The strangest of bedfellows: Tom Coburn and... the gay community?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Suzy Khimm is reporting at The Plank, right-wing Republican Sen. Tom Coburn has actually co-writting an op-ed for The Advocate, a leading gay publication.

His message? Government is bad, specifically when it comes to health care. (Yes, this is part of the ongoing Republican propaganda campaign against reform.)

Indeed, he argues that, with respect to AIDS patients seeking the drugs they need, "bureaucratic inefficiencies and mismanagement have literally cost lives."

Khimm notes obvious problems here:

Coburn doesn't explain, of course, how the private market or his own reforms will succeed in making expensive AIDS drugs more affordable than the current Ryan White programs, other than repeating the line that insurers shouldn't be able to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions. But what makes the argument even more difficult to take seriously is the fact that Coburn -- one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate -- has a long history of vicious attacks on gay rights, the gay community, and "the gay agenda."

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Coburn's history makes it a bit incredible to think he can now appeal to the LGBT community when it comes to the life or death decisions surrounding health care reform. If he's softened his anti-gay views, that'd certainly be a welcome development. But if Republicans seriously want to make inroads within the gay community, they should think twice about who might be their best envoy.

There is no perfect solution to America's health-care crisis, and the proponents of meaningful reform (which ought to include a robust public option) are not arguing that every problem will be solved by offering people an alternative to strictly private coverage. (And, of course, it's not like the reform packages being proposed by the Democrats involve full-scale nationalization or the introduction of a single-payer system, whatever the lies being tossed around by the right.)

But does the gay community agree with Coburn? Well, the gay community is hardly a monolith, but I doubt that his stridently anti-reform views meet with much support among gays and lesbians.

And do AIDS patients agree with him? Again, I doubt it. While there is likely a good deal of criticism of the current system, and of bureaucratic incompetence, is the right solution to take government out of the picture altogether and to turn the system wholly over to private insurers? Hardly. What there needs to be is choice, which means a public option, and the availability of the best possible care to all Americans. I realize that the situation is different for (some) AIDS patients than, say, for parents seeking general preventive care for their children, or for those who need expensive treatment for some illness but are being denied coverage by their private insurers, or for those who have no insurance at all, and so on, but surely they understand the appeal not just of reform generally but of the sort of meaningful reform that will give people choice, rather than just whatever private insurance structure they're forced into, and bring many more Americans into a system that currently excludes so many.

Simply, this outreach to the gay community by an anti-gay bigot is nothing but a cynical ploy to spread GOP lies. There is no reason to take Coburn seriously, and, one hopes, the readers of The Advocate won't.