The Washington Post
February 19, 2002
By Abigail Trafford
“With pomp and circumstance and the glare of TV lights, representatives from 12 leading health, business and labor organizations signed a proclamation to ‘come together from diverse perspectives to seek solutions to one of America’s greatest problems.'”
“But the marching spirit of the summit conference started to sputter as soon as the health care moguls were asked about solutions. Out came the old buzzwords of stall, stall and stall: ‘Incremental,’ said one chieftain. There would be no one solution but a number of possible steps to chip away at the problem. ‘Public, private, incremental, long haul,’ agreed another. ‘Progress will be slow,’ said the consumer representative. ‘We have to keep the best we have and allocate resources,’ added another leader. ‘Incremental,’ echoed another.”
“To find solutions, each leader at the summit has to be willing to lose a little for the country to gain a lot. ‘Incremental’ is not a word that helps Potter, Hegdal or Henderson (examples of the plague of ‘uninsurance’). They’re not interested in ‘slow progress.’ They need coverage now. The uninsured have been waiting for decades for some relief.”
“So let’s give the chieftains 90 days to come up with a unified plan. After that, to return to the civil rights mode, it may be time for a march on Washington.”