By Donna Smith

CHICAGO – Widgets, not patients.  Widgets.  Our economy is in serious need of more and better widgets.  Economists sometimes use the word widget to describe abstract units of production.  Businesses produce widgets using capital and labor.  But with the U.S. car manufacturers dumping jobs and the financial industry in meltdown, finding a ray of future growth and hope for economic activity is critical to the nation.

The human rights arguments and moral issues have not prevailed to push health reform in decades, but the argument that the huge and powerful economic engine of healthcare delivery must be overhauled is gaining momentum — not because leaders care more now but because we’re short on widgets. What better way to sell another national bail-out than to tie it in with some measure of relief – no matter how small — of human tragedy and suffering?

It’s the stuff of political magic.

And after what I heard today about healthcare reform in the witness testimony offered in the Senate Finance Committee by four policy-wonk gentlemen all selected for their ability to stay “on message” during this point in time, I should be really discouraged about the hopes for real reform.  But in some ways, learning yet again that the American healthcare industry is so intricately intertwined with the overall economic health of the nation was simply an affirmation of what millions of average Americans have known for decades.

It takes our Senators a bit longer, apparently, to understand a crisis they have largely been spared from feeling in the same way the rest of us have felt.  I’ve said it hundreds of times before, but I know many of our lawmakers just don’t have to live in the real world of healthcare in America today.  They have access to good benefit options (the plans we pay for as taxpayers and provide to them), they have adequate incomes to absorb any uncovered medical expenses (the salaries we fund with our taxes), they have name recognition and political cache that opens doors for them and access to the best of medical care (the political clout and personal influence we vote them into), and they don’t have to worry about taking time off for illness – no damage to their credit standings, their sick-leave balances or their paychecks – we give them a nice, long six-year term during which to feel comfortable enough to think about the long term good of the nation.  That’s the theory.

So, how did it work out in today’s hearing?  Did they hear what they needed to hear or did they pander while all the while planning how to make more much-needed widgets?

Today’s Senate witnesses addressed the theme, “Health Care Reform: An Economic Perspective,”  and represented the business and private corporate interests of the nation rather well (even as academics) as they patted one another on the back for caring about the issue and preened over Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-MT, and his “Call to Action” on the health crisis.  It seemed a bit too well orchestrated for my tastes – and I listened for signs of any plan that would do more than provide tens of millions more customers (widgets) for the for-profit insurance companies and then ultimately the for-profit providers – both of which could and would reap a windfall of profits from plans that mandate purchase of insurance products while also carving up public plans under the auspices of gaining control over escalating costs.

It didn’t feel so much like a health reform hearing as it did the public recognition that the healthcare industry and its growth in job and economic activity must be simultaneously protected from quick changes and “unintended consequences” – for instance, gaining control of the over-use of services in the “sun belt” for Medicare widgets (err, patients) could have disastrous effects in communities like Miami where health providers make so much money from those widgets.  The wonks want to be careful about that.

Healthcare is big business.  Healthcare is big money.  And our economy is not in a place where we can allow another major financial system collapse.  So we have to figure out how to make more widgets and allow their use only as we find most beneficial within the economic system.  That is if we’re going to shore up and build the only industry in the land with growing numbers of jobs, we heard from the witnesses.

But then another announcement came as the hearing was unfolding.  It seems that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was offered and has accepted the role of Secretary of Health and Human Services.  I like that news.  In the face of some pretty heavy handed business posturing on health reform this hopeful, intelligent move was a breath of change whispered — no shouted — from the transition team.  Of all the folks who might be able to hear the wishes of the American people on this life, quality of life and death subject – and hear the wisdom of people who know patients are not widgets – this is the person I am so pleased to know will be at the helm.

You see, Tom Daschle was my Senator for some time.  And this is what he said on the Senate floor in March 2004 after hearing form me and my husband and hundreds of other South Dakotans, “All of us, Democrats and Republicans, need to take the comments of people like Donna and Larry Smith and Steve Schlenner seriously. Donna and Larry are luckier than many Americans. They have insurance. More than 43 million Americans have no health insurance. We must work together to make health insurance affordable again and health care accessible to all Americans.”

He went on to say, “We need to fix what is wrong with the new Medicare prescription drug program. At a minimum, we need to end the prohibition that prevents the Government from negotiating better prices for seniors.” (from the Congressional Record)

As I have told other healthcare activists today, we still have a hard fight ahead to have single payer, publicly funded and privately delivered healthcare clearly considered – but I know today the fight became a whole lot more fair.  We are not widgets.