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:: Bart Peterson's new job

Stopping public health care

By David Hoppe

I've written in this space that, in Indianapolis, the terms Democrat and Republican are virtually interchangeable, that the only party that counts is the Business Party. The BP was on full frontal display a couple of weeks ago when Eli Lilly and Co. CEO John Lechleiter announced that the pharmaceutical giant was hiring former mayor Bart Peterson to be its new senior vice president of corporate affairs and communications.

I think Bart Peterson is a likeable man. I voted for him in each of his three runs for mayor. I don't begrudge him taking a job that will doubtless make him very rich.

But this job.

It's going to be Bart Peterson's job to do everything he can to make sure that there is no public health insurance option in this country.

Peterson's new boss, John Lechleiter, has been outspoken in his opposition to a public health care option. That's because he doesn't want the government to be in the position of representing you and me instead of his corporation's interests. He says that a public option could hurt what he calls "innovation."

What Lechleiter doesn't seem to get is that the biggest health care innovation of all would be for this country to provide Medicare for everybody, a public program that would cut administrative and marketing waste and break the sweetheart relationship between the biggest private health insurers and providers like Lilly that make the cost of health care unaffordable to an ever increasing number of businesses and individuals. Sixty percent of all personal bankruptcies in this country have been triggered by health-related issues. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor statistics indicate that more than one million workers lost employee health coverage in the first three months of 2009; in March this amounted to 10,680 workers a day.

President Obama promised to change this sorry situation during his campaign. He says he wants health care reform legislation on his desk by November. Last week he began holding a series of town hall meetings in different parts of the country to hear from people about the kind of health care they want and need.

Until recently, high level discussions about health care reform seemed to favor the pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Congressional leaders like Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, dismissed the idea of a single payer, public program. Advocates for the so-called public option weren't even invited to present their case at hearings. When 13 single-payer advocates stood up and demanded they be allowed to participate at one of Baucus' hearings, he had them arrested by Capitol police.

But when Ted Kennedy rose from his sick bed in Massachusetts to call for a public option, things started changing. President Obama, who formerly seemed content to let senators like Baucus control the process - which amounted to letting pharmaceutical companies like Lilly and insurance companies like WellPoint have their way - got more involved.

This is where Bart Peterson comes in. Peterson is a Democrat, so it is believed he may have a more ready entrée to his fellow party members in Washington, D.C., where Democrats not only hold the presidency, but are the majority party in the House and Senate. Lilly's Lechleiter is no dummy. He knows that if he had a Republican like Mitch Daniels (who, in fact, once held Peterson's job) in charge of his lobbying effort, the guy would be politically radioactive.

Peterson, who will have a budget of $200 million (think how many that might insure) will be expected to use his political know-how to head the momentum for a public health care option off at the pass. "His strategic approach, intellect, and political acumen will make him a valuable addition to Lilly's leadership team," said Lechleiter. "He joins Lilly's top leadership at an important moment in time when Lilly and the pharmaceutical industry face significant challenges both in the U.S. and abroad."

Lilly's biggest challenge is stifling a public health care option, in favor of a private program being pushed by the health care industry and being supported by conservative Democrats like Peterson's old boss, Evan Bayh (whose wife sits on the WellPoint board) and Republicans. This program would mandate the purchase of private policies, subsidize insurance for the poor and pay for those subsidies by taxing employee health benefits. It's been called a bail out for big pharma and health insurers. It also makes it possible for them to avoid having to compete in a marketplace that favors providers over consumers.

If it passes, it will do little or nothing to make health care more affordable. It may also make Barack Obama a one-term president.

In hiring Bart Peterson to do this work, Lilly has chosen a nominal Democrat whose Indianapolis pedigree reveals a greater allegiance to this city's Business Party than to what's best for the rest of us. What a disappointing coincidence that Bart's initials are BP.