Senator Boxer returned to MSNBC bright and early (here on the West Coast) yesterday to talk with Carlos Watson and Katrina Vanden Heuvel about a number of issues- but the emphasis was on health care reform and the process we should be looking for going forward.

First is the most important part for so many who are following this process closely. She laid out where she thinks these complex negotiations will lead and why it’s so important: “I do think we’ll have a public interest option at the end of the day because we have to contain the costs.” And “what is the best way to keep down the cost? I think it’s competition and I think a public interest plan will do just that.” Which is exactly why Boxer has long been a cosponsor of Sherrod Brown’s Senate resolution declaring that “any efforts to reform our Nation’s health care system should include as an option the establishment of a federally-backed insurance pool to create options for American consumers.”

She went on to address the issue at the heart of much of the debate right now: Determining what structure will best provide the fair competition that actually serves the public interest instead of the profit margins of insurance companies. She cited a recent study from the New America Foundation (pdf), noting that by 2016, Californians “will be paying 41% of their income to health insurance; It’s just not sustainable.” Of course she’s right. As Governor Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto powers this week to institute drastic cuts to safety-net health programs throughout the state including funding cuts that will force hundreds of thousands of participants in the Healthy Families program to lose their low-cost health coverage, the dire straits of our current health infrastructure have been laid bare like never before.

As the interview wound past health care on into immigration, the state of California’s budget and economy, energy job development and capping executive pay (more on these topics later), Boxer put so much of this into perspective of the last eight years: “It’s unfortunate that we have all these big issues at the same time, but we have to deal with all of them because for eight long years they were all neglected. that’s the truth of the matter.”

It is. It’s certainly not by way of making or seeking excuses. But it’s a good reminder of how much work is still before us to just set right everything that was broken under George W. Bush. There’s much important good work yet to be done.

-Lucas O’Connor

Tags: barbara boxer, health care, public option

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.