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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.
Scott Elliott is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He writes about education, city and suburban issues, politics, business, workforce and consumer issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > August > 22
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Editorial: On health care, compromising is not selling out
This was the week when the two sides in the health care fight turned to internal warfare.
President Barack Obama was trashed by liberals for softening on the “public option.” That refers to government offering insurance, in case people don’t like what private insurers are selling and charging.
He’s for it, but it’s been a tough sell. Republicans insist, among other things, that it would encourage private employers to drop their plans. Some moderate Democrats are worried about the costs and want to substitute nonprofit co-ops for the government.
So the president said he could live without the public option. Enter Jon Stewart,
Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Bob Herbert, Eugene Robinson, Robert Kuttner and Richard Cohen, among others.
A common charge: The president — their president — had sold out to the insurance companies (which oppose competition from government), whose opposition proves the merit of the public option. He’s turning his back on his campaign promises and betraying those who voted for him.
Phew. You’d think the guy had actually dared to disagree with them about something. In reality, he was just trying to deal with the possibility that he can’t get what he and they want.
Then there was House Republican leader John Boehner, playing the role of enforcer on the other side. He sent a “Dear Billy” letter to Billy Tauzin, the former Republican representative from Louisiana who is now the chief lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry.
A couple of months ago, the industry worked out a deal with the White House that resulted in the companies allotting $150 million for television ads selling the general idea of health care reform.
This was a coup. The drug companies had opposed Bill Clinton’s health care reform plan. And, spending hugely on campaign contributions and lobbying, they have generally sided with Republicans. But they have lately contributed more to Democrats.
The drug companies have a lot to gain from the Obama approach. If millions more people have health insurance, millions more will use prescription drugs.
The general understanding of the deal is this: The drug companies agreed to sell prescription drugs at half price to seniors in the famous “doughnut hole” in Medicare (where people aren’t covered until their costs reach a certain level). The industry also agreed to offer other savings, totaling $80 billion.
In return, the White House apparently led the industry to believe the president wouldn’t push to allow the importing of drugs from Canada; nor will it seek authority for the government to negotiate with drug companies on the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare.
Some Democrats think the drug companies are getting off too easily. Rep. Boehner has a different concern. His letter to “Billie” was scathing. Excerpts:
“Appeasement rarely works as a conflict resolution strategy.” (That is the first line.)
“When a bully asks for your lunch money, you may have no choice but to fork it over. But cutting a deal with the bully is a different story, particularly if the ‘deal’ means helping him steal others’ money as the price of protecting your own.”
The John Boehners of the world combine with President Obama’s critics on the left to create the no-common-ground politics of Washington. The presumption is against dealing with the other side, with the bad guys, the “bullies,” the people whose support for an idea demonstrates its venality.
But the health care debate needs constructive compromising, even if, in the end, Republicans won’t ever vote yes. The Democratic coalition includes legislators who legitimately worry about supporting a package of confusing major changes — when most people are already satisfied with their coverage — and a tax increase.
If the president can’t get the Republican politicians on board, he is right to go directly to their usual corporate constituents. And if those corporations compromise with him, rather than just give their proxy to John Boehner, they are being simultaneously smart and public-spirited.
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TweetScott Elliott: Sculptor’s life as facinating as his art
The shared experience of strolling the streets in downtown Dayton this summer was seeing a figure just ahead that isn’t quite right — unusually still, but seemingly alive. Coming closer, the man with the guitar or the woman on the park bench proves to be made of life-like colored bronze.
Last week, movers packed up 15 statues as the third summer of the City Life-sponsored downtown exhibition wrapped up.
For those who have been fooled or just mesmerized by the sculptures and found it a pleasurable experience — most people, by anecdotal accounts — you can thank a cranky uncle for the fact that the artist, J. Seward Johnson Jr., didn’t instead spend his life trying to build a better Band-Aid.
Seward Johnson is one of those Johnsons, as in Johnson & Johnson, the giant pharmaceutical company started by his grandfather that invented the Band-Aid. Johnson getting fired from the family business by his uncle at the age of just 32 turned out brilliantly for future fans of his Norman Rockwell-style statues of everyday folks.
The Johnsons happen to be one of the richest — and most dysfunctional — families in America, home-based in my hometown of Princeton, N.J. When I was growing up, the Dynasty-like Johnson family soap opera was an even bigger source of grocery store chatter than those strange bronze figures that began popping up all over town.
When Seward Johnson’s father died in 1983 at age 87, his six children found they had been entirely cut out of the will, with his $600 million fortune left solely to his 34-year-old third wife, a Polish-born former maid. It took more than 25 years before the courts finally settled a legal war with a $42.5 million judgment for the kids. The ex-maid now lives in Monaco, and the 140-acre family villa I passed on the bus everyday on the way to high school known as Jasna Polana (Polish for “Bright Meadow”), is now the clubhouse for a championship golf course.
Even with the long wait for his inheritance, Seward Johnson has done OK. At age 79, 150 of his human sculptures travel the world for displays like the one in Dayton this summer. Sponsors paid about $45,000 to bring the sculptures here. They sell for between $65,000 and $500,000 to collectors. Johnson has made more than $22 million selling his art, and he is worth more than $100 million.
The dyslexic Johnson, who never finished college, told the Newark Star-Ledger in 2000 that he had no idea what to do after the uncle at Johnson & Johnson’s corporate office kicked him to the curb. Always art-inclined, he started spending all his time painting until his wife prodded him to try a local class that taught sculpting in Styrofoam that later was cast in steel. He was quickly hooked.
It seems the city fathers back home were, too. Suddenly, these odd figures began appearing everywhere — in parks, in plazas, in front of buildings. I mean everywhere. There was even a piece called “Playmates” that I almost literally stumbled onto in the bushes along the sidewalk in front of my parents’ bank while delivering newspapers. It featured three teen-aged boys huddled around a flipped-out Playboy centerfold, outfitted in unrealistically tasteful attire. It tells you something about how things have changed that this did not prompt some sort of ruckus.
The celebration of those sorts of scenes didn’t go entirely unnoticed. There have been plenty of sneers along the way from the mainstream art world, which mocks Johnson’s work as the worst kind of kitsch. The Washington Post’s art critic once called an exhibition of his statues the worst show he’d ever seen.
But Johnson appears comfortable in the outsider’s role. To get ideas for sculptures, he likes to sit alone and just observe as other people go about their lives.
“Once when I thought I had used up every idea — I’m now in my second hundred number of pieces— I thought I was run out of things and I just went on a spring day to Central Park in New York and I saw so many things I knew I would be able to go forever,” he told the Arizona Republic.
Watching people downtown this summer, there is no shortage of fascination for those life moments frozen in bronze. Whether critics like it or not, the Johnson name is now a famous brand in the world of art, too.
But you probably won’t find one of his people wearing a Band-Aid.
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