Skip to footer

Will health care reform be successful? Capital Hill barbershops show no

President Obama has promised that more government will make health care cheaper and more available. A comparison of two Capitol Hill barbershops sheds some light on whether the president has it right.

|
Rebecca Craig/AP/The Daily Times
Comparing the privatized House barbershop to the government operated Senate barbershop sheds some light on the future success of health care reform, French argues.
  • By Douglas French Guest blogger

The Supreme Court is going to consider the constitutionality of ObamaCare in the coming weeks, but the government takeover of healthcare didn’t start with the current president, but with Harry Truman decades ago.

We’re told the nation’s health care needs fixed: That the free market isn’t providing for this vital service adequately.  However, America’s healthcare hasn’t been left to the free market since World War II.   The president has promised that more government will make healthcare cheaper and more available.

A comparison of two capitol hill barber shops will shed some light on whether the president has it right.  The Senate and the House of Representatives each have a barbershop for member use.  In 1994, the House barbershop was privatized by Republicans who had taken over control of the House that year for the first time in decades.  The Senate shop has remained a government operation.

Before it was turned into a private enterprise, the House shop employed 16 barbers, each of whom received federal pensions and benefits. Now the shop has three employees, one of which is part-time.

“We’ve gone through a lot of changes, with members going back to their districts on the weekends and fewer customers because of the extra security that the House has put up after 9/11, but we’re all self-employed,” long-time House barber Joe Quattrone says. “Money’s not everything. I love coming to work every day. Would you rather go to a job you hated for $50,000 or one you liked for $40,000?”

The House shop actually turned a profit last year, despite occupying an inferior location in the Rayburn House Office Building, farther from the two adjoining House buildings than is the Senate’s barbershop.

Meanwhile, the Senate Hair Care Services, the formal name for the Senate barbershop, with its 11 employees, required a $300,000 taxpayer bailout to keep its barber pole lighted, despite not having to pay the government a dime in rent.

Having the advantage of government subsidy, one might assume senators pay less for their haircuts and shaves than House members.  Not hardly.  While the Senate barbershop charges $23 for a trim with water but no shampoo and $20 for a shave, the House barbershop charges $17 and $10.

So while many lawmakers are all for having the government take over healthcare and other things that private enterprise can provide better and cheaper, the inefficiency of the Senate barbershop has at least one big government cheerleader wondering.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., is no fan of free markets, but says “I would like to know why the Senate barbershop is running its business into the red.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Will health care reform be successful? Capital Hill barbershops show no
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Circle-Bastiat/2012/0321/Will-health-care-reform-be-successful-Capital-Hill-barbershops-show-no
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe