What a week for the O man ! ObamaCare is crashing and burning, Obama holds presser for disinterested public, and Obama sticks his nose where it doesn't belong re: the Henry Louis Gates arrest in Cambridge, yelling fire in a burning theater. Time for a vacation O -- Martha's vineyard of course, where all community organizers go.
Still, its all Obama, all the time for the media ... boy does this guy crave being on TV.
Best line: Obama's magic is fading because it can't survive contact with daylight.
[mark steyn]
Here we go:
What's Next? [Victor Davis Hanson]
Somehow the president in the last few hours, in his now characteristic stereotyping, has managed to insult the nation's police with his "stupidly" comment, the nation's surgeons with his reference to greedy tonsil-cutting, and the nation's elderly with his aspirin quip — all reminiscent of the "typical white person" castoff, Pennsylvania clingers speech, and the Special Olympics one-liner. Given his propensity to apologize abroad for the purported sins of other earlier Americans, can we expect some "I'm sorry"s for his own clumsy generalizations? No wonder Robert Gibbs and Joe Biden have little worries that their own logorrhea will have any consequences.
Promoting Racial Paranoia - Heather MacDonald
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTU4MGE4MDkwYzhiYjY4OTk2OWRlZjcyMWY0MjFkNmE=
The All-Obama, All-the-Time Fatigue [Veronique de Rugy]
Peter Baker at the New York Times talks about the Obamamania and the news cycle. He explains that the president is probably overusing the media and his image by giving speeches and interviews all of the time.
In the past four days, Mr. Obama gave “exclusive” interviews to Jim Lehrer of PBS, Katie Couric of CBS and Meredith Vieira of NBC. He gave two interviews to The Washington Post on one day, one to the editorial page editor and one to news reporters. He held a conference call with bloggers. His hourlong session in the East Room on Wednesday night was his second news conference of the day. And on Thursday, he invited Terry Moran of ABC to spend the day with him for a “Nightline” special.
Keep reading this post . . .
Charles Krauthammer:
On President Obama’s comments on Gates’ arrest:
Well, it sounds as if Obama was saying, "I can no more renounce Henry Louis Gates than I could renounce my own grandmother."
He should have said, "I am a friend of Gates, and therefore I'm inclined to believe his story. But since there's no way I can know what actually happened, I'll decline a comment." That would have been the right response.
Instead, the president waded into something when there is no possible way in which he could know what actually occurred, and he then implied—and he does this always cleverly and without leaving a fingerprint—that it was on account of racism, again, without any evidence.
It's not what a president ought to do. I think, as journalists, we always add the word "alleged, alleged, alleged" in talking about any ongoing story about alleged criminal activity…and that's because we (a) have to demonstrate and acknowledge ignorance, and, secondly, as a way of showing impartiality. That's what a president has to do. His influence in the country is a lot more than any journalist, and I think it was incumbent upon him to stay away.
Instead, he developed the Gates' narrative of racism, and I think in a situation in which it was at least, as of now, entirely unwarranted.
On the growing resistance to Obama’s health-care plan:
I think the reason the president has been so much in a hurry to push this before August is precisely because he's afraid the more people learn about this, the less they are going to like it.
If you watch that poll you cited, 80 percent of Americans think it [health-care reform] is going to raise their taxes, 18 percent aren't sure. I love that 1 percent who think there is going to be a decrease in taxes. I want to meet that guy...
I understand why the president is arguing [to the Blue Dogs]: You don't want to weaken a president who was strong in '08, who swept a lot of you into office. You don't want to weaken him, because if he loses on health care, he is very much a weakened president. It could hurt them in 2010.
However, these guys who already are in conservative districts have swallowed hemlock on behalf of the president on cap-and-trade. They have been really wounded on that, extremely unpopular, and it didn't even pass in the Senate. So it was a wasted negative vote...
I'm not sure they want a second swig of that hemlock on health care.
'Talks Break Down, Intra-Party Tension Heats Up For House Democrats' [NRO Staff]
From CNN.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Health care negotiations among Democratic leaders and conservative so-called Blue Dog Democrats have reached an impasse, according to members of Congress on both sides of the talks.
As a result, Democratic leaders are moving towards bypassing conservatives in their own party and holding a House health care vote over their objections.
Stars don't shine in sunlight [Mark Steyn]
Charles Krauthammer makes a good point:
The president retreated to a demand that any bill he sign be revenue-neutral. But that’s classic misdirection: If the fierce urgency of health-care reform is to radically reduce costs that are producing budget-destroying deficits, revenue neutrality (by definition) leaves us on precisely the same path to insolvency that Obama himself declares unsustainable.
The question is whether Obama is so cool he can get away with ever more self-contradictory nonsense. Even fantasy has to conform to a basic internal reality . The 49% poll number, and the steep ratings decline for his ever less compelling press conferences suggest the Obama unreality show will have trouble keeping up the cool.
From The New York Times:
In the past four days, Mr. Obama gave “exclusive” interviews to Jim Lehrer of PBS, Katie Couric of CBS and Meredith Vieira of NBC. He gave two interviews to The Washington Post on one day, one to the editorial page editor and one to news reporters. He held a conference call with bloggers. His hourlong session in the East Room on Wednesday night was his second news conference of the day. And on Thursday, he invited Terry Moran of ABC to spend the day with him for a “Nightline” special.
The all-Obama, all-the-time carpet bombing of the news media represents a strategy by a White House seeking to deploy its most effective asset in service of its goals, none more critical now than health care legislation. But longtime Washington hands warn that saturation coverage can diminish the power of his voice and lose public attention.
No real star goes in for over-exposure, because you're devaluing your own currency. (And that's before you add in off-prompter missteps like the Prof Gates answer.) Bagehot's famous line on the British monarchy is that you mustn't let daylight in upon magic. Obama's magic is fading because it can't survive contact with daylight.
What O Don't Know ! :
Know-Nothing-in-Chief There's no evidence Obama has even a sketchy grasp of economics. by Fred Barnes 08/03/2009
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/765kishz.asp
CBO Strikes Again [Yuval Levin]
As it has become clear that the Democrats’ health care proposals are outrageously expensive and that their various proposals for savings (like computerizing medical records and improving preventive care) wouldn’t come close to covering the cost, President Obama and his allies in Congress have turned to a new magic formula for cost savings: a panel of experts that will figure out how to make Medicare much more efficient, and then will make recommendations on which the Congress would vote up or down, but could not change. My colleague James Capretta and I discuss this idea, among other turns in the debate, in the new Weekly Standard here. As the president described it in his news conference on Wednesday, this would be an “independent group of doctors and medical experts who are empowered to eliminate waste and inefficiency in Medicare on an annual basis — a proposal that could save even more money and ensure long-term financial health for Medicare.”
Today, the Congressional Budget Office released a document that examines the potential of this idea, and (as has happened every time their claims in the health care debate have been examined in detail) the news is not good for the Democrats. Will the council of experts save enough money to help offset the trillion dollar program now being contemplated? Here’s CBO:
CBO estimates that enacting the proposal, as drafted, would yield savings of $2 billion over the 2010–2019 period (with all of the savings realized in fiscal years 2016 through 2019) if the proposal was added to H.R. 3200, the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, as introduced in the House of Representatives. This estimate represents the expected value of the 10-year savings from the proposal: In CBO’s judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized, for reasons discussed below, but there is also a chance that substantial savings might be realized.
Their best assessment, in other words, is that the idea could save $2 billion over ten years, or in the neighborhood of two-tenths of one percent of the amount the Democrats want to spend on their health care program in that period. But the probability is high that it wouldn’t even save that much.
It’s no wonder this was released on a Saturday morning.
oh boy; so much material .... to be continued
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Obama & ObamaCare -- Brazenly Dishonest
Barack Obama's Brazen Dishonesty [Rich Lowry]
Maybe I'm naïve, but I continue to be shocked by Obama's willful and blatant dishonesty on health care. Again today, he said, "If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it. Let me repeat that: If you like your plan, you'll be able to keep it." This is just not true.
The Lewin evaluation of the House bill says 80 million people would lose their employer coverage under the plan. Obama can't admit the truth here or it would be devastating for his case. So he keeps up with the same rote prevarication. And right before that line, he said this, "Americans will be able to compare the price and quality of different plans, and pick the plan that they want." Also, untrue.
As Jim Capretta discusses here, the Democrats are erecting "firewalls" precisely to limit people's choices. And earlier in his remarks, Obama said, "Health-care costs are the biggest drivers of our deficit. Nobody disputes that." Yet again, not true. In 50–80 years, if it's not under control, health-care inflation will be the largest driver of our deficit, but in the medium term it is the aging of the Baby Boomers (who will keeping aging even if ObamaCare passes). It is a sign of how weak Obama's position is on health care that he can't argue for it honestly.
An Ideologue in a Hurry - When the work product is indefensible, deliberation is dangerous. By Rich Lowry
When Barack Obama pilfered Martin Luther King Jr.’s line about the “fierce urgency of now,” he wasn’t kidding. The line has come to define his presidency. His legislative strategy moves in two gears — heedlessly fast and recklessly faster.
As with the stimulus package, Obama’s health-care plan depends on speed. More important than any given provision, more important than any principle, more important than sound legislating is the urgent imperative to Do It Now.
Do it now, before anyone can grasp what exactly it is that Congress is passing. Do it now, before the overpromising and the dishonest justifications can be exposed. Do it now, before Obama’s poll numbers return to Earth and make it impossible to slam through ramshackle government programs concocted on the run. Do it now, because simply growing government is more important than the practicalities of any new program.
The stimulus partly drives the rush on health care. The program was so ill-considered and so festooned with irrelevant liberal priorities as the price of hustling it through Congress that it becomes more of a drag for Obama every day. So health care has to be rushed through before Obama pays the full price for the failure of his previous rush job. Haste — and waste — makes for more haste.
Obama cultivated an image of cool during the campaign. Unrattled. Deliberate. Cerebral to a fault. Who knew he’d be in a panic to remake one-sixth of the economy by the first week of August of his first year in office?
Normally, the larger and more complicated a bill is, the longer Congress takes to consider it. With the stimulus and cap-and-trade, Obama and the Democrats upended this rule of thumb by passing byzantine, 1,000-page bills that no one had the time to read. When the work product is indefensible, deliberation is dangerous.
There’s a touch of the guilty conscience about Obama’s terrible rush. As if he knows he was elected as a moderate-sounding deficit hawk last year, and if he’s going to pass an ambitious left-wing program, he must do it before the opposition builds.
Why else the mad dash? Obama noted in an interview with ABC News the other day that his health program won’t be phased in until 2013. That’s four years from now. The problem that Obama describes of rising health-care costs bankrupting the government is also a long-term issue, one that needn’t be addressed in pell-mell fashion over the next two weeks.
But the longer Obama’s health-care program marinates in the sun, the worse it smells. Obama’s signature line that anyone who likes his current coverage gets to keep it has been shown to be untrue in recent weeks. His rationale of passing a $1 trillion program to reduce costs is undermined every time the Congressional Budget Office analyzes a real Democratic proposal. No wonder Obama wants to close down the debate before his rating on health care — down to 49 percent in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll — drops any farther.
Ramming through legislation without any assurance that it will work doesn’t seem pragmatic or farsighted. But for Obama’s purposes, it is. His goal is nothing short of an ideological reorientation of American government. Putting in place the structures to achieve this change in the power and role of government is more important than how precisely it is accomplished.
The stimulus might not do much to stimulate the economy during the recession, but its massive spending creates a new baseline for all future spending. The cap-and-trade bill might not reduce carbon emissions during the next decade, but it creates a mechanism for exerting government control over a huge swath of the economy. Obamacare might not work as advertised, but it will tip more people into government care and create the predicate for rationing and price controls.
Barack Obama is an ideologue in a hurry. He wants to put American government on a radically different path. And he wants to Do It Now.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTMyM2FmYmIzNGYwNzg3NmU0MjM0ZTI0YzFiNjI2Zjk=
Re: An Ideologue in a Hurry [Anthony Dick]
Rich, the phenomenon you describe in your column today should (not that it actually will) create some serious discomfort for those who have spent the last year lauding Obama as a thoughtful pragmatist. As you note, what's striking about his health-care agenda is how hurried and ideologically focused it has been, with comparatively little concern for the practical details of how the massive new program is supposed to function, much less control costs. He has brought all hands on deck to ram through a government health-care system, any government health-care system, without showing a lick of real interest in bipartisan compromise or concessions to fiscal reality. If this were a Republican president, he would be rigid, inflexible, dogmatic, and all the rest. Instead, he's simply devoted to his principles of reform in the service of social justice.
As I've argued before, the idea that pragmatism can operate independently of ideology has never been anything more than a political smokescreen:
It’s impossible to eschew ideology in order to “just do what works,” because any understanding of “what works” depends on the antecedent questions of what our policy goals should be and which instrumental policies are most likely to succeed in the world — both of which are heavily ideological questions.
'Obama concedes health plan needs work' Reuters:
President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the healthcare overhaul plan working its way through the U.S. Congress needs more work amid signs his top policy initiative, already rejected by Republicans, was running into deeper trouble with his own Democrats.
Hoyer Says House May Recess Before Health Care Vote
Bloomberg:
U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer left open the possibility the House may leave for its August recess without voting on health-care legislation, saying the members must still reach a consensus.
President Barack Obama has asked the House and Senate to pass their separate versions of the bill before they leave for recess early next month.
Hoyer said he sees no reason to keep the House in session past the August deadline, though he said he’s still optimistic the members can reach a “consensus” on legislation.
“We are continuing to talk about how to improve the bill,” Hoyer said at his weekly press conference. “Obviously members have concerns.” The Republicans “want us to fail,” he said.
“I don"t think staying in session is necessary” to “working on getting consensus,” he said.
Coalition of State and Specialty Medical Associations Opposes Public Option, Coverage Mandates
The coalition delivered this letter to the chairs of the relevant congressional committees today. Most significantly, the coalition writes:
1. Public Option. We oppose the creation of a government-run health plan that will compete unfairly with the private market. We are concerned that any government plan will always have advantages that are not available to the private sector. These unfair advantages will effectively crowd out the private market leaving only a government–run option available.
2. Individual and Employer Mandates. We oppose legislation that will require individuals or employers to purchase health care insurance. We support reforms that will encourage individuals to own their health plan and that will encourage employers to help finance premiums for their employees.
This is in contrast to the AMA, which, recently endorsed the House Democrats' package — public option, coverage mandates and all.
Obama in Campaign Mode [Rich Lowry]
It's rapidly congealing conventional wisdom that Obama will benefit from the health-care debate entering into a campaign-style phase. Obama's a brilliant campaigner, Republicans are still a weak and inviting target, etc., etc. The problem for Obama is that now, in contrast to the campaign last year, his words can be checked against actual existing legislation. He can't just make dubious, free-floating, all-things-to-all-people promises. Or he can, but they are belied by the legislation he's touting.
No matter how often he says that people will be allowed to keep the coverage they have now if they like it, or that the cost curve will be bent downward, it doesn't change the fact that the Democratic legislation does neither of those things. It may be that the harder Obama pushes on this, the more he discredits himself.
Subject: Obama in Campaign Mode [Rich Lowry]
E-mail:
And one more thing….Unlike 2008, Obama is way behind in the polls:
Trying to impose Government Controlled Healthcare on a nation that doesn’t want it is significantly harder than running against a candidate for president who gets the nomination from the incumbent party whose leader had approval ratings in the mid to upper 20’s (and who’s base didn’t really like him).
More specifically this why Obama is going to lose, quoting from the results of this Rasmussen poll:
Should We Hike Taxes for Healthcare? 41-47 (-6)
Given a choice between health care reform and a tax hike or no health care reform and no tax hike, 47% would prefer to avoid the tax hike and do without reform. Forty-one percent (41%) take the opposite view.
Does America Believe in Hope & Change When it Comes to Healthcare? 32-54; (-22)
The opposition is stronger when asked about a choice between health care reform that would require changing existing health insurance coverage or no health care reform and no change from current coverage. In that case, voters oppose reform by a 54% to 32% margin
Should Government Even be an Option (35-50; -15)
Also, by a 50% to 35% margin, Americans oppose the creation of a government insurance company to compete with private insurers.
Is the Public Buying the Claim that Only the “Rich” Will Pay
Surveys released at the end of this past week show that 78% believe the passage of health care reform is likely to mean middle-class tax hikes.
Its not the Coverage Stupid, it’s the Cost — Addressing the Issues Surrounding HealthCare the Voters Care Least About
Sixty-one percent (61%) of voters nationwide say that cost is the biggest health care problem facing the nation today. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 21% believe the lack of universal health insurance coverage is a bigger problem. Only 10% believe the quality of care is the top concern, and two percent (2%) point to the inconvenience factor of dealing with the current medical system.
Subject: If You Like Your Plan You Will Be Able to Keep It [Rich Lowry]
E-mail:
Obama is telling the truth.
The fact is that you won't like your plan when private plans have to raise rates as a result of more widespread gov't under-reimbursement of doctors and hospitals (docs/hospitals shifting costs to private insurers as they do now as a result of under-reimbursement of Medicare/Medicaid).
And of course, if your private insurer goes out of business, well that's not Obama's problem. It's not his fault that your insurer decided to shut down because it can't make any money.
So it's more like "If you like paying high premiums as a result of my plan, you will be able to keep your plan, that is if you insurer hasn’t decided to go out of business as a result of my plan.”…
More “Keep Your Plan” [Rich Lowry]
E-mail:
I don't understand why people are forgetting about the other part of that broken promise. If anything would resonate with the average American, it's that he promised them $2,500 and is delivering them zero (at best). The GOP should be pounding this one home daily:
2nd debate:
"So here's what I would do. If you've got health care already, and probably the majority of you do, then you can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it. You can keep your choice of doctor. We're going to work with your employer to lower the cost of your premiums by up to $2,500 a year."
...
"Number one, let me just repeat, if you've got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. All I'm going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You'll still have choice of doctor. There's no mandate involved."
3rd debate:
"The only thing we're going to try to do is lower costs so that those cost savings are passed onto you. And we estimate we can cut the average family's premium by about $2,500 per year."
Transition agenda:
"Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year."
Charles Krauthammer:
What happened with that [CBO] assessment is that we went from the level of rhetoric to reality.
As long as it was on a rhetorical level, Obama had high numbers on this [health-care reform] because he promised the impossible—expanded coverage, less cost. And he made it sound doable and wonderful. Of course it is—if it could be done.
The minute it entered into language and legislation, it became obvious that it can't happen.
What's interesting is how the legislation itself is dying of the cuts of a thousand deaths by Democrats. All of those numbers are coming out in Democratic bills and Democratic hearings. The rebellion is among the Democratic Blue Dogs who do not want to destroy the budget.
And because of that, I'm a little bit worried about Michael Steele, as head of the RNC, taking on the president of the rhetorical level with a speech he made in which he said "Slow down, Mr. President”…
The cardinal rule in Washington is if the other guy is committing suicide, get out of the way. All of these revolts and difficulties are happening in the Democratic side of the aisle.
By entering into a one-on-one rhetorically—Steele against Obama—Obama always wins. He is the master rhetorician.
And the idea of "slow down" is not the best slogan, because Obama is going to be out there in Cleveland, and he's going to find Mrs. Smith in the audience who has a nine-year-old child who is not getting adequate health care, and he will say that the Republicans are saying "Slow down, Mrs. Smith." This stuff writes itself.
If you want to make a slogan—“Stop, Mr. President. Don't imagine that your boy geniuses in the White House, these social engineers, are going to reconstruct a sixth of the American economy and do it well."
Maybe I'm naïve, but I continue to be shocked by Obama's willful and blatant dishonesty on health care. Again today, he said, "If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it. Let me repeat that: If you like your plan, you'll be able to keep it." This is just not true.
The Lewin evaluation of the House bill says 80 million people would lose their employer coverage under the plan. Obama can't admit the truth here or it would be devastating for his case. So he keeps up with the same rote prevarication. And right before that line, he said this, "Americans will be able to compare the price and quality of different plans, and pick the plan that they want." Also, untrue.
As Jim Capretta discusses here, the Democrats are erecting "firewalls" precisely to limit people's choices. And earlier in his remarks, Obama said, "Health-care costs are the biggest drivers of our deficit. Nobody disputes that." Yet again, not true. In 50–80 years, if it's not under control, health-care inflation will be the largest driver of our deficit, but in the medium term it is the aging of the Baby Boomers (who will keeping aging even if ObamaCare passes). It is a sign of how weak Obama's position is on health care that he can't argue for it honestly.
An Ideologue in a Hurry - When the work product is indefensible, deliberation is dangerous. By Rich Lowry
When Barack Obama pilfered Martin Luther King Jr.’s line about the “fierce urgency of now,” he wasn’t kidding. The line has come to define his presidency. His legislative strategy moves in two gears — heedlessly fast and recklessly faster.
As with the stimulus package, Obama’s health-care plan depends on speed. More important than any given provision, more important than any principle, more important than sound legislating is the urgent imperative to Do It Now.
Do it now, before anyone can grasp what exactly it is that Congress is passing. Do it now, before the overpromising and the dishonest justifications can be exposed. Do it now, before Obama’s poll numbers return to Earth and make it impossible to slam through ramshackle government programs concocted on the run. Do it now, because simply growing government is more important than the practicalities of any new program.
The stimulus partly drives the rush on health care. The program was so ill-considered and so festooned with irrelevant liberal priorities as the price of hustling it through Congress that it becomes more of a drag for Obama every day. So health care has to be rushed through before Obama pays the full price for the failure of his previous rush job. Haste — and waste — makes for more haste.
Obama cultivated an image of cool during the campaign. Unrattled. Deliberate. Cerebral to a fault. Who knew he’d be in a panic to remake one-sixth of the economy by the first week of August of his first year in office?
Normally, the larger and more complicated a bill is, the longer Congress takes to consider it. With the stimulus and cap-and-trade, Obama and the Democrats upended this rule of thumb by passing byzantine, 1,000-page bills that no one had the time to read. When the work product is indefensible, deliberation is dangerous.
There’s a touch of the guilty conscience about Obama’s terrible rush. As if he knows he was elected as a moderate-sounding deficit hawk last year, and if he’s going to pass an ambitious left-wing program, he must do it before the opposition builds.
Why else the mad dash? Obama noted in an interview with ABC News the other day that his health program won’t be phased in until 2013. That’s four years from now. The problem that Obama describes of rising health-care costs bankrupting the government is also a long-term issue, one that needn’t be addressed in pell-mell fashion over the next two weeks.
But the longer Obama’s health-care program marinates in the sun, the worse it smells. Obama’s signature line that anyone who likes his current coverage gets to keep it has been shown to be untrue in recent weeks. His rationale of passing a $1 trillion program to reduce costs is undermined every time the Congressional Budget Office analyzes a real Democratic proposal. No wonder Obama wants to close down the debate before his rating on health care — down to 49 percent in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll — drops any farther.
Ramming through legislation without any assurance that it will work doesn’t seem pragmatic or farsighted. But for Obama’s purposes, it is. His goal is nothing short of an ideological reorientation of American government. Putting in place the structures to achieve this change in the power and role of government is more important than how precisely it is accomplished.
The stimulus might not do much to stimulate the economy during the recession, but its massive spending creates a new baseline for all future spending. The cap-and-trade bill might not reduce carbon emissions during the next decade, but it creates a mechanism for exerting government control over a huge swath of the economy. Obamacare might not work as advertised, but it will tip more people into government care and create the predicate for rationing and price controls.
Barack Obama is an ideologue in a hurry. He wants to put American government on a radically different path. And he wants to Do It Now.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTMyM2FmYmIzNGYwNzg3NmU0MjM0ZTI0YzFiNjI2Zjk=
Re: An Ideologue in a Hurry [Anthony Dick]
Rich, the phenomenon you describe in your column today should (not that it actually will) create some serious discomfort for those who have spent the last year lauding Obama as a thoughtful pragmatist. As you note, what's striking about his health-care agenda is how hurried and ideologically focused it has been, with comparatively little concern for the practical details of how the massive new program is supposed to function, much less control costs. He has brought all hands on deck to ram through a government health-care system, any government health-care system, without showing a lick of real interest in bipartisan compromise or concessions to fiscal reality. If this were a Republican president, he would be rigid, inflexible, dogmatic, and all the rest. Instead, he's simply devoted to his principles of reform in the service of social justice.
As I've argued before, the idea that pragmatism can operate independently of ideology has never been anything more than a political smokescreen:
It’s impossible to eschew ideology in order to “just do what works,” because any understanding of “what works” depends on the antecedent questions of what our policy goals should be and which instrumental policies are most likely to succeed in the world — both of which are heavily ideological questions.
'Obama concedes health plan needs work' Reuters:
President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the healthcare overhaul plan working its way through the U.S. Congress needs more work amid signs his top policy initiative, already rejected by Republicans, was running into deeper trouble with his own Democrats.
Hoyer Says House May Recess Before Health Care Vote
Bloomberg:
U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer left open the possibility the House may leave for its August recess without voting on health-care legislation, saying the members must still reach a consensus.
President Barack Obama has asked the House and Senate to pass their separate versions of the bill before they leave for recess early next month.
Hoyer said he sees no reason to keep the House in session past the August deadline, though he said he’s still optimistic the members can reach a “consensus” on legislation.
“We are continuing to talk about how to improve the bill,” Hoyer said at his weekly press conference. “Obviously members have concerns.” The Republicans “want us to fail,” he said.
“I don"t think staying in session is necessary” to “working on getting consensus,” he said.
Coalition of State and Specialty Medical Associations Opposes Public Option, Coverage Mandates
The coalition delivered this letter to the chairs of the relevant congressional committees today. Most significantly, the coalition writes:
1. Public Option. We oppose the creation of a government-run health plan that will compete unfairly with the private market. We are concerned that any government plan will always have advantages that are not available to the private sector. These unfair advantages will effectively crowd out the private market leaving only a government–run option available.
2. Individual and Employer Mandates. We oppose legislation that will require individuals or employers to purchase health care insurance. We support reforms that will encourage individuals to own their health plan and that will encourage employers to help finance premiums for their employees.
This is in contrast to the AMA, which, recently endorsed the House Democrats' package — public option, coverage mandates and all.
Obama in Campaign Mode [Rich Lowry]
It's rapidly congealing conventional wisdom that Obama will benefit from the health-care debate entering into a campaign-style phase. Obama's a brilliant campaigner, Republicans are still a weak and inviting target, etc., etc. The problem for Obama is that now, in contrast to the campaign last year, his words can be checked against actual existing legislation. He can't just make dubious, free-floating, all-things-to-all-people promises. Or he can, but they are belied by the legislation he's touting.
No matter how often he says that people will be allowed to keep the coverage they have now if they like it, or that the cost curve will be bent downward, it doesn't change the fact that the Democratic legislation does neither of those things. It may be that the harder Obama pushes on this, the more he discredits himself.
Subject: Obama in Campaign Mode [Rich Lowry]
E-mail:
And one more thing….Unlike 2008, Obama is way behind in the polls:
Trying to impose Government Controlled Healthcare on a nation that doesn’t want it is significantly harder than running against a candidate for president who gets the nomination from the incumbent party whose leader had approval ratings in the mid to upper 20’s (and who’s base didn’t really like him).
More specifically this why Obama is going to lose, quoting from the results of this Rasmussen poll:
Should We Hike Taxes for Healthcare? 41-47 (-6)
Given a choice between health care reform and a tax hike or no health care reform and no tax hike, 47% would prefer to avoid the tax hike and do without reform. Forty-one percent (41%) take the opposite view.
Does America Believe in Hope & Change When it Comes to Healthcare? 32-54; (-22)
The opposition is stronger when asked about a choice between health care reform that would require changing existing health insurance coverage or no health care reform and no change from current coverage. In that case, voters oppose reform by a 54% to 32% margin
Should Government Even be an Option (35-50; -15)
Also, by a 50% to 35% margin, Americans oppose the creation of a government insurance company to compete with private insurers.
Is the Public Buying the Claim that Only the “Rich” Will Pay
Surveys released at the end of this past week show that 78% believe the passage of health care reform is likely to mean middle-class tax hikes.
Its not the Coverage Stupid, it’s the Cost — Addressing the Issues Surrounding HealthCare the Voters Care Least About
Sixty-one percent (61%) of voters nationwide say that cost is the biggest health care problem facing the nation today. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 21% believe the lack of universal health insurance coverage is a bigger problem. Only 10% believe the quality of care is the top concern, and two percent (2%) point to the inconvenience factor of dealing with the current medical system.
Subject: If You Like Your Plan You Will Be Able to Keep It [Rich Lowry]
E-mail:
Obama is telling the truth.
The fact is that you won't like your plan when private plans have to raise rates as a result of more widespread gov't under-reimbursement of doctors and hospitals (docs/hospitals shifting costs to private insurers as they do now as a result of under-reimbursement of Medicare/Medicaid).
And of course, if your private insurer goes out of business, well that's not Obama's problem. It's not his fault that your insurer decided to shut down because it can't make any money.
So it's more like "If you like paying high premiums as a result of my plan, you will be able to keep your plan, that is if you insurer hasn’t decided to go out of business as a result of my plan.”…
More “Keep Your Plan” [Rich Lowry]
E-mail:
I don't understand why people are forgetting about the other part of that broken promise. If anything would resonate with the average American, it's that he promised them $2,500 and is delivering them zero (at best). The GOP should be pounding this one home daily:
2nd debate:
"So here's what I would do. If you've got health care already, and probably the majority of you do, then you can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it. You can keep your choice of doctor. We're going to work with your employer to lower the cost of your premiums by up to $2,500 a year."
...
"Number one, let me just repeat, if you've got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. All I'm going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You'll still have choice of doctor. There's no mandate involved."
3rd debate:
"The only thing we're going to try to do is lower costs so that those cost savings are passed onto you. And we estimate we can cut the average family's premium by about $2,500 per year."
Transition agenda:
"Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year."
Charles Krauthammer:
What happened with that [CBO] assessment is that we went from the level of rhetoric to reality.
As long as it was on a rhetorical level, Obama had high numbers on this [health-care reform] because he promised the impossible—expanded coverage, less cost. And he made it sound doable and wonderful. Of course it is—if it could be done.
The minute it entered into language and legislation, it became obvious that it can't happen.
What's interesting is how the legislation itself is dying of the cuts of a thousand deaths by Democrats. All of those numbers are coming out in Democratic bills and Democratic hearings. The rebellion is among the Democratic Blue Dogs who do not want to destroy the budget.
And because of that, I'm a little bit worried about Michael Steele, as head of the RNC, taking on the president of the rhetorical level with a speech he made in which he said "Slow down, Mr. President”…
The cardinal rule in Washington is if the other guy is committing suicide, get out of the way. All of these revolts and difficulties are happening in the Democratic side of the aisle.
By entering into a one-on-one rhetorically—Steele against Obama—Obama always wins. He is the master rhetorician.
And the idea of "slow down" is not the best slogan, because Obama is going to be out there in Cleveland, and he's going to find Mrs. Smith in the audience who has a nine-year-old child who is not getting adequate health care, and he will say that the Republicans are saying "Slow down, Mrs. Smith." This stuff writes itself.
If you want to make a slogan—“Stop, Mr. President. Don't imagine that your boy geniuses in the White House, these social engineers, are going to reconstruct a sixth of the American economy and do it well."
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