Gang Of Six
Posted by Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief in health care reform, opinion, public figuresWe’re hearing an awful lot about the so-called Gang of Six, those six senators on the Senate Finance Committee who are negotiating among themselves what is likely to be the template for health care reform for the rest of us.
There’s the chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., of course. Everywhere you turn it’s Baucus this, Baucus that. Then there’s Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican member of the committee.
The other committee members are Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Me.; Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.; and last but not least, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.
I had to do some research to find out who the sixth senator was in this gang since one never hears Bingaman’s name mentioned. Then I remembered these are secret negotiations.
In any case, in looking over this list of negotiators who hold the fate of one-sixth of the economy in their hands, the oddity of politics in America in 2009 became crystal-clear to me.
I knew that the states these senators represent are small population-wise, but I did not realize how small they are.
The largest of the six, Iowa, ranks #30 of the 50 states, according to the 2008 estimate of state populations, with 3,002,555 residents.
Here are the rankings of the other 5 states whose senators comprise the Gang of Six:
#36-New Mexico with 1,984,356
#40-Maine with 1,316,456
#44-Montana with 967,440
#48-North Dakota with 641,481
#50-Wyoming with 522,830
All six of these states are smaller than the largest U.S. territory, Puerto Rico, whose population was 3,954,037, which would have ranked it #27.
The combined population of these six states is less than the population of the state I live in, New Jersey.
None of these states comes close to matching the populations of New York City or Los Angeles.
Wyoming, in fact, is smaller in terms of population than the 32 largest American cities.
I have nothing against smallness per se. We all learned some time ago that “Small is Beautiful.”
What does stick in my craw is that none of these states is truly representative of the predominately urban nation we have become. And yet they are the ones determining health care for California, New York and the 27 other states that have more people than Iowa.
Does this matter? I think it matters a great deal since health care delivery in Wyoming or North Dakota confronts a very different situation than does health care delivery in Massachusetts or Michigan, Chicago or Philadelphia. And how would Sen. Enzi or Sen. Conrad know?
That there is no urban representation within this group of six senators makes me think that whatever the outcome of their negotiations is, it is going to be unduly skewed to the needs and peculiarities of their fewer than 8.5 million combined residents.
It’s probably idle thinking at this point to hope that this prescription can be rewritten. But it’s definitely not what the doctor ordered.
Tags: health care reform, politics, public figures
Entries (RSS)
I think most intelligent and ethical members of Congress recognize their primary obligation is to America as a whole, not just to the people who elected them. Unfortunately, the “intelligent and ethical” screen seems to eliminate the vast majority; power and wisdom rarely occupy the same person at the same time.
You’ve unmasked this wrecking crew, Steve.
One wonders how much they are getting in campaign monies from interested parties who delight in seeing advocates of a single payer system handcuffed and hustled out of their stilted deliberations.
The bill coming from this gaggle of six is one of the most egregious examples of legislative initiatives contravening the interests of the vast majority of the American people since the (thankful) end of the questionably-ever-genuinely-elected Bush regime.
It’s always fascinating to peruse the responses to your columns, Steve, and see things like just how many people are somehow able to turn a system that lets a Gang of 6 such as this one be poised to deny guaranteed access to healthcare to millions (however many millions) into a system worth defending against “the evils of government regulation.” These are, I suppose, the same folks who like to assert that the Great Depression would have been over in 6 months had not that wicked FDR started tinkering with the grand house that Hoover built.
Whatever and whoever they are, they are perfectly content to live with realities such as the one in which the flimsiest of preexisting conditions — hmm, let’s say celiac disease since that’s on the industry radar screen this week — can justify rescission or denial. They are unmoved by the inability of many unemployed to afford coverage for their families in an economy where the job market continues to stagnate and COBRA is too often unaffordable anyway. They turn a blind eye to the scare tactics being used to freak out the aged while professing some newfound concern, complete with frantic wringing of the hands, over a Medicare system they normally excoriate.
In fact, the only ones they really want to hear are the loudmouths who can’t even spell their poster messages correctly and couldn’t ever read a policy or a regulation, yet somehow know, because the likes of the Becks, Palins, and Bachmanns told them, that President Obama’s sole mission in life is to destroy our fabulous standard of living and turn us all into Kenyans. Funny, though, how they start to see the light when they or a loved one ends up out of work and uninsured or underinsured.