August 20-21, 2009
Aug 20 00:30 Tin Ears All Around Aug 20 02:38 Michele Bachman Is Exactly Right Aug 20 07:01 Dems' Scheming To Pass Government Option Aug 20 10:00 Another Prophet of GOP Doom Aug 20 23:36 I Agree With the SEIU Aug 21 02:31 Tim Pawlenty: The Man with the Pitch Perfect Presentation? Aug 21 04:31 Canadacare Is Imploding, Part II Aug 21 07:17 Sen. Schumer, What's the Difference Between a Co-Op & the Public Option? Aug 21 13:16 He Needs More Than a Vacation
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
Tin Ears All Around
On tonight's Special Report roundtable, I was struck by how critical A.B. Stoddard was with the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats. The thing she said, twice actually, that caught my attention was that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats misread the American people. More importantly, she said that they misread their own political party.
I agree with both those points. It's painfully obvious that they misread both groups badly. To me, the more important question to ask is why they miscalculated this that badly. In my opinion, the biggest reason why they miscalculated voters' opinions is because their life inside the Beltway's bubble. The Obama administration hired lots of Washington insiders, including a fistful of K Street lobbyists. When that's who you're surrounding yourself with, it isn't difficult to believe that the administration would see the world through Washington's eyes.
Miscalculating their party's reaction, though, is another story. My opinion is that something like this happened: Congressional Democrats, most likely Speaker Pelosi, promised the Obama administration that they could roll the Blue Dogs like they did with the National Energy Tax. This isn't an unreasonable assumption since they frequently rolled them before.
This time, though, they didn't factor in all of the unpopular votes they made for this administration. They didn't think twice that they'd voted for the stimulus and omnibus bills and the National Energy Tax. None of these votes are sitting well with voters in formerly red districts.
Part of this miscalculation happened because Rahm Emanuel forgot who he recruited to win swing districts in 2006. Democrats had to recruit candidates that would've identified with the DLC a decade earlier. The Kossacks don't just dislike the DLC types; they utterly despise them, thinking of them with almost the contempt as they have for Republicans.
Another facet to this administration's miscalculations is the fact that this administration doesn't have a health care message. Politicians won't risk their re-election chances supporting legislation that lacks a coherent message. The Obama administration's message isn't coherent. In fact, it's almost nonexistent.
The Democrats' message under Nancy Pelosi isn't nonexistent. Their message is filled with arrogance, elitism and hostility. Simply put, Speaker Pelosi instructed Blue Dogs like Jim Cooper not to even talk with Republicans about health care. That type of hostility has added to the hostility that Democrat Pelosi has fostered since getting the Speaker's gavel. It's also the hostility that Speaker Pelosi displayed in saying that citizens showing up at the townhall meetings weren't real people, just people who were plants transported to the events by evil special interest groups.
When the Democrats' version of health care crashes in a fiery heap and people look back at what strategic and tactical mistakes the Democrats made, three things will stand out. The Democrats insulted the American people by telling people who read the bill that they didn't know what they were talking about. The Democrats played a 'my-way-or-the-highway' game, shutting out Republicans from the process. The Obama administration's lack of a message, followed by their flailing in search of a compelling message, killed the American people's confidence in this administration on health care.
To simplyify that, the Democrats' hostility turned people off.
Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 12:33 AM
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Michele Bachman Is Exactly Right
Tuesday night, Michele Bachmann appeared on Hannity to talk about health care reform and how the Democrats are alienating John Q. Public. Here's a portion of the transcript from Tuesday night's show:
HANNITY: What do you make of this internal battle within the Democratic Party? And we'll get into this in some detail later, but you know, Congressman Anthony Weiner says, hey, you threw us under the bus, and that there's going to be a hundred Democrats in the House that if you don't have that government option, we're bailing on this bill.There isn't a dime's worth of difference between the government option that the Progresive Caucus wants and the type of co-op that Henry Waxman would write. Setting the United States on the glidepath to a single-payer system isn't just a priority with Democrats. It's their Holy Grail. It's what gets Speaker Pelosi and President Obama salivating. If I told President Obama that he could pick just one thing and his choices were either passing a single-payer system or his re-election, I'm certain that he'd pick passing single-payer.
What do you make of the internal strife and the trial balloon that was floated this weekend?
BACHMANN: Well, I think you're exactly right. I think that there is an effort made to call the public option a co-op or something other than public option in order to maybe fool the public and to buy support from both Blue Dogs and the liberals.
It's not going to work. What we know now, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have both said, it does not matter what you call it, it's a public option. The American people need to realize they've been extremely effective with Congress. Now is not the time to give up.
Now is not the time to take the pressure off because they will move forward with some level of a public option. It may not be the full option they wanted but it will be incrementally in that direction. And if they have to wait a couple of years to get the public option, they'll do it. If they can lay the ground works. So the American people need to rise up with one voice and say no to going down that road.
Here's another important exchange:
HANNITY: But if the government ultimately decides who's covered, if the government decides, you know, what people can charge, if the government decides what care you ultimately get, it still destroys the public free market system, the private insurance system. Doesn't it?It's important to note that single-payer systems aren't known for innovation or flexibility or service. In fact, Canada's health care system is imploding . The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says that Canada's system must become more patient-centered:
BACHMANN: Yes, because it's government control and it's government mandate. The government either will mandate that you do something, that's the hidden tax. Or they'll do it to themselves. Clearly they're not going in the direction people want to go.
I hail from Minnesota, we are known for innovation in health care. We have great medical schools. We created the Mayo Clinic. We have a gentleman who in his garage invented the pacemaker and turned it into a world class company Medtronic. We are the leader of innovation. That's what we won't have under the government taking over health care. We will under free market.
The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.Because the Canadian doesn't rely on co-pays for doctors, hospitals and clinics, there hasn't been a need to ask whether the system has an incentive to innovate or improve service. In fact, all that matters to them is that the government check arrives on time.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country, who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting, recognize that changes must be made.
"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doig said in an interview with The Canadian Press. "We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."
The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred.
Another facet of this debate that isn't getting coverage is that Canadacare doesn't cover perscription drugs, meaning that people have to buy a supplemental policy to pay for their medications, whether it's for their blood pressure or if it's for their Lipitor or their Dilantin.
The Canadian system utilizes a global budget for each province, which pays for medical schools, research grants, medical testing and payments to doctors and hospitals. From what I've seen, finding new cures for cancer, heart disease and other chronic illnesses isn't a high priority. Canadians would be sunk if not for the innovations produced by our capitalist system.
HANNITY: One of the things the White House and the president, particularly the message he's trying to send, is that these town halls aren't real, this is manufactured and the only thing the American people don't quite get it yet.You can't tell it by the transcript but Hannity was enjoying himself tweaking liberals with a tiny dose of sarcasm. Admittedly, there isn't a death panel provision in H.R. 3200 but the rationing of care for seniors who've been diagnosed with cancer is essentially a silent death sentence. That's why many of the faces from the townhall meetings are senior citizens who rely on Medicare.
Just as I was coming down on air here, I saw a headline, a preview on the Drudge Report that it's going to be a New York Times article this morning that the Democrats are willing to go it alone. If they go it alone, what does that mean politically for them?
BACHMANN: Well, if they go it alone, I think they'll really be alone in November, 2010, because the American people are very intelligent people. Members of Congress may not read these bills, the American people do read these bills and they won't let their representatives in Congress alone come November of 2010.
The House Republicans have taken this very seriously. We are listening to our constituents, we're holding town hall meetings. And we're hearing exactly what the Democrats are hearing and it's going to be a very tough time for them in November of 2010.
Dick Morris said recently that there are six major special interest groups that Democrats rely on: Hispanics, African-Americans, unions, single moms, young people and senior citizens. What's happened during this debate is that President Obama just neutralized the Democrats' annual scare tactics about Republicans want to screw the elderly out of their social security and medicare benefits.
He gave that issue away when he announced that he was planning on paying for his health care plan by cutting the Medicare budget by $313,000,000,000 over the next decade. Seniors noticed. That's why they're showing up at these meetings and getting in their representatives' faces.
What's especially important about their anger and their fear is that, according to Morris, seniors comprise 14 percent of each election's likely voters. When President Obama proposed his Medicare cuts, he alienated a large number of people who've been a reliable voting block for Democrats. Depending on how many seniors President Obama alienated with his comments, this could be a disastrous cycle for Democrats.
The other thing that's hurting this administration is the fact that the talking points the Democratic leadership cranked out before Democrats left for recess were quickly refuted. That's led to growing distrust of Democrats. It isn't just that Democrats have tried selling voters a bill of goods with health care. It's that it's becoming a pattern.
People heard President Obama say that Congress had to pass the stimulus bill if they wanted to avoid an economic catastrophe. Congress rushed the vote, not letting the bill be read, only to have President Obama wait five days before signing the bill in a well-orchestrated photo-op in Denver. He said that they needed to pass that bill ASAP so that thousands of shovel-ready jobs could be funded ASAP.
People have heard President Obama say that he didn't have any interest in running a car company, too. Shortly after they heard that, he engineered the firing of GM's CEO, Rick Waggoner, then saw him bail GM out often enough to bail out the UAW.
Now President Obama and Pelosi's Democrats are telling senior citizens that there won't be rationing if the Democrats' plan is enacted. People don't believe that, either, as well they shouldn't. Sen. Mike Enzi offered an amendment to the Finance Committee bill that would've prohibited the rationing of care. Sen. Enzi's amendment was immediately defeated on a party line vote.
The Democrats' deceptions are reaching critical mass. When that happens, the reaction is likely to be similar to 1992, when the House Banking Scandal and the House Post Office scandals broke. Two years later, Republicans won a majority in the House for the first time since 1952.
I'm not predicting a 1994-esque landslide victory in 2010 but I won't rule it out because Democrats' credibility, coupled with their unpopular policy initiatives, could create the perfect storm needed for the House to flip.
Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 2:44 AM
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Dems' Scheming To Pass Government Option
According to this WSJ report , Senate Democrats are scheming on how they can slit health care reform into two bills, including the government option into the reconciliation bill, then passing the less controversial bill with some Republican support:
Democrats hope a split-the-bill plan would speed up a vote and help President Barack Obama meet his goal of getting a final measure by year's end.First off, if Democrats succeed in passing legislation that would create a government-run health care monopoly through reconciliation, that theoretically means Republicans could undo the Democrats' government-run health care monopoly with reconciliation, too. Of course, that would require recapturing the House, Senate and White House. Still, a government health care monopoly, coupled with steep Medicare cuts and other objectionable provisions, would probably be enough to get Democrats defeated.
Senators on the Finance Committee are pushing ahead with talks on a bipartisan bill. Democratic leaders say they hope those talks succeed but increasingly are preparing for the possibility that they do not.
Most legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, but certain budget-related measures can pass with 51 votes through a parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation.
In recent days, Democratic leaders have concluded they can pack more of their health overhaul plans under this procedure, congressional aides said. They might even be able to include a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers, a key demand of the party's liberal wing, but that remains uncertain.
As I wrote here , the Democrats have alienated seniors, their biggest, and most reliable, special interest group with President Obama's proposed $313,000,000,000 Medicare cut over the next decade. That's just part of the hurdles for passing the government monopoly option. As Ed explains here , there are other hurtdles to overcome:
Some Democrats have threatened this for months , notably Chuck Schumer, but the plan has a couple of big flaws. First, the Democrats have to convince the Senate parliamentarian, ostensibly non-partisan, to agree that the bill is primarily budgetary. No one in their right mind could honestly make that judgment about massive regulation of 15% of the American economy. They're likely to get denied before they even get started.If I was part of the Democrats' leadership, I'd worry bigtime that Republicans might use their own nuclear option. I don't think it'll come to that, though, because there's other business that the Democrats have to pass first, namely, passing the appropriations bills that fund the government. Those bills will take up the entire month of September.
However, if they do manage to get past that obstacle, the Republicans can shut down the Senate for the next year. Those unfamiliar with the parliamentary procedure may not realize that a great many steps get skipped by unanimous consent. Bill-reading is just one example. One Senator can force each and every bill to be read aloud at every appearance it makes on the Senate floor, including when they are sent to committee. For ObamaCare and cap-and-trade, one bill reading could take a week, keeping the Senate floor locked off from any other business.
Before Harry Reid's Democrats can force the government monopoly option on people, a reconciliation bill has to pass the House. Cobbling 218 votes together for a health care reform bill is difficult enough. Cobbling 218 votes together that includes the government monopoly option might be impossible.
All of this is moot, though, if the Senate parliamentarian rules that the Democrats can't manipulate the Senate's rules in that fashion. If the parliamentarian rules that reconciliation can't be used for health care reform, then the Democrats will have poisoned the atmosphere in DC while driving seniors and independents away in droves. That's the Democrats' nightmare scenario.
Harry Reid isn't even that stupid. At least, I think he isn't.
Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 7:07 AM
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Another Prophet of GOP Doom
Harold Myerson's column in this morning's Washington Post is typical conventional wisdom blather. Here's proof that he isn't that insightful:
But today's Palinoidal Republicans have lost most of the professionals, much of Wall Street and an increasing chunk of suburbia. What they can claim is the allegiance of the white South and the almost entirely white, non-urban parts of the Mountain West. Of the 40 Republican members of the Senate, fully half, 20, come from the old Confederacy, the Civil War border states where slavery was legal or Oklahoma, which politically is an extension of Texas without Texas's racial minorities. Ten others come from the Mountain West. The rest of the nation, that is, of course, most of the nation, has become an ever-smaller share of Republican ranks.I'm getting tired of reading the endless parade of liberal drivel saying that the GOP is doomed to the ash heaps of history. If I had a dollar for every time I've read that crap, I'd be well on my way to millionaire status. What Mr. Myerson can't explain is this: If Republicans are in such sorry shape, why are they leading Democrats in Scott Rasmussen's generic ballot polling? In fact, why do voters trust Republicans more than Democrats in 9 of the 10 most important issues, including health care and fiscal responsibility?
These questions are rhetorical in nature. Mr. Myerson can't answer them because he's dismissed the Tea Party movement. He's bought into the Democrats' talking points. He would've been better off if he'd interviewed someone who'd attended a tea part or a townhall meeting. Had he done that, he would've noticed that there were alot of disgusted independents and Joe Lieberman Democrats in those crowds.
It didn't help Myerson's credibility by using this questionable poll to reach his conclusions:
All parties are home to distinct subcultures with distinct beliefs. What's different about today's GOP is that increasingly, it is home to just one, and a whole sector of the media, Fox News, talk radio, makes its money by emphasizing this subculture's sense of separateness, grievance and alarm, and by creating its own set of "facts." Asked in late July whether they believed Barack Obama was born in the United States, 93 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of independents said yes, but just 42 percent of Republicans agreed.Myerson uses a DailyKos poll as his proof that 58 percent of Republicans are birthers. What an idiot. Again, Myerson ignores reliable polling in stating that America is a foreign nation to Republicans. Again I'll ask how that can be if they're held the generic ballot lead eight straight weeks.
Behind those numbers, 93 percent, 90 percent and 87 percent of Northeasterners, Midwesterners and Westerners, respectively, said yes, but just 47 percent of Southerners said they believed the president was born in this country. Obama, the Republican base is saying, personifies an America that is increasingly alien to them. It's multiracial, as they are not. It puts Sonia Sotomayor, who sure doesn't come from their America, on the Supreme Court. Increasingly, the Republicans have descended into white identity politics.
What's particularly galling to me is that Myerson hasn't noticed that people's priorities have shifted significantly since Election Day, 2008. People trusted President Obama and the Democrats then. After the Democrats' distortions, after the Democrats' hair-brained policies have failed and after the Democrats attempts to belittle and ignore the American people, voters aren't likely to support Democrats.
Myerson is writing about an electorate that existed prior to the Democrats passing the GM bailout, prior to the Democrats passing a pork-filled stimulus bill that hasn't created any jobs (4,000,000 were promised) and prior to the Democrats passing the national energy tax, aka Waxman-Markey.
Myerson's article is a perfect example of why people don't trust newspapers to supply trustworthy reporting like they used to. Myerson's column is nothing more than conventional wisdom psychobabble.
It's a shame the Washington Post paid good money for such crappy product.
Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 10:04 AM
Comment 1 by eric zaetsch at 21-Aug-09 12:23 PM
The GOP will not wither and die. If P.T. Barnum were alive today, he'd be a Republican.
I Agree With the SEIU
It isn't often that I agree with the SEIU, in this case the president of the SEIU, but I agree with this statement :
A top Obama ally predicted Wednesday in an interview with ABC News that Democrats will lose their congressional majority in next year's midterm elections if they fail to put a health-care reform bill on President Obama's desk.Actually, I suspect that people already are experiencing buyers remorse. I'll admit that people knew they were voting for a liberal when they voted for President Obama. What's painfully obvious is that they didn't realize President Obama's administration was the most liberal since LBJ. In fact, I'd suggest that President Obama is significantly more liberal than LBJ.
"I think we're talking losing control of Congress," said Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union. "[The failure of health-care reform] would totally empower Republicans to kill all change."
"It's hard to imagine the Democrats convincing the public that Republicans are to blame for health-care reform going down when the Democrats have such large majorities," he added. "After last year's promise of change, voters will start feeling buyer's remorse."
Stern is right, though, that Democrats will have difficulty explaining why they should keep control of Congress when their signature 'accomplishment' is passing a stimulus bill that's widely seen as a political albatross and a policy failure.
Apparently, Mr. Stern isn't the only political analyst who thinks this might be a potentially disastrous cycle for the Democrats :
Reviewing recent polling and the 2010 election landscape, Cook can envision a scenario in which Democratic House losses could exceed 20 seats.It's refreshing to see a political analyst who isn't dismissing the Tea Party movement or the people attending the townhall meetings. I've said for awhile that this will be a difficult cycle for Democrats. Democrats dismiss the Tea Party movement at their peril. People attending tea party rallies are upset for a host of reasons, starting with the Democrats' irresponsible spending habits, which has led to deficits so large they can't even be imagined.
"These data confirm anecdotal evidence, and our own view, that the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Today, The Cook Political Report's Congressional election model, based on individual races, is pointing toward a net Democratic loss of between six and 12 seats, but our sense, factoring in macro-political dynamics is that this is far too low," he wrote.
"Many veteran Congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of deja vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats."
Cook scrupulously avoided any mention that Democratic control of the House is in jeopardy but, noting a new Gallup poll showing Congress' job disapproval at 70 percent among independents, concluded that the post-recess environment could feel considerably different than when Congress left in August.
"We believe it would be a mistake to underestimate the impact that this mood will have on Members of Congress of both parties when they return to Washington in September, if it persists through the end of the Congressional recess."
They weren't happy with the UAW bailouts. They've been upset with the stimulus bill that's done nothing to creating wealth. Now they're upset with Democrats because Democrats have told the people that the government option was just to provide competition to existing health insurance providers. People understand that they're being lied to by Democrats who haven't proven that they're reading the bills.
Things don't appear to be getting better anytime soon. President Obama appeared on the Michael Smerconish Show this afternoon. Instead of taking the time to explain with specificity why his health plan will help families, President Obama started whining about how Republicans are attempting to torpedo Obamacare legislation :
"I think early on, a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, 'Look, let's not give him a victory, maybe we can have a replay of 1993, '94, when Clinton came in, he failed on health care and then we won in the mid-term elections and we got the majority. And I think there are some folks who are taking a page out that playbook," the president said.I'm tired of this meme. I'm tired with it because it's typical Obama mythmaking. Even if Republicans wanted to undermine the bill, 178 Republicans in the 435-seat House and 40 Republicans in the 100 seat Senate don't have the numbers to stop this bill. That's the mathematically undeniable fact.
Appearing on the Michael Smerconish radio show, Mr. Obama said he would "love to have more Republicans engaged and involved in this process," but he vowed to win the battle, with or without support from the minority party in Congress.
It's intellectually laughable to hear President Obama say that Republicans "are taking a page out that playbook" because the script has totally changed. That playbook is based on Republicans' ability to filibuster legislation in the Senate. That isn't possible this time because the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Not surprisingly, President Obama isn't telling the truth about 1994, either. Back then, Democrats had majorities in the House and Senate. Bill Clinton was the first Democrat elected president in 12 years. Dan Rostenkowski, the infamous Chicago machine-style Democrat, chaired the House Ways and Means Committee. His committee refused to report Hillary's bill out of their committee.
The only page that Republicans are utilizing from the 1994 playbook is that they're telling people what's in the bill. Isn't that a dastardly thing to do? The biggest thing that's changed since then is that an army of Davids are scouring the bills online, then they're reporting this information through their blogs. People reading blogs like this are then tweeting their friends with links to posts that highlight the latest interviews or updates on legislation.
Simply put, this year isn't anything like 1994. They're as different as the tribal regions of Pakistan vs. downtown New York City. I'd further note that President Obama's whining about Republican tactics is amateurish and sophomoric. It isn't presidential.
If President Obama doesn't scrap the current legislation, he'll suffer substantial losses in the House and significant losses in the Senate.
Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 11:41 PM
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Tim Pawlenty: The Man with the Pitch Perfect Presentation?
If Gov. Pawlenty runs for president in 2012, he'll have a distinct advantage over his potential rivals for the GOP nomination. He will have played a significant part in a successful health care reform bill. National media are noticing, as evidenced by this interview with Politico.com:
In an interview with POLITICO , Pawlenty offered tough criticism of President Barack Obama's attempted health care overhaul and spoke in detail about potential GOP alternatives but stopped short of using the kind of overheated rhetoric that has marked the August debate.To those of us who've seen him run circles around Speaker Kelliher and irritated Sen. Pogemiller, his pitch perfect presentation isn't a surprise. It's what we expect. One of Gov. Pawlenty's strengths is in reading the public's mood. He's watched the townhall meetings and the tea parties. He hasn't dismissed what's happened. Instead, he's taken notes on the people's reactions. That's why he's exactly right in saying that people are both scared by the proposed legislation and downright angry with politicians that dismiss their worries and motivations.
"People are ticked off and scared. You have a situation where a good chunk of the country is waking up to the fact that Obama is proposing things that are out of step with common sense, out of step with the notion that the government isn't going to run everything," said Pawlenty, who delivered a health care-oriented speech Friday at the second-annual GOPAC conference in Chicago, a meeting of conservative state legislators and national party leaders.
Here's his first critique of President Obama's plan:
POLITICO: What is your main objection to the Democrats' health care plan?It's time that we dispatched with the myth that the so-called public option is either public or optional. Once they undercut private insurance companies, which is the Obama administration's stated goal, at least when they thought the public wasn't listening, people will get pushed into a government-run monopoly. PERIOD. Thinking people understand that monopolies don't increase competition. They eliminate competition.
PAWLENTY: First, if they are going to go forward with the public option, that's a really bad idea. We have an economy and a country here that prizes the private sector approach and to have the government directly competing with the private sector interests is an unwise and misguided direction.
Second, I don't like the fact that there would be a massive tax increase on small and medium-sized businesses across this country at a time when the economy can't afford it. They'll be penalized up to 8 percent if you don't provide health insurance to your employees. Many employers are saying that if they do provide insurance currently, they'll just dump it because they'd rather pay the 8 percent rather than continue to pay the insurance for their employees. So you'd see this offloading of private insurance onto the government roll.
And then, if you'd indulge me with a third one, this thing is a massive spending disaster. The CBO is saying this could cost between a trillion and 2 trillion dollars, depending on which version they ultimately pass. They have no ability pay for it. Even their tax-the-wealthy scheme isn't going to pay for part of it, and then the rest they say they are going to wring out with a bunch of savings and efficiency. I think that's a bunch of hooey. They're not going to do that.
In highlighting the CBO's forecast, Gov. Pawlenty reminds people of the torpedoes that sent the government-run provision into a nosedive. The health care debate went south for Democrats when Doug Elmendorf said that the Democrats' plans wouldn't reduce health care costs, that the Democrats' plans didn't cover everybody and that each of the bills had price tags in excess of $1,000,000,000,000.
In summation, the Democrats' bills didn't meet any of their stated criteria while saddling us with a massive new debt. In short, the Democrats' plans are all about controlling people's lives. It doesn't have anything to do with improving people's lives.
Gov. Pawlenty is the leading voice on health care reform in the Republican Party because he's highlighting the Democrats' plans' weaknesses and because he's talking about the things that voters are most concerned with. Thus far, he's the only Republican that's proven he's able to make the argument to middle class voters, to business executives and to economists.
That's why he'll be a formidable opponent if he decides to run for higher office.
Posted Friday, August 21, 2009 2:37 AM
Comment 1 by Skip at 21-Aug-09 09:38 AM
Sounds good, but what did the Gov do in Minnesota to reform "health care"? Did he work to ease the legal restriction that allows only nonprofits to sell insurance? Did he work to allow cross border insurance? Did he propose reducing insurance mandates that have driven up costs?
Comment 2 by eric zaetsch at 21-Aug-09 12:18 PM
I would have thought Pawlenty would trust and not discredit the market. Level the playing field, allow a public option to for-profit insurance but make the rules for each the same so privateers don't merely cherry pick the young and non-sick; and then let Adam Smith's invisible hand weed out that option which is inefficient. What would you, Gary, or as Pawlenty's champion, have against that. Isn't that the mythology of the free market at its finest?
Comment 3 by Brian at 21-Aug-09 08:42 PM
Tim like Romney has a problem. Romney has Romneycare and Tim has Cap and Tax. They both signed a grit ban. Tim wants electronic records (hello big brother) He still collects baby DNA. I will stop there.
Response 3.1 by Gary Gross at 21-Aug-09 11:55 PM
First, Gov. Pawlenty won't get hurt on the electronic records because all the candidates are for them. Second, TPaw hasn't signed anything remotely close to Cap & Trade & never will. If there's anything that's guaranteed, it's that TPaw opposes tax increases.
Skip, the health care reforms he's been involved with have kept insurance premiums for public workers flat twice in the last five years.
Eric, What's being called the public option is really a step towards a government monopoly. Monopolies don't increase competition; they eliminate competition.
Comment 4 by Brian at 24-Aug-09 10:09 PM
Palin is not for electronic records. It is an invasion of privacy. He signed a bill that would require energy companies to have a huge percent of energy produced by alternative energy. That will drive up costs to customers by as much as cap and tax. No more mcCain moderates please.
Canadacare Is Imploding, Part II
Earlier this week, I wrote that Canadacare is imploding . On Thursday night's O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly interviewed Dr. Brian Day, a former president of the Canadian Medical Association. Here's what I highlighted in my earlier post:
"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doig said in an interview with The Canadian Press. "We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."Here's the abridged transcript from their interview:
The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred.
O'REILLY: Doctor, What would you say is the biggest problem with your health care system in Canada?O'Reilly's interview exposes the weakness of the single-payer systems. To summarize things, Dr. Day said that (a) access to health care isn't guaranteed even though everyone has health insurance , (b) there's rationing because doctors can't keep up with the workload, (c) there's waiting lists to see a primary care doctor because of the doctor shortage, (d) there's another waiting line for surgery after going through the waiting line for primary care physicians and after going through another waiting line waiting for the specialist who can recommend the surgery.
DR. BRIAN DAY: Well, the biggest problem is access & by access I mean we have 5,000,000...In the Canadian system, the first line of defense is the primary care physician & in a population of 33,000,000 people, 5,000,000 people don't have a primary care physician .
O'REILLY: Alright, so you don't have enough doctors. Is that because doctors don't get paid as well as doctors in the United States? Per 100,000, you're down 30% from where we are. We have 30% more doctors than you have. Is that because you don't pay your doctors as well?
DAY: No, We rank 26th out of 28 of the developed countries in number of doctors per population. It's part of the mechanism of rationing that has to happen when you promise to deliver everything & you don't have enough doctors to provide everything.
O'REILLY: Ok so you have enough doctors but you have too many cases, too many illnesses to treat so people get on a line & they have to wait. Is it,Is that a major problem in Canada? Are people suffering because they can't get in to see a doctor?
DAY: Oh yes. We have over 1,000,000 people waiting for surgery & we probably have another 1,000,000 people waiting to see a specialist so they join the other 1,000,000 people waiting for surgery. And that's for a population of approximately 34,000,000.
O'REILLY: President Obama says that if we pass this bill, health care costs will go down in the United States. You're saying that in Canada, they have skyrocketed. Does it seem plausible to you that if Obamacare gets passed, our costs will come down?
DAY: I don't think so because in Canada's system, we were just rated on a value for money basis by a European organization that rates all of the European companies & alongside the 29 European countries, Canada came in bottom in value.
Dr. Day didn't help the Democrats when he said that there is rationing but that 1 in 6.6 Canadians don't have a primary care physician.
During another portion of the interview that isn't shown on the video, Dr. Day said that prescription drugs weren't covered by Canada's health care syste. To cover them, Canadians have to buy a supplemental insurance policy. Only 70 percent of Canadians have prescription drug insurance.
Once this information gets into the voters' hands, especially in red states with Democrat senators, those senators essentially can't vote for the public option.
The next fight in health care will be in exposing the next attempt that Democrats make at passing single-payer. That won't happen until the Democrats focus group which word works best.
Until then, it's important that we highlight the facts about Canadacare's inefficiencies.
Posted Friday, August 21, 2009 4:36 AM
Comment 1 by Walter Hanson at 21-Aug-09 11:55 AM
last night there was a person on Gretta's show who called the chairman of Whole Foods immoral because he opposes single payer.
This person said single payer is the only solution and it will save lives if implemented.
Aren't these people who are asking for the government to take over health care aware AT ALL of what is going in places like Canada and England?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 21-Aug-09 12:10 PM
The idiot on Greta's show that you're referring to is Russell Mokhiber. A total moron, a total shill.
Comment 3 by eric zaetsch at 21-Aug-09 12:12 PM
When Day left Britain he emigrated to Canada, not the US. I supposed he, as a rational economic decision maker, viewed the status quo there as better than the status quo here. Or, Gary, you are more familiar with the man, his choosing Canada and his staying there, is there another explanation?
Comment 4 by Gary Gross at 21-Aug-09 01:35 PM
Another explanation is that Day made a bad decision, then decided to stay to reform Canadacare.
He said during the interview that he doesn't want Canada to adopt everything in the United States' plan, something that I heartily agree with. Still, he realizes that Canada needs to reform their system because it's failing its citizens badly.
Comment 5 by eric zaetsch at 22-Aug-09 07:14 AM
Gary -- I think his approach has been there should be a private competitive line to compete with the government run system in the patient services market. That's exactly what Kyl, Grassley and the other obstructionists taking insurance industry money into campaign coffers want to kill in US reform proposals - two competing parallel systems.
Or is Day being disingenuous, secretly wanting to kill off public responsibilities now in place in Canada?
It looks to me he might be suggesting that parallel competition on a level field will keep both channels "honest" in Canada.
Yes, no?
Response 5.1 by Gary Gross at 22-Aug-09 03:48 PM
Eric, How can Republicans be obstructionists. They don't have the votes to stop anything? That argument isn't worth the bandwidth it's printed on.
Comment 6 by eric zaetsch at 22-Aug-09 07:17 AM
Gary, one thing clear about Day, he has been strong in suggesting public and private cooperation in training more Canadian healthcare workers, in Canada, and in wanting to make Canada's health services open to "healthcare tourism." For that, the quality of services cannot be unattractive, can it? People from Europe will go to Singapore if it's healthcare tourism is superior; that's how the market for that is.
Sen. Schumer, What's the Difference Between a Co-Op & the Public Option?
Former HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt's WSJ op-ed raises some interesting points, starting with this one:
Mr. Schumer's conditions are a national structure, federal financing, and a ban on federal appointees who have ties to the insurance industry. This "co-op" would be federally controlled, federally funded, and federally staffed. Expressing his opposition to smaller organizations and his demand for a national "co-op," Mr. Schumer says, "It has to have clout; it has to be large." He adds, "There would at least be one national model that could go all over the country," which would require "a large infusion of federal dollars."It sounds like Sen. Schumer's co-op is capable of morphing into a single-payer system. I'd love hearing Sen. Schumer explain why I'm wrong. I'd love it because I'd enjoy watching him twist himself into a pretzel explaining why we shouldn't think that his co-op isn't a trojan horse vehicle that leads to a single-payer system.
I'm quite familiar with real co-ops. As a teenager, I filled my family's tractor with fuel purchased at a farmer's co-op, which was organized by local people to solve a common problem. My family got its electricity from a rural electric co-op. I was later a director of an "insurance reciprocal," a form of a co-op. Co-ops are a part of American culture: people uniting to solve common problems. What the Democrats are proposing bears little resemblance to this.
Sen. Kent Conrad isn't helping with this explanation:
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is from Iowa farm country. He knows co-ops, and hopefully he also knows a plan for a government takeover when he sees it. He's said he's against a "public option," no matter what it's called. Yet Senate Finance Committee Chairman Baucus, describing what he wants out of "co-op" legislation, spoke plainly, as reported by Politico earlier this summer, when he said, "It's got to be written in a way that accomplishes the objective of the public option.I'd love hearing Sen. Baucus explain how something that accomplishes everything that the "public option" would accomplish is different than the public option. I'd bet that that explanation would be positively tortured. If there's truly a difference between a co-op, a public option and a single-payer system, let's hear President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Schumer explain the similarities and differences in detail.
I'm betting that their explanations would be the most tortured, the most twisted, the most incomprehensible nonsense politicians have ever uttered. Rather than whining about the Democrats' proposals, Secretary Leavitt offers this set of priorities and recommendations:
Our health-care system needs real reform. We need to abolish the unfair tax that favors employer-sponsored insurance over self-purchased insurance. We need to foster a more vibrant private market with greater competition and choice. We need to make prices transparent and give consumers more freedom to pursue health-care value.Other things that would change the cost of health insurance would be to eliminate the federal law that prohibits the selling of insurances across state lines and tort reform. We already sell car insurance across state lines. GEICO is proof of that. Why shouldn't we do the same thing with health insurance? Perhaps that's too logical for Sens. Reid, Baucus and Schumer?
It's time that the Democrats scrapped the legislation currently working its way through Congress. It's time to start pulling all of the great ideas together on the merits, not because a Democrat offered it.
This is too important to too many people to not have everyone at the table making constructive suggestions.
Originally posted Friday, August 21, 2009, revised 22-Aug 3:44 PM
Comment 1 by Walter Hanson at 21-Aug-09 11:53 AM
You know the complaint the democrats make is that health care costs too much. One reason it costs too much is that doctors practice defensive medicine (I've written several times already about what my doctor has done)
Yet there isn't a single word about malpratice reform. so profits for trial lawyers are okay, but profits for insurance companies (in part to cover bad years) is bad.
I want them to explain that.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 2 by Jon at 21-Aug-09 01:05 PM
The only way to reduce costs is TORT REFORM. The private insurance industry, while not perfect, is not the primary thing that needs to be reformed. Lawsuits over medical malpractice need to be looked at.
Comment 3 by eric zaetsch at 22-Aug-09 07:08 AM
Jon - May your surgery be done by one who's encountered multiple past malpractice lawsuits. May it be as successful as those litigated.
He Needs More Than a Vacation
This Week's George Stephanopolous says that President Obama needs a 2-week vacation to regroup for the health care fights of this fall. Here's what he said:
Voters still like Obama. His overall job approval is steady at 57 percent. But they're screaming "listen to us" and "slow down." And they're worried he's getting in over his head.I strongly recommend that President Obama get in a good vacation to recharge his batteries. However, whether he takes a vacation or not, the 2 weeks won't affect whether people "cool down." That's beyond this administration's, and the Democratic congress's control.
Blaming the GOP for blocking health care will make Democrats feel better. But it may turn off Independents who are already abandoning Obama (17 point drops in handling health care and overall job approval).
In fact, the best short term antidote is a solid 2 week vacation. Give everyone a chance to cool down and hope the economy's slow mend continues. More than anything else, that's the key to post Labor Day success.
People aren't going to stop being upset with the Democrats' health care legislation just because President Obama goes on vacation. The only thing that'll help with that is rewriting the legislation. That's because voters are insisting that the Democrat-led congress get this legislation right.
One thing that Democrats still haven't figured out is that this is the worst subject to play partisan politics with. By turning this into a partisan fight, Nancy Pelosi, President Obama and, to a lesser extent, Harry Reid have given independents the motivation to abandon congressional Democrats and President Obama like they were radioactive.
Democrats have lost this fight up till now because they've made it all about ideology instead of about solutions. In my opinion, that's why Republicans have held onto their generic ballot question lead for eight straight weeks.
Democrats and their media allies keep saying that Republicans aren't interested in providing solutions for health care reform. Because the American people are intensely interested in this issue, they're taking it upon themselves to educate themselves on this issue. Thanks to think tank studies and blog posts, they know that Republicans are offering constructive alternatives.
Another thing that President Obama must do to regain the confidence of the American people is that he needs to stop with giving platitude-filled speeches and instead jump into the details of the bill. He needs to show people that he knows what he's talking about. Right now, people think he's in over his head.
A vacation won't change that perception.
Posted Friday, August 21, 2009 1:18 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 22-Aug-09 06:52 AM
You are asking a zebra-- Obama-- to change his spots and "know what he's talking about." The only thing he knows is making high-sounding speeches and saying absolutely nothing at all. There's no substance to anything he says and, I suspect, the only thing that matters to him is his approval and the perks of his office. Drive his approval numbers below 50%, as they ought to be based on a sane and healthy citizenry, and he'll come unglued.
Comment 2 by eric zaetsch at 22-Aug-09 07:05 AM
The two week vacation thing might be for the backlash to take hold against his apparent over-willingness to be too compromising on the real reform part of healthcare reform.
Then, coming back he can say, "People have spoken." The GOP only mustered special interest claques, by mere handfuls, at meetings. Now I see a contrary groundswell of people wanting substantive change.
There are petition efforts afoot and the responses, real people not claques, taking time to enter a voice, it might surprise some of the obstructionists like Baucus, Ross, and Grassley.
It will be interesting, by late September to see where Healthcare reform, the Vikings, and the Twins are positioned. I expect the Vikings might show the greater levels of success and promise.
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 22-Aug-09 03:53 PM
The GOP only mustered special interest claques, by mere handfuls, at meetings.President Obama, Speaker Pelosi & people like Arlen Specter are peddling that meme but the American people who've showed up at townhall meetings are dismissing that BS.
