A 12-member bipartisan board, representing 12 regions of the country, would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to administer the plan. Administrative costs, Frankel says, would be fixed at 7.5 percent--a whopping cut in the 30- to 40-percent costs private insurers now average to administer HMO and other medical plans.
"Of course, the greatest argument I get against my plan is it's still a government-run health-care plan, and you can't trust the government to do it right," Frankel says. "But our current system has proven you can't tie health insurance to employment. With the bumps in our economy, and as more companies cut back, people aren't getting coverage. They can't afford private insurance with deductibles of $100 or more. And you've got 44 million Americans with absolutely no health care. How could it get worse?"
Parkland's Anderson, whose hospital deals daily with the uninsured, has increased the volume of his pitch for national health care "as politicians have continued to just leave the poor and the unemployed out of the discussion."
Frankel, Anderson says, "has the courage to talk about the system now, when a lot of people just want to avoid it. That's integrity. Jerry knows it isn't right that the uninsured are just completely off the radar screen, and he's going to keep talking about it."
Frankel may well keep talking, but he's clearly doing it for free. Armey, on the other hand, has been well-rewarded for his recalcitrance against major health-care reform. His list of contributions from health-care and insurance PACs during just the past year totals more than $27,000. Donors include the American Hospital Association; insurers Cigna, Metropolitan Life, and Aetna Life & Casualty; and pharmaceutical giant Glaxo. Other top donors: the big-league oil firms, including Texaco, Shell, Amoco, and Arco, and tobacco companies RJR/Nabisco, Philip Morris, and Brown & Williamson. The National Rifle Association PAC gave $2,000 last August. (Armey has repeatedly called for rescinding the 1994 anti-crime legislation that outlawed assault weapons.)
"Those PACs aren't buying access to Dick Armey," Frankel says. "They're buying his soul."
Armey's people fire back with what has become the standard incumbents' defense for scooping up special-interest money. "Every single PAC contribution is a result of hard-working employees' smaller donations," says campaign manager Wilkinson.
Parkland's Anderson gave his "smaller donation" to his favored candidate as well. But the notion that he could ever buy access to Jerry Frankel as congressman makes him chuckle. What can you buy--he asks--for a hundred bucks
