Ed Koch Commentary: The Final Comprehensive Health Bill Coming Out of Conference Can Vastly Improve the Current Senate Version By Edward I. Koch

 All the news reports -- except those coming from the White House – labeled the climate talks in Copenhagen a failure.  On December 20, The New York Times reported:

“After two weeks of delays, theatrics and last-minute deal-making, the United Nations climate change talks concluded here early Saturday morning with a grudging agreement by the participants to ‘take note’ of a pact shaped by five major nations.

“The final accord, a 12-paragraph document, was a statement of intention, not a binding pledge to begin taking action on global warming – a compromise seen to represent a flawed but essential step forward.” 

Other stories painted an even worse picture, because they reported on how China, India and Brazil double-dealt with the U.S. and, as reported by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, held a secret meeting from which the U.S. was excluded until President Obama found out about it and joined it.  According to the Daily News, “Kate Horner of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, which has pressed for tough emission targets, trashed the outcome as a ‘toothless declaration.’”

We will now have to wait for the talks to resume in Mexico next year, while the earth gets warmer and glaciers melt.

China, currently the world’s number one polluter, and India, are still not subject to independent monitoring with respect to Greenhouse reduction efforts.  America is now the world’s second largest polluter.

The U.S. is in a bind with respect to China which has become our principal banker and creditor.  China buys U.S. Treasury notes, making it possible for us to finance our ever-increasing deficit.  China, regularly described as a developing country, manufactured 9.3 million cars in 2008 while the U.S. built 8.7 million.  It increased its gross domestic product by 8.9 percent this year, the highest rate for any major economy in the world, compared with our 2.5 percent increase.  India, with a population of 1.15 billion, is nipping at China’s heels.  According to Wikipedia, its middle class is estimated to be 300 million people (by Indian standards but much lower by European or North American standards).  With its growing middle class and an abundance of English speakers, India may ultimately overtake China economically.

The U.S. is being pressured to make a financial contribution to developing nations in dealing with climate change irrespective of whether or not those nations carry out any of their responsibilities. I doubt that the Congress will approve such an expenditure.  It didn’t approve the Kyoto Protocols during the Clinton Administration, because China and India were not subject to any environmental restraints.   

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According to a December 18th Times article, “[a] national coalition of Islamic organizations warned that it would cease cooperating with the F.B.I. unless the agency stopped infiltrating mosques and using ‘agents provocateurs to trap unsuspecting Muslim youths.’”

The article went on, “There is a sense that law enforcement is viewing our communities not as partners but as objects of suspicion, said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America.”

If the FBI were not doing what it is accused of, it would be derelict in its duty.   

The Times reported on a “spate of recent cases” including an “alleged bomb plot by a former Manhattan coffee vendor, Najibullah Zazi, and to the shootings at Fort Hood, in Texas.” 

The Times also referred to “four members of a mosque in Newburgh, N.Y., [who] were charged in May with plotting to bomb two Bronx synagogues.”  Then there is a more recent incident involving five young Muslim Americans who are now in Pakistan.  They were arrested there by Pakistani law enforcement for trying to enlist in terrorist groups, as the Times reports, “with the goal of fighting the United States.”   

In the Muslim community in the U.S., there are those who have demonstrated their support of terrorism directed at the U.S. warranting our security agencies taking lawful measures to infiltrate Muslim groups including mosques to ascertain whether terrorist recruiting is taking place.  Law enforcement should indeed take these measures to prevent attacks on Americans here and abroad.

Some opinion makers, particularly in the U.S. civil liberties community, continue to oppose the powers given to U.S. security agencies under the Patriot Act and seek to rescind them.  I think those powers are necessary for our national security.

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The Senate voted to advance its plan early Sunday morning for comprehensive health insurance.  In the end, Senator Harry Reid succeeded in producing the 60 votes necessary to do that.   

In securing those votes required to bring the bill to the floor, he had to strip the bill of provisions desired by a majority of Democrats in Congress.  The measures dropped included anti-trust prohibitions aimed at preventing insurance companies from continuing to conspire to fix prices; a tort reform scheme that could have saved the government $54 billion over the next ten years; authorization for insurance policy shopping across state lines; use of U.S. funds by poor women to pay for abortions; allowance of Medicare to negotiate volume discounts on prescription drugs that over a ten-year period could have saved a trillion dollars; and the inclusion of a government option which would have provided insurance companies with competition.

I support the Senate’s decision to pass the bill.  I now support efforts to have the final legislation coming out of conference to include many of the items in the House bill which must now be reconciled with the Senate bill.  I also applaud the courage of Dr. Howard Dean who opposed the legislation as a sellout to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries and advocated a no vote, even though for tactical reasons, I would have voted yes.

The Honorable Edward Irving Koch served New York City as its 105th Mayor from 1978 to 1989.