Darryl and Shelly Syverson may be the real-life incarnation of “Harry and Louise.” And that could pose a danger for President
Barack Obama’s plans to overhaul the U.S. health-care system.
The Syversons of Strawberry Point, Iowa, and their neighbors are voicing many of the concerns stoked by Harry and Louise, a fictional middle-class couple whose appearance in television advertisements attacking President
Bill Clinton’s health-care program in 1994 helped sink the plan.
“The middle class always get stuck paying for everything,” Shelly, 59, said after a town-hall meeting last week in Elkader, Iowa, a mostly rural town of 1,465 residents about 60 miles northwest of Dubuque that houses a
Caterpillar Inc. plant.
As Congress returns this week to craft the legislation, Obama’s push to revamp an industry that makes up 17 percent of the nation’s economy will need support from American families earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, a group that pollsters define as middle class and which makes up about a quarter of the electorate. That backing is shaky,
polls show.
“Everybody’s worried because they don’t trust Congress, they think they’ll screw it up,” said Senator
Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, in an interview after the town-hall meeting. Grassley’s panel is taking the lead on the legislation, which is likely to cost $1 trillion over 10 years.
Obama’s problem is that if middle-class voters are concerned that his plan focuses more on the estimated 46 million uninsured than on reducing their own costs, they may oppose significant changes in health care, analysts say.
Grievance Session
The Syversons, both Democrats, were among 80 Iowans packed into the basement of
Elkader city hall for Grassley’s forum. The meeting quickly became a succession of grievances. There was the Vietnam veteran consumed by medical debt; a holistic health advocate who railed against drug companies; and a former postal service employee whose wife’s insurer won’t cover the surgery for her spinal problem that her doctor recommended.
While Shelly Syverson, a retired clerical worker from a local school, said she’s hopeful Obama’s plan may help lower her costs, she’s also skeptical. The Syversons pay $550 a month for insurance, or $50 less than Shelly’s monthly pension.
“The health-care burden on the middle-class is the biggest tax we have,” said Darryl, 62, who is semi-retired and coaches high school basketball.
Feeling the ‘Pinch’
Iowa has the second-lowest rate of uninsured in the U.S., said Ann Selzer, president of
Selzer and Co., a Des Moines- based public opinion research company. “The crisis in Iowa is more about what’s happening with costs being shifted from employers to employees,” she said. “That’s the middle-class starting to feel this pinch and there are far more of them.”
A
Quinnipiac Poll released July 1 highlighted the qualms of middle-class Americans. Sixty-three percent said the main goal should be to reduce costs. The poll, released July 1, was conducted from June 23 to 29 of 3,063 registered voters. It has a margin of error of 1.8 percentage points.
Democratic pollster
Peter Hart conducted another poll for NBC that found most Americans think Obama’s aim is to cover the uninsured. “If that’s the perception, he’s going to have a very difficult time with public opinion,” said Hart.
If middle-class voters believe the plan primarily serves the interests of the poor, there could be a repeat of 1994, said
Matt Bennett, who was a deputy assistant to Clinton.
“The middle class jumped off the bandwagon, and that’s why Clinton’s plan failed,” said Bennett, 44, a vice president at
Third Way, a Washington research group that supports Obama’s plan. Obama “needs to ensure that the middle class remains convinced that they will be the beneficiaries of the reform.”
Obama’s Message
White House spokeswoman
Linda Douglass said Obama’s “central message” is lowering costs for average Americans.
“He’s fully aware and knowledgeable about what happened in 1994,” she said.
Obama, who is pressing Congress to get a bill to his desk by October, emphasized at a July 1 town-hall meeting in Virginia how his plan will rein in costs. “If we want to control our deficits, the only way for us to do it is to control health-care costs,” he said.
The good news for Obama is that Americans, by a 20-point margin, trust him more than congressional Republicans on health care, the Quinnipiac poll found; 69 percent support his efforts to create a government-run option to compete with private insurers, a plan Republicans say will drive many of the companies out of business.
Middle-Class Targets
Republicans are pouncing on the cost issue.
House Minority Leader
John Boehner, 59, said the middle class “will take it on the chin” under Obama’s public option, saying it would result in rationing of care and higher taxes.
“The wealthy will always be able to get the care they need, and most low-income Americans already get government assistance, so Democrats are putting a bulls-eye on the backs of the middle class,” said Boehner.
The president is also under pressure to fund his plan by taxing health-care benefits, an idea that 73 percent of middle- class voters reject, the Quinnipiac survey found.
In Elkader, Ted Fleener, a 60-year-old school counselor, urged Grassley to oppose taxing benefits. “At least keep that one break for those of us in the middle class,” Fleener said.
“It is difficult politically, because the benefits of this health-care reform won’t be felt for a while,” said Senator
Dick Durbin, 64, of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2- ranking Democrat. “The expense may be felt from the beginning. People don’t like taxes.”
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