM

Jonathan Link
Have you heard of France
it has the best health care system in the world
independently ranked
no one beats them
guess what
socialist
wooohoooo baby
You going to tell me the American system doesn't stink on ice? Just look it up, man. It's ranked awful. It's behind some 3rd world nations.

As a nation we decided we'd rather wait till you are almost dead, then use controversial, expensive, treatments that have never worked on anyone in the whole history of medicine.

In france they try to prevent you getting sick. CRAZY.

The craziest thing is it costs less than ours. CRAZY!

Posted by: Democrat | May 7, 2009 7:39 PM

There were poignant comments last night about how if this opportunity to build bipartisan support and bring about significant reform with broad support is squandered, it will be from poor strategy and leadership among Democrats. Clearly, Democrats in the legislature must be strong and bold and not sheep to those of questionable commitment in party leadership. But this goes for the voters too, who must be strong and bold and vote for those who serve the best interests of the average citizen, do not treat the working class like potential millionaires, (dangling tax cuts and talking about free market services). I will support Ned Lamont in whatever campaign he decides to take on.

Posted by: Yaakov Stern | May 7, 2009 7:43 PM

While I'm not sure that the longer average Canadian lifespan is directly related to better health care (it might, for instance, be related to lower extreme poverty due to other social programs, or a lower rate of morbid obesity), I can say, as a student at a Canadian school, that Canadian health care has its problems.

Its problems are not nearly as bad as ours.

If you call a Canadian and ask about their health care, chances are that they will tell you that sometimes there are long lines, sometimes the doctors don't get around to all the patients as much as the patients would like in the emergency rooms, and that there aren't nearly, NEARLY enough general practice doctors. Guess what? We have exactly the same problems!!! As for people "dying on gurneys," I have an anecdote you could use, John. My friend went to the emergency room after experiencing inexplicable stomach pain that kept getting worse for a day and a half. Arriving at night, by taxi, the hospital's protocol resulted in him having to wait about 6 hours before getting a bed. It then took another several hours to get a CT scan, and about another day until they scheduled a surgery, during which time his appendix ruptured. Terrible story. They should have operated more quickly, saving him considerable pain and greatly reducing the risk of subsequent infection. Do you really think the reason that happened to my friend is that Canadians have single-payer health care? Or is it because my friend stupidly waited a day and a half before going to the hospital? Or because, in this day and age, not enough people who go through medical school spend any time doing internal medicine after their residency? Or because, as luck would have it, he went late at night, when hospitals tend to send home most of their staff?

The other part of the story tells a lot more about Canadian health care: when his wound did get infected, he returned to the hospital. They took care of the immediate problem, and sent him to a smaller clinic for subsequent visits. He continued going to the clinic for several weeks, until his infection had healed properly, and then returned several times so that the doctors could make sure everything stayed hunky-dory. You know how much that all cost him (including the ER visit, the CT scan and the surgery)? $0. The reason is that, while nobody in the Western world has figured out a good solution to a lack of ER staff, Canadian health care is excellent at treating patients, and even goes the extra step to check up on them to make sure nothing else goes wrong when they're better.

See? Anecdotes work both ways. Speaking of which, this story, like all others you have heard, is PURELY ANECTDOTAL. When I ask my Canadian friends what they think of single-payer health care, which I do quite frequently, they all tell me how lucky they feel to have been born in a country that actually takes care of its citizens' health, and then ask me how we still haven't figured out that our system is screwing over millions of people and overcharging the rest.

Why don't you take some of your own advice, and call up some Canadians?

Posted by: jacksmith | May 7, 2009 9:43 PM

Swine flu (A-H1N1) and Healthcare In America

Well my fellow Americans, and people of the World. That was yet another very close potential catastrophe. Especially for those of us that live in America with our busted, greed driven, private for profit healthcare system. What ever you do World. Don't copy our current healthcare system.

If that virus (A-H1N1) had emerged just a few months earlier our busted healthcare system in America would have collapsed. Just like our economy almost did. And hundreds of thousands more Americans, if not millions would have needlessly lost their lives. As hospital ER's became choked with the sick, and dying.

All on top of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who needlessly lose their lives in America each year from a rush to profit by the private for profit healthcare industry. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Insured, and uninsured. Men Women, Children, and Babies.

This was yet another big WAKE-UP! call for America, and for our Government. It's time for Congress to end the debate. And stop dancing around the issues of how they can continue to try and justify protecting the private for profit healthcare industry, and the private for profit healthcare insurance industry. These industries are killing hundreds of thousands of Americans every year in America, and endangering our National security.

"the health-care system is, first and foremost, for the American people--not the companies that profit from it." (Tom Daschle | NEWSWEEK)

IT'S OVER! The Private for profit healthcare experiment in America is dead. It FAILED! And it was a DISASTER!

"NOT FOR PROFIT, TAX PAYER SUPPORTED, SINGLE PAYER, AUTOMATIC, FREE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE FOR ALL. Is the ONLY! way to go.

Essentially HR676 (enhanced, and expanded medicare for all). Just like every other CIVILIZED! country in the developed World has. There is no other way to truly fix or reform our current disastrous healthcare delivery system. NONE!

Congress, fix our healthcare crisis while you still have time.

President Obama, VP Biden, the Obama administration and the rest of his advisors, along with Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid are doing an excellent job of protecting you. And also an excellent job of representing you and the best interest of the World. But it's time for the rest of Congress to get on board.

To those of you who keep standing up and fighting for single-payer universal healthcare for all. YOU! are Americas true HEROES! And I am proud of you. :-) Don't let up.

I will have more to say about this VERY! unusual virus (A-H1N1), and flu in general, later. There are some things you really need to know and think about... All of you.

Till then, God Bless And Keep You All

Jack Smith -- Working Class

Posted by: William Kurtz | May 8, 2009 4:10 AM

I wonder if some aren't wrong in assuming that Mr. Link's suggestion was meant to indict the idea of single-payer health care. After all, he was encouraging people to bypass the advice of lobbyists and the health-insurance industry and seek out opinions of everyday people on questions such as, "would you really pay through the nose in taxes?"

The question that opponents of single-payer health care often like to ask is, "do you trust the government to take care of health care?" For me, at least, the answer to that question is, "I trust the government to take care of health care at least as much as I trust a large corporation whose sole mission is to make profit for its shareholders. Remember, a for-profit corporation's only objective is to earn money. There's not anything wrong with making money, but it's not hard to see how an individual's interests might be in conflict with those of insurance company shareholders.

Government bureaucracies don't do everything perfectly by any means, but at least elected officials are accountable to the voters--at least that miserably small percentage of them that takes the time to vote.

Posted by: CBA | May 8, 2009 10:43 AM

Where has Lamont been since he loss the primary ? What has he done to prepare himself for the top
executive position in government in this State ? The answer is nothing. He reappears on the political scene with a grandiose plan for health care without a sound explanation of how the program will be effectively financed. If this panderer to the left spent adequate time preparing himself he would have realized that the State is in dire financial straits and business is relocating for cheaper climates. The last thing Connecticut's businesses and economy needs is another expensive program mismanaged government program!!!!!!

Posted by: Streever | May 8, 2009 12:18 PM

I agree with kurtz--clearly, we have to pick someone to manage our health care. The lie of companies is that YOU manage it when it's not government run.

Great article this past weekend in the New York Times magazine about how our tax rate is virtually the same as that of socialist nations, when you look at things like:
social security
unemeployment tax
property tax
special taxes
etc
We end up getting to pay about 50% of our income. What do we get? Certainly not the social security & stability of the Netherlands.

“We’ve Never Been So Close”

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