Open All of Obama’s Health Care Meetings to C-SPAN
From my op-ed in The Daily Caller:
ObamaCare would dramatically expand government control over health care.
Each new power ObamaCare creates would be targeted by special interests looking for special favors, and held for ransom by politicians seeking a slice of the pie.
ObamaCare would guarantee that crucial decisions affecting your medical care would be made by the same people, through the same process that created the Cornhusker Kickback, for as far as the eye can see.
When ObamaCare supporters, like Kaiser Family Foundation president Drew Altman, claim that “voters are rejecting the process more than the substance” of the legislation, they’re missing the point.
When government grows, corruption grows. When voters reject these corrupt side deals, they are rejecting the substance of ObamaCare.
If Obama is serious about fighting corruption, he should invite C-SPAN to into every meeting he holds with members of Congress.
Then we’ll see whether he’s lobbying House members based on the Senate bill’s merits, or promising House members judgeships or ambassadorships in exchange for their votes.
What’s going on behind those closed doors, anyway? Aren’t you just a little bit curious?
Or does corruption only happen when Billy Tauzin is in the room?
The Health Care Debate on C-SPAN
Today, President Obama began to fulfill the promise that health care legislation would be hashed out on C-SPAN. His discussion with congressional leaders was broadcast on that cable channel and streamed live on the Internet. The nearly six-and-a-half hour-long meeting began to touch on many of the issues at stake in the health care area.
I’ll leave observations about the merits to our experts, who live-blogged the morning session. I found a few things interesting from a transparency perspective:
The format was far more conducive to productive discussion than procedures for “debate” in Congress. What generally happens in the House and Senate is display of members’ and senators’ well-settled views. So today interested Americans could get a real sense of the issues and how their representatives think about them.
There seemed to be a division between representatives who knew the technical subject matter and those who—for lack of a better phrase—knew the emotional subject matter. Surprisingly astute commentaries on fiscal realities were met with appeals to the story of one constituent or another—or of members’ own families’ health predicaments.
Though there was much talking past one another, these are all good things to see. It will inform the public, and a better informed public will make better decisions about health care legislation, about individual representatives, and about the proper role of government.
I know how I feel about these things. (I’m soft-pedaling my views here as hard as I can…) My opinions didn’t change, though I adopted new nuances to my thinking.
It’s doubtful that many people’s opinions will change. But I’m confident that a more open process will lead to better results in many senses: specific policy results; electoral activity; and people’s overall sense of the role of government.
Today’s meeting only scratched the surface, of course. Sessions like this in the days and weeks to come will do more to improve the transparency of the lawmaking process, in this issue and hopefully others. Today’s transparency precedent is something that the president and federal lawmakers should not retreat from.
Is Government Transparency Headed for a Detour?
With a year in office, and perhaps under some pressure to deliver on promises of transparency and change, the White House went on a little PR offensive this week. It rolled out a blog post and a video claiming the transparency successes of the administration’s first year. A lot has gone on, and it’s worth a review. It’s also worth noting some signals that the government transparency project could be heading for a slight detour.
In the video — a little infomercial-y, but tolerable and interesting — federal chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra cites several examples of government use of technology. A system called ISDS Distribute helps the government monitor flu outbreaks, for example, akin to Google.org’s Flu Trends. Chopra touted the benefits of machine readability and the Agriculture Department’s release of data about a thousand most commonly eaten foods. (I’m not sure if this is it, but if not it’s probably something similar. Someone like Mike could use it to build a site that is further along than 1996′s state-of-the-art.) And Chopra discussed the platforms they are building at apps.gov to help agencies draw on the participation and engagement of the public. Putting aside how these illustrate the federal government’s distended role, these are all fine things.
White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen cited the release of visitor records as “one of the big innovations in the White House” over the past year. (Good, yes. But “big”?) Eisen dodged the question about why health care negotiations are not on C-SPAN.
In response to a question about putting federal advisory committees online, Chopra told of a recent meeting of the President’s Council of Advisers for Science and Technology, which was telecast live on the web and archived.
Finally, Chopra touted the planned January 22nd roll-out of data feeds from every federal agency under a recent open government memorandum — three “high-value data sets” per agency. In working toward this, Chopra said, “the conversation is all about what would help you do what you do better. How can we advance our shared goals of reducing disparities in health care, improving our commitment to renewable energies, advancing our collective educational results?”
This language and some of the examples cited in the video cause me to worry that the transparency effort may be heading for a detour. Rather than substantive insight into government management, deliberations, and results, we might get a lot of data-oriented play-toys.
White House, Unions Reach Deal on Taxing Insurance Coverage
The Washington Post reports that the White House has reached a tentative agreement with labor leaders to tax high-cost health insurance policies.
What did you think of the negotiations? You did watch them on C-SPAN, didn’t you?
At the Sunlight Foundation blog, I’ve joined in some discussion about whether a president could really force process reforms on Congress like requiring negotiations to be televised. (Short answer: It’s possible, not probable.)
But here’s a case where the White House declined to put its own negotiations on television as the president promised.
Monday Links
- David Boaz: “Suddenly, I find myself nostalgic for Bill Clinton….Come back, Bill, all is forgiven. Or most, anyway. As long as you bring a Republican Congress with you.”
- So, have you been following the health-care debate on C-SPAN? Oh wait…
- Obama administration preparing a new arms package for Taiwan.
- Nat Hentoff to Castro et al: “Roar, tyrants, you cannot hide your racist deeds.“
- Podcast: “Price Controls in Obamacare” featuring Michael F. Cannon.
On C-SPAN: What’s a Little Promise Among Friends?
My, oh my. Transparency is getting defined down to excuse a breaking campaign promise.
At the Center for American Progress’ “Think Progress Wonk Room” blog (or whatever it’s called), Igor Volsky makes the case against allowing C-SPAN cameras into negotiations about the health care bill. Recall that President Obama promised on the campaign trail to have health care negotiations broadcast on C-SPAN.
“But if one actually considers the tone and tenor of the televised health care debate of 2009,” says Volsky, “filming the conference negotiations seems counterproductive.”
He does have a point. Television causes politicians to grandstand and doesn’t necessarily improve the legislative process.
But President Obama knew that when he made the promise, and he made the promise all the same. The credibility of the legislative process suffers from its overall opacity, and Candidate Obama promised different, starting with health care legislation — to progressives’ cheers as much as any other group.
Yet he appears to be walking away from that promise. And Volsky wants to abet him with a transparency caveat — only if it “improve[s] the underlying bill.”
Improvement is in the eye of the beholder, of course. This is not a welcome gloss. It’s bait and switch. “[T]he reality of politics doesn’t square with the promises of the campaign trail,” says Volsky.
Speaking of Transparency . . .
A thing I really like about Sunlight Before Signing is that it’s a clear promise President Obama made on the campaign trail.
An equally clear promise, highlighted by Michael Cannon earlier this week, was to broadcast negotiations about health care reform on C-SPAN.
C-SPAN is ready. As reported by the RealClearPolitics blog on Time.com, C-SPAN public service icon Brian Lamb wrote a letter to House and Senate leadership offering to cover health care negotiations:
President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system. Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American.
Many others could be, but Brian Lamb isn’t pulling a partisan stunt or trying to affect the health care debate one way or another. He’s trying to fulfill the promise of open democracy that had audiences roaring when President Obama extolled these virtues on the campaign trail:
“[W]hen I’m president, meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. No more secrecy. That’s a commitment I make to you as president. No more secrecy.”
Talkin’ Libertarianism
In response to a question today, I found a C-SPAN appearance from 2006 on their website. Host Steve Scully was teaching a class on “Issues in Media and Public Policy” with students at the Cable Center’s Distance Learning Studio in Denver. He asked me to join him for a discussion of libertarianism and public policy. For about an hour and 20 minutes I answered questions posed by both Scully and the students. Video of the event can be found on C-SPAN’s website.
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