by Katie Leeson ’93
“Washington is obsessive.” That was the opening line of a recent NPR story about the capital city’s laser-like focus on the 2010 health-care-reform law. I laughed as I drove up Pennsylvania Avenue, wondering if the reporter could have picked three better words to sum up the city where I’ve lived and worked for the past 12 years.
As a health-care lobbyist, I can tell you with absolute certainty that D.C. is flush with obsessive, passionate people seeking to influence policy and shape history. In fact, advocates and politicians are often selected for their jobs because of their passion. And in an era of social media and 24/7 news, it takes a lot of tenacity, verging on obsession, to break through the constant chatter.
But lately, the question I’ve come to ask is, “Has Washington stopped listening in order to be heard?” In other words, to attract attention, have advocates and politicians become so vehement about their views that they’ve forgotten how to listen for the nuances in each other’s positions? Consequently, is the art of compromise on life support?
Pam White was a member of Milton’s Health and Counseling Center until her retirement in 2002.
During the health-reform debate, opponents of the law attempted to whip up a frenzy of misinformation. The summer of 2009 was filled with news reports of angry town hall meetings where Democratic members of Congress were vilified for their support of the law. “Socialized medicine” became the catchall phrase for everything the Republicans hated about reform. Protesters were disruptive at some gatherings, and violent at others.
However, if you picked apart the so-called Democratic policies, many of the concepts, like insurance exchanges, individual mandates and accountable care organizations, were actually originated by Republican administrations and think tanks. Suddenly, just because a Democrat was espousing the same concepts, the proposals were demonized and deemed unworkable.
At the same time, the Democratic responses to the protests did nothing to diffuse the situation. The Democratic National Committee called the outbursts “manufactured outrage” and one Democratic leader called the disruptions “un-American.” Talk about adding lighter fluid to a smoldering fi restorm.
By the time the final votes were cast in 2010, many politicians and pundits had become myopically obsessed about everything except the overarching goal of health reform. Partisan politics was at its worst, the apex of a trend that has been growing for three decades. According to the National Journal, which tracks individual voting records, 30 years ago most members of Congress’s vote ratings placed them between their chambers’ most liberal Republicans and most conservative Democrats. Today, few members occupy that sacred space that signifi es the middle ground that compromise seeks.
Fast-forward to 2012: While a significant portion of the health-reform law has been upheld by the Supreme Court, major fiscal debates loom on the horizon, and their financial ramifications could dwarf the Affordable Care Act in size and signifi cance. Given Americans’ sharp displeasure with the way the debate over the Budget Control Act went down last summer, one can’t help but hope that our elected officials will take a less polarized approach this time around.
Thankfully, Capitol Hill rests on a solid foundation of smart and committed staffers, many of whom are open to hearing the merits of an issue. For example, during recent legislative efforts to address the drug shortage issue, my colleagues and I worked to convince Senate negotiators to expand the FDA shortage list to include drugs used in emergency medical services or surgery. We had to push hard from many angles and use all the resources at our disposal, but to their credit, negotiators listened to the crisis we described and changed the bill. We didn’t get every word we wanted, but they were able to fi nd agreement on a bipartisan basis on certain wording and amended the legislation. While decidedly less sexy than a “fiscal cliff” or a “tax hike,” at the end of the day the right policy won.
But here’s the catch. If I’ve learned anything in D.C., it’s that very little changes unless it boils up from the bottom. Voters have to demand a higher level of discourse. If we value compromise, then we must vote it. If our members of Congress speak in sound bytes short enough for their Twitter feeds, then they also owe us longer explanations on the issues. And if they can’t produce sound policy arguments, then we hold the power to decide their future employment.
At the same time, if the public fuels the partisan rhetoric with protests based on factual inaccuracies, then we can expect little more from Washington. The issues on Washington’s plate in the coming months involve complicated questions that require complex solutions. Perhaps if we turn down the volume on our own conversations and tune in to the details of what others are saying, our political leaders will also reach more toward the middle, and in the process, breathe some new life into the art of compromise.
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