{"id":15136,"date":"2011-02-05T20:36:28","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T02:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=15136"},"modified":"2011-02-05T20:36:28","modified_gmt":"2011-02-06T02:36:28","slug":"don-mccanne-the-super-bowl-and-a-crystal-stair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=15136","title":{"rendered":"Don McCanne: The Super Bowl and a Crystal Stair"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don McCanne
\nQuote of the Day<\/a>
\n5 February 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well here we are. Super Bowl weekend! Hurrah! What could be more American than this? Billions of dollars and the nation’s full attention directed to a couple dozen men playing a game. And this is no sandlot game. No. This is our nation at its finest – honoring in unparalleled splendor those great Americans who prevail and are declared winners of this historic rough-and-tumble fracas. And what more could our nation be than about winners?<\/p>\n

Let me digress for a moment. I have a little story to tell.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I was still in practice during the Clinton effort to reform health care. Although practicing in an affluent community, I was experiencing great frustrations in trying to obtain specialized health care services for not only our indigent patients, but also for our insured patients who were facing increasing managed-care barriers to care.<\/p>\n

Previously, in 1989, a life-changing event had occurred for me. It was simply that I read an article in The New England Journal of Medicine titled “A National Health Program for the United States,” written by a team led by David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, representing a group called Physicians for a National Health Program. I was stoked! I joined PNHP.<\/p>\n

Then Bill Clinton was elected, and the nation was ready for a national health program. As masters of health policy science, PNHP was there and ready to help guide the process. But President Clinton decided that they would follow the path of political expediency and build reform based on the existing private insurers\/managed care entities. Thus, in a political maneuver, to be repeated years later, PNHP was denied a seat at the table.<\/p>\n

I watched the process closely. I listened as the opposition proposed a model almost identical to that of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I saw the effort go down in flames. I decided that we couldn’t just walk away.<\/p>\n

I felt then that a pure single payer program, as much as I wanted it, could never pass. But I thought that there was enough agreement on fundamental principles that almost everyone would be able to support some model of social insurance, if we just had the right one. So I crafted a model. It was brilliant – just the right balance to achieve our goals while pleasing everyone.<\/p>\n

I sent it in to PNHP. The task of reviewing it was handed to PNHP’s new president, Claudia Fegan. It required more postage to return it to me, because it was newly laden with red ink.<\/p>\n

My lesson? I was passionate about reforming our system so that everyone would have the health care that they need, but I knew nothing about health policy science. I am forever indebted to Claudia for showing me the light, and resetting my course in my advocacy for reform. The principle she taught me is that you change policy recommendations only when policy science has demonstrated that there are better policies available. You do not ever change policy recommendations simply to conform to politics.<\/p>\n

Claudia has continued to be a great inspiration to me. And that brings us to a crystal stair. On this glittering Super Bowl weekend, we should take a look at that crystal stair. You will understand what I mean when you read the Claudia’s remarks that she delivered to the Louisville, Kentucky Urban League on January 15, 2011. After reading her comments maybe we can think about what it really takes to make winners in America.<\/p>\n

Cladia Fegan’s remarks to the Louisville Urban League:
\nhttp:\/\/www.spiritualprogressives.org\/article.php\/2011020212215961<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don McCanne Quote of the Day 5 February 2011 Well here we are. Super Bowl weekend! Hurrah! What could be more American than this? Billions of dollars and the nation’s full attention directed to a couple dozen men playing a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-3W8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15138,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15136\/revisions\/15138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}