Special Interests Undercut the Constitution

By Heath Haussamen, 12-13-09

Some people don’t believe me when I tell them I don’t get too worked up about debates in Washington and Santa Fe over hot issues like abortion, climate change and health-care reform.

But it’s true. I’m a registered independent partly because my views are all over the map and I have a difficult time reconciling my beliefs with those of the Democratic or Republican parties. But there’s another, deeper reason I’m anti-partisan. I believe both parties, and the system in general, are corrupted by corporate and other special-interest money.

I think the genius of the U.S. Constitution is that it values the collective compromise of the whole over the beliefs of any individual. But our corrupt system gives corporations and other special interests undue influence that undermines the Constitution that created it.

The ongoing health-care reform debate in Washington proves the point. This discussion has been hijacked by a Republican Party that largely doesn’t want any reform – not because individual Republicans don’t see the need for reform, but because too many elected officials from that party are in the pockets of the status-quo health-insurance industry. Certain Democrats who are also in the pocket of the industry have also hijacked the debate.

Our system is so corrupt that any debate on health care reform must take place within the framework of what’s acceptable to the health-insurance industry. There may be liberal and conservative options within that framework, but Congress is still working within the box created by the industry.

So, while the president wanted a debate on whether to enact a single-payer system, he was forced to accept a discussion that started with less—a public option. Even that has now been watered down into the creation of some new, bureaucratic federal agency that would oversee private insurance plans.

Meaningful reform on hold

Meanwhile, meaningful reforms that the majority of members of Congress could easily agree to – such as legislation that would forbid insurance companies from rejecting claims on the basis of a pre-existing condition—are on hold.

Instead, back-room debates about prescription drugs – a sacred cow of members of Congress who are owned by the industry – and other issues are bogging down debate. And members of Congress are quietly slipping industry friendly provisions into the bill, including one that would, in the words of The Associated Press, “let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer.” That provision is deceptively hidden in the section of the bill entitled “No lifetime or annual limits.”

If I’m battling a life-threatening illness, I don’t want a plan that is going to run out of money in September and not start covering my treatment again until January. Such a provision benefits the health-insurance industry’s wealthy benefactors, not the American people.

Congress has operated in a similar box on other issues. Certain viewpoints are off the table from the start.

For example, instead of a debate on whether to try to reverse global warming, we’re debating whether we should try to slow down the rate at which it’s happening. For those who believe that humans are causing the planet to heat up, that means instead of debating whether to stop killing the planet, we’re debating the speed at which we’re going to destroy it.

There are also proposals on the right that are off the table because of special-interest influence, such as Ron Paul’s push to abolish the federal Department of Education. Why can’t we have that debate? And why can’t we have an honest debate about whether to actually pay off the national debt – and how we would do it – instead of just debating the speed at which we increase the national debt?

Ethics reform is critical

I’m independent primarily because I believe in the system of government the U.S. Constitution intends. Get a group of people with varying backgrounds and viewpoints together to debate the merits of a proposal – with all options on the table and without undue influence from groups that have interests other than the good of the American people at heart – and you end up with something closer to the truth than any of them can find by themselves.

I’m just one person in a nation of hundreds of millions of people. And, because I believe in the truth that emerges from honest debate of the issues, I’m more interested in seeing our system function as the democracy it should be than I am in seeing my beliefs enacted into law.

It’s why I focus so much of my journalistic efforts on ethics reform. I don’t think anything is more important in America in the 21st Century than finding a way to create the system of government our founding fathers intended.

Until that happens, I don’t believe our political leaders can have honest debates about the other pressing issues of our time.