“Dogs and cats, living together” hinted at as signs of a disaster “of Biblical proportions” in the 1984 film Ghostbusters - now realized with the new advent of Harry and Louise.
The 1993/1994 anti-health care reform crusaders are touring Capital Hill again, this time with funding from drug industry group PhRMA and the left-leaning Families USA - in support of reform.
“A little more cooperation, a little less politics,” Louise says to Harry in a new ad, scheduled for this weekend, “and we can get the job done this time.”
The New York Times, at first, appears to take in the Cool-Aid:
The reappearance of Harry and Louise as the avatars of health care reform dovetails with a new economic reality for consumers.
The early-middle-aged Harry and Louise in the 1990s ads were concerned about their own welfare and their own pocketbooks. They were white middle-class me-generation professionals scripted to raise red flags about the fear of losing private health insurance. Now, the mellowed AARP-eligible Harry and Louise of this campaign seem more charitable and outward-directed. They even invoke the plight of the uninsured.
But then Writer Natasha Singer gets to the underlying realities.
This “either means that Harry and Louise have changed, or that the actors who play them — Harry Johnson and Louise Caire Clark — are adept at emoting whatever political point of view they are paid to evoke.”
This time the message is “Get it done.”
But many in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, are concerned that ramming reform through without careful consideration may just play into the powerful industry and interest groups’ hands.
Speaking of cats and dogs, even WaPo’s Ezra Klein has reservations - based on the Congressional Budget Office’s blunt assessment that the House bill does nothing to control health care costs:
“If the problem is that our health-care system is too expensive, and reform does not change the structure of our health-care system, then it is unlikely to mitigate the expense,” Klein blogs
I’ve been asking that question for more than a month now. Thanks Ezra.
Klein goes on to highlight Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-Ore.) Free Choice Act. This would go the furthest toward creating a true free market system by allowing individuals to choose from the so-called insurance exchange, even if they are already insured under an employer-sponsored plan but don’t like it.
Wyden’s bill also sets up a mechanism by which employers can still contribute to independently chosen health plans.
The question - aside from the hundred details in Wyden’s plan - becomes, if insurance companies are accountable to a wider audience and true competition, will they provide a better product, for less?
Of course, PhRMA cut a $80 billion deal with the White house that critics say could cost the country more than that price tag supposedly trims from drugmaker’s profits - by eliminating Medicare drug price controls and firming up requirements to stick to brand name pharmaceuticals.
The L.A. Times’ Booster Shots health blog points out another interesting difference from the 1993/1994 ads - “This time, however, neither Harry not Louise weigh in on the controversial “public option” — a proposed government-run plan.”
Tags: Ezra Klein, Harry and Louise, LA Times, Natasha Singer, New York Times, Ron Wyden
