On the Dems’ Platform

Earlier today, I mentioned that the Dems have circulated a draft of their ’08 platform, and that I meant to comment on it if time permitted.

Well, I’ve had a chance to slightly-more-than-skim through it, and I can offer a few thoughts:

On health care and health insurance – I don’t think the Dems are planning to rely on too much in the way of contributions from the health insurance sector this cycle.  Several pages of the document seem focused on grilling health insurers.

There is, at least, one comment in the platform expressing a desire to control health costs, but the focus seems to be on addressing inefficiencies in the system (where there is indeed room for improvement), rather than the real drivers of health care inflation – Americans’ perceived entitlement to the latest and greatest (and generally very expensive) procedures and treatments, and the tendency for medical professionals to treat specific complaints, rather than undertaking thorough diagnosis, and considering the potential efficacy of less-sexy-but-still-effective treatments.  The platform buys into the notion that Americans should have access to the very best health care (and admirable goal), but does nothing about the unspoken question of “who’s going to pay for this”?

(Actually, I should take that back.  Throughout the platform there are promises to not raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000.   Above the magic $250,000 mark, the platform calls on households to pay “a bit more”.)

There are actually quite a few calls for new programs, to bolster the health and welfare of Americans.  They are all admirable goals….but the only spending cut I see mentioned in the platform involves ending our military involvement in Iraq.  I wonder if a Democratic monopoly in Washington would actually be significantly less fiscally irresponsible than the Republican monopoly was, or the lame duck / deadlocked government we have now is.

True, I didn’t expect to see a robust fiscal plan laid out in a platform…but it would be nice if a few more hints of budget-balancing could be seen in the document.

Also on the health care reform section of the platform – I can’t help but notice how many of the abuses (and perceived abuses) the Dems seek to end are targeted towards traditional health insurance providers.   Most health insurance these days comes from employer-provided plans which would likely be relatively exempt from such reforms…and/or have already been subject to such reform through amendments to ERISA.

Missing from that section – reform of ERISA itself.   While ERISA definitely provided some much-needed consumer protections in what was a then-failing pension system in the 1970’s….there are a few loopholes in the law which permit administrators of employee health plans to behave badly with minimal repercussions.   More detail can be found in an earlier post of mine…and it’s something that I’d like to see fixed.

The Social Security plank is disappointing, I think.   While it’s understandable that the Dems would slam corporations for underfunding pension plans, or walking away from promises previously made, statements like:

We recognize that Social Security is not in crisis

smell a bit like an attempt to score political points, rather than paint a constructive plan.  Yes, the platform advocates bolstering Social Security’s financing, and yes “crisis” is in the eye of the beholder…but acknowledgement that acting sooner rather than later would reduce the burden of any fix, and acknowledgement of the even-worse fiscal situation of Medicare would be refreshingly frank from a political party.

Oh well.  Democratic and Republican platforms these days seem to be mostly puff pieces anyway, so my frustration is to be expected.  I imagine this document and the forthcoming GOP platform will only reconfirm my disappointment with both major parties.