President Obama’s healthcare plan is losing support. He is losing support (according to every poll) because independents (ie independent thinking people who are not partisan lemmings) do not believe it is fiscally sound. They believe the Democrats have spent enough. These are the exact same 7% of Americans who voted Mr. Obama into power, and they are the exact same 89,000 Americans who booted Republicans out of Congress in 2006 because of the $400bn deficit they had run up (Democrats are in the trillions already, and we have another year of spending to go). There are a few things President Obama can do to save his healthcare initiative:
1) Stop the rush to spend.
The $787 billion stimulus program is a disgrace it has so much waste in it, and Joe Biden as watchdog is a total failure. The stimulus had SO MUCH potential, but it was rushed. Just like its predecessor, the TARP bank bailout program that Senator Obama assured us had enough safeguards in it to prevent abuse. Mr Obama needs to learn from his own history of spending trillions of of dollars. If it took 15 months to “rush to war” in Iraq ($600bn), then 3-6wks to spend trillions is surely a rush. This issue requires more time and consideration and debate than it takes to pick out a White House puppy.
2) Recognize, and admit the ugly truth, any healthcare program will have to be either unlimited in funding for people’s treatments, OR there will have to be a government group-just like the insurance companies have-that determines whether or not a 99yr old woman’s chemotherapy gets funded. Simple math tells us that if a single heart bypass can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a lifetime of doctor visits adds up too, then averaging $1million per American (lowball) is not fiscally feasible. The Federal government cannot afford $300million-million dollars (ie 300TRILLION). The Congressional budget Office points this out, so do former President Clinton’s economic advisors and a long list of others. To make the plan “deficit neutral” it has to either limit coverage or bankrupt that nation down the road. The solution is to make coverage limited by duration like welfare is; 6 months of govt coverage, or 12, or 18, or even 24, but not 100yrs of free and unlimited medical coverage. The entire planet combined couldn’t afford that.
3) Take control of the healthcare plan. Senator Obama blew off his responsibility in making sure the TARP plan had safeguards; he just trusted Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank. They played him hard. They told him it’d be ok, and rather than read it or study it or form a commission to study it…he said, “ok” and backed them at their word. When the stimulus came around, Mr Obama called for “shovel ready projects” then let go of the ball, tossed it to the same people that failed him on the TARP program’s protections, and they had a porkfest field day. These are the same people that forced Mr Obama to sign a budget that Senator Obama and others had packed with 9000 pork barrel projects…sign it behind closed doors after promising for 2 1/2 yrs not to do so. President Obama needs to take the healthcare reform ball BACK from the failed members of the Democrats’ Congress, and he and his administration need to write the bill. Passing the buck to Congress has proven to cost 2 bucks or more. If the bill will have his name on it, he shouldn’t just read it, he should have been there writing it.
4) Passing the healthcare reform bill is becoming a benchmark for future political power. Independents are the key. If Democrats continue to paint those who question or oppose infinite government spending as racists, loons, covert operatives, misled or misleading people, then they continue to ostracize the very people that put them in power, the people who no longer approve of Congress or the President, and the people who will decide the next election. Policy differences can be swept under the rug, but the sense of alienation, disenfranchisement, and a feeling of being attacked is not so easily forgotten. Rather, instead it is remembered, and historically it has made a difference at the polls.
Mr Obama was elected/convinced independents to vote for him on the idea that he would “end the divisive politics of old,” and now those very same tactics are being used against the very same people who put him there. The left’s “un-American” claims must stop, and the only way to disarm the right is to embrace them. Obama and Democrats need to unclinch their fist and offer an open hand to Republicans as they do the Iranians. Mr Obama should have immediately, and personally, and very strongly come out and publicly chastised Speaker Pelosi for calling opponents of healthcare “un-American.” His failure to do so is a passive embracing of those remarks. It is a sin of omission. The President needs to lead the nation, to unite the United States, and instead he’s playing partisan politics AGAINST the majority of Americans who are skeptical of the plan (Americans have been burned twice by Democrats’ trillion dollar spending-why trust em a third time in 6 months?)
5) President Obama needs his name taken off the healthcare reform issue. It’s been labeled by opponents and the media as Obamacare. Why? Because it’s not a plan that the nation put together, but a plan w his name on it, rushed into play for his political PR benefit, and he’s the one out there defending the plan that there’s no way he could have possibly read let alone written (there are currently FIVE bills averaging 1000 pages each, and if our President has time to read 5000 pages of healthcare reform, then something is wrong).
There way for President Obama to save healthcare reform is to stop the process, make government healthcare coverage a temporary coverage like welfare, set a flatline limit to the coverage person can get from the govt, and encourage them to have private insurance to cover the rest. Take the bill(s) away from a Congress that has screwed up several trillion dollar spending sprees of late, and instead form a commission at the White House where Republicans are represented so much that they have more political capital vested in passing reform than they do in blocking it. Taking the bill away from partisan hacks like Nancy Pelosi will help cool tempers that are nationally rising, and causing violence to stir. This bi-partisanship (if strong enough in sizzle and steak) will bring back independents and silence the right’s organized opposition.
There are of course 5 reasons that President Obama will not do this:
1) He won’t stop the rush to spend because to do so would be admitting a failure. Doing that would at the least give Press Secretary Gibbs a heartattack, and at most remind President Obama that his mandate is gone. Presidential ego (something all Presidents have and must have) prohibits or limits the potential for this humility.
2) Mr Obama can’t tell the American people that govt healthcare coverage is limited for several reasons. First, it would frustrate his political base, and while 9/10 times they’re content to give him a free pass, he’s broken so many campaign promises, and so many hopes (see also no change in Iraq strategy, closing Gitmo, etc) that he’s closing in on that scary 10th broken promise. When it comes, and he starts to lose his base, he will be in the George Bush approval rating zone. Second, if he admits that there’s just not enough money in the world to give everyone unlimited coverage, then he’s admitting that his political rival, Sarah Palin, was right, and there will be a Democrat or commission of Democrats deciding who gets treated, who does not get treated, who lives, and who dies. Third, ego. The President has just staked too much personal clout on the idea that he can give the lowliest trailer park pizza boy the same medical coverage that the President’s daughters will get. Break that promise, and people will ask, “What’s the point? Pay for limited govt insurance via fine/fee or pay for private insurance?”
3) President Obama cannot take control of the healthcare plan away from the Democrats’ Congress because he is clueless on writing bills-let alone multi-trillion dollar bills. As a Senator, he was away campaigning most of the time, and he never wrote-let alone passed-a major bill or reform. He just has no experience doing it. Moreover, if he takes it away from the Democrats’ Congress, then he risks widening a rift that’s already appearing in the party; a rift between Blue Dog Democrats who need to listen to their constituents or they lose their jobs and Democrats lose their supermajority/unchecked power and the partisan Democrats who control the committees and the chambers (albeit with no accomplishments in the past 3yrs). If he takes the bill away from Congress, he might split the party, lose control of one or both houses next year, and become an impotent, lame duck President with approval ratings already falling at a rate faster than even George W Bush’s.
4) Making the healthcare reform effort a bi-partisan one, requires President Obama to silence the right by embracing them while silencing a vengeful left. If anyone can do that, President Obama’s the man, but his track record as a President has always been to bow down and/or bend over to the left’s wishes. Can he go against their 8yrs of salivating want for vengeance and tell them to “end the divisive politics of old”? The answer is no. He’s tried this since he won the nomination, and his followers don’t follow. More and more, people see him as a leader by rank and responsibility rather than by example.
5) Everything adds up to this: can President Obama stomach taking his name off healthcare reform? Forget the politics of it. Does the man really want to get SOMETHING done, or does he want an accomplishment with his name on it (something he’s never had before other than being the first black man elected President)? There’s nothing in his history that shows he really wants to get something done for the sake of getting something done. Sure, he’s claimed it ad nauseum, but what’s he done just to get done? What has he worked hand in hand with the right on to get accomplished? What can he direct independents to look at and say, “See, THIS is how I can bring people together, how I can unite the United States and get things done for all Americans-not just the 20-30% who follow me without question regardless of what I do, but for all Americans.”
Healthcare is failing.
The majority of Americans do no support it right now.
The problem is that independents don’t trust Democrats’ and Obama’s spending anymore (according to polls).
No independents means Obama has a choice: ram healthcare through and lose power in 14months, or abandon the partisan healthcare plans, reboot with so much Republican involvement that they had more vested in passing it than opposing it, and actually get something done…albeit without his name on it.
Failure is in the air.
Author of “Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War
Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War: Malensek, Scott: 9798864028674: Amazon.com: Books
The Joker’s plan: Slavery by debt so large it can never be repaid.
Good analysis. I’d add this to the list: Obama isn’t really interested in lowering costs or he would be working for tort reform. Instead of vilifying insurers, he would be engaged in efforts to open up access to health care insurance providers nationwide for consumers by breaking down government barriers to competition. It’s about control and consolidating power and most of the points you make are necessary to achieve said goal.
True Obama is all about control. How else can one explain the appointing of 44 unconstitutional CZARS? If Obama ticks off the leftist libs in Congress, they have the power to de-fund his CZARS.
Defunding the CZARS should be priority #1 for Congress and the Senate. Obama is at the mercy of Congress and will give them a blank check, regardless of the debt they put apon this nation.
Its been brought up before but why can’t Congress take a few months of hearings from all sides and try to fix MediCare? If they prove that they can handle this big task then the American people will be more inclined to let them try the much bigger project of healthcare reform. MediCare is the lynchpin of healthcare. If a way is found that will allow MediCare to continue, then the same process can be used to solve the healthcare puzzle. But if it turns out that Congress cannot fix MediCare because of special interest like trial lawyers and pharma, then we will know that we are doomed. Sometimes politics is not the process to accomplish a contentious issue, but a national referendum is.
The reason for the rush in their pet projects is that these first two years of Obama’s term is a window of opportunity for the dems. If they wait there is a chance these projects will not pass. If they debate any such bill it would definitely not pass when facts about the contents are made public.
I believe the dems will pass this deathcare bill. They are in the tank for Obama. As seen from the town hall meetings, the dem reps are not interested in our concerns. They have already made up their minds to pass this thing. Government healthcare single payer is the dream of the socialists, marxists and communists. All three of these groups are rampant in the dem party and now in congress. They will blackmail the “blue dogs” into voting for this thing, bribe them or both. That is what they did to pass “cap and trade”.
They don’t seem at all worried about re-election. I wonder why. That has been the be-all and end-all in congress’ lives in the past. Once their pet projects, some of which seem innocuous at first sight much like the Endangered Species Act, will rule our lives and lose us our freedom. This is their goal. They have worked assidiously for decades to achieve it. They have infiltrated just about every organization from the churches to government agencies in both public and private industry. They have taken over the higher echelons of private corporations. This was all carefully planned much like the Obama campaign and election was carefully planned. The dems look at what they can get away with that is against the law in theory but not in practice. They have not been called on these because more and more they are in change of the ethics of any wrongdoing. Witness how Obama has not been called on his campaign contributions for one
I have no faith that the dems care about this country or our lives. This is, after all, the party full of ends justifies the means crowd. All they care about is power and money. This deathcare bill will be a wonderful opportunity for the dems to get richer just like all other government programs. We just saw the tip of the iceberg with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Dem graft and corruption is rampant. Their followers will never call them on this because they like the government telling them what to do. I wonder what will happen when the government tells them to do something they don’t want to. It will be too late then. For all of us.
TRhe big hope for America and freedom are the 2010 and 2012 elections……
Thanks for sharing, according to me many employers are trying to switch over to the government plan as it seems to be more beneficial to them. The cheaper premiums are encouraging and therefore going to increase the number of policy makers.