[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 7 (Wednesday, February 2, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          AN UNHEALTHY CHOICE

                                 ______


                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 2, 1994

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call to the attention of my 
colleagues and other readers of the Record the following editorial by 
Mike Royko which appeared in the Knoxville News-Sentinel on January 26.
  Although Mr. Royko's piece is clearly intended to inject a bit of 
humor into the health care reform debate, I believe that the point he 
makes is a very valid one.
  As we undertake the monumental task of reforming our health care 
system, we would do well to rely on the input of those who know the 
system best, rather than those who readily acknowledge that they are 
not experts in the field.

           [From the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Jan. 26, 1994]

An Unhealthy Choice: Who Better to Be the Government's New Health Care 
                          Czar Than a Lawyer?

                            (By Mike Royko)

       The White House has brought in a new health-care czar. It 
     is his job to pull everything together and get the Clinton's 
     revolutionary plan turned into law.
       And I have to admit that the new health plan boss--Harold 
     M. Ickes--has perfect credentials for the job.
       First of all, he is a lawyer. But of course. Just about 
     everyone involved in rebuilding the nation's medical world is 
     a lawyer. Around the White House, especially the health-care 
     people, if you don't know how to write a writ, you are 
     considered a barbarian.
       It is rumored, falsely, I assume, that when a physician 
     tried to sneak into one of the planning meetings, he was 
     taken to the White House basement, put in chains and whipped 
     with his own stethoscope. He was released, they say, only 
     after promising to enroll in law school.
       And what does health czar Ickes know about health care? 
     Besides flossing his teeth, apparently not much.
       As a New York Times story that raved about his brilliance 
     said:
       ``What Mr. Ickes does not bring to his job, he 
     acknowledges, is expertise in health care.''
       It quotes him as saying: ``I was brought in to help talk 
     strategy and help manage the overall process. I wasn't 
     brought down here to be a health-care expert.''
       Which makes perfect sense. You put someone in charge of 
     steering a monster-size reshaping of our nation's health care 
     through Congress, the last thing you want to do is confuse 
     him with details about actual health care. A bed pan is a bed 
     pan. You see one bed pan, you've seen them all. So what else 
     does he have to know about health care?
       No, the special skills that Ickes brings to his role as the 
     new health czar were described by a Clinton political 
     adviser.
       ``Harold brings passion and excitement.''
       Those, of course, are qualities any sensible person would 
     look for in a health-care czar.
       Or in a blind date.
       But he has other qualifications that make him an ideal 
     choice for the Clinton administration.
       He was born into a prominent political family, his father a 
     Cabinet member for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
       And as one who came of age in the '60s, he has marched to 
     the same social drumbeats as most of the friends of Bill and 
     Hillary.
       He, like Clinton, was part of the anti-war movement. And he 
     worked in the presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy (a 
     loser), Ed Muskie (another loser), Morris Udall (a really 
     spectacular loser), Ted Kennedy (a loser, but a fun guy at 
     the beach), Walter Mondale (a dull loser) and Jesse Jackson 
     (a feisty loser).
       Most recently, he worked for New York Mayor David Dinkins, 
     who managed to defy all odds by running so flabby a campaign 
     that he lost an election Beavis and Butt-head could have won.
       So Ickes, as a political operative, has never been 
     described as a kingmaker. He appears to have spent most 
     election nights sitting around with a lot of depressing 
     people.
       But it isn't whether you win or lose, or even how you play 
     the game. It's whether you get in a big law firm, make some 
     bucks, and pick up some important friends along the way.
       And Ickes became one of those fortunate people who is a 
     Friend of Hillary and Bill.
       He ran Clinton's New York primary campaign, which Clinton 
     won. Considering the drabness of the competition, that is not 
     one of the major political triumphs of the 20th century. But 
     it helped Clinton stumble to his destiny as Arkansas' gift to 
     the rest of us.
       And now he is in charge of shoving the Clintons' health-
     care package down our throats. Or from the opposite 
     direction, if you want to think of it that way.
       While he doesn't know as much about health care as the 
     nurse on the midnight shift at your local hospital, he 
     realizes how important this program is.
       ``It's probably the most important social program, 
     certainly in my lifetime and probably in decades. It (is) a 
     great opportunity to work with this administration and on 
     this program.''
       Absolutely right. And I wish him luck. I also offer a bit 
     of advice: If the pressures of being the health-care czar get 
     to you, and you get sweaty and feel chest pains, dizziness, 
     you can just ring your secretary and have her rush in one of 
     your fellow White House lawyer health-care experts.
       He can thump on your stomach to get the old heart pumping 
     again, give you mouth to ear, and you'll be as good as new.

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