RAGGED THOTS

The conventional wisdom on Mitt Romney in a general election contest is that his creation of a broad health-care program in Massachusetts makes it difficult to make the case against "ObamaCare." Indeed, Rick Santorum calls him the "worst candidate" to take that fight to the president.

But that's the case now.

What happens if -- as seems likely after arguments this week -- the individual mandate is struck down? And, with it, possibly the entire ObamaCare structure? What then?

Democrats make the case that if the entire law is struck down, it could blow up in the face of the GOP:

I’d argue, however, that on the margins at least, a decision invalidating the individual mandate would change the dynamics of the general election in ways that might prove uncomfortable to the GOP. Currently the Republicans “Repeal!” position is attractive, or at least not repellent, to a wide range of people with a wide range of concerns about ObamaCare, including those who would strongly support for more aggressive federal efforts to expand health care coverage or ban discrimination by private health insurers. If the individual mandate goes down, and with it prospective prohibitions on prexisting condition exclusions, the health care debate during the general election campaign will shift from scrutiny of ObamaCare from what, if anything, Republicans are prepared to offer. In effect, the much-dreaded and highly divisive intra-GOP debate on the “Replace” part of its “Repeal-and-Replace” agenda will be accelerated into the present tense. And at the same time, Republicans will be denied the base-energizing power of the passionate desire to repeal ObamaCare, which has become the default-drive unifying force among conservatives of every hue.

The corollary to this view is that liberals would be energized and furious at the Court for striking down the law. They'd turn out to vent their fury on the GOP.

The problem with this view, however, is that it works from a framework that the entire law is popular. It's not. Indeed, the individual mandate is the most unpopular part of the entire structure. Thus, the groundswell to "fix" it just might not be there. And, after the contentious nature of the original health care fight, there's not going to be enough will in Congress to revisit this in the middle of a presidential election year.

Conversely, a Supreme Court invalidation puts President Obama in an awkward position -- and Mitt Romney able to make an argument that he hasn't been able to clearly articulate during the GOP primary. And that may change the political "dynamics," as Ed Kilgore puts it.

Mitt Romney can say, repeatedly, "I brought broad health-care reform to the state of Massachusetts -- and I did it constitutionally. President Obama, a constitutional law professor, spent 18 months of the nation's time, while the economy was collapsing and millions were losing their job on an ideological scheme that has been proven unconstitutional. Is the economy slowly getting better? Yes, but think how much further we would have been if President Obama and Democrats in Congress hadn't been obsessed with pushing an unconstitutional agenda that the American people clearly didn't want?"

That's a powerful argument and it puts the responsibility for the uncertainty over coverage and pre-existing conditions that would follow with the loss of the individual mandate squarely on the president. The chaos wouldn't exist if he hadn't pursued, again, an unconstitutional path.

Combine that framing with conservatives energized over having won a major fight over the policy that helped bring forth the Tea Party and you have a completely transformed political framework going into the fall. The right will be just as -- if not moreso -- pumped to turn out than the left. Yes, broader factors like the overall economy and job creation will play into the election calculus, but there probably hasn't been an election upon which one major piece of legislation has played such a major role since the 1960s (Civil Rights Act) -- or perhaps the Great Depression.

It may not have seemed it at the time, but if Mitt Romney somehow squeaks out an upset win over Barack Obama in the fall, observers may look back at this week as the moment when everything changed.

Labels: Barack Obama, health-care reform, Mitt Romney, ObamaCare

(Democratic) Debacle: Biggest GOP wave this century. Only thing preventing takeover of the Senate was three foolish Republican picks in Nevada, Delaware and (arguably) Colorado.  


Dereliction (of basic political common sense):  In the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, the party in power forgot the Clinton '92 campaign mantra, "It's the economy, stupid." Passed an ineffective stimulus -- and then just crossed fingers that things would magically turn around.


Diagnosis: Suicidal health-care. Related to the above, President Obama and Democratic Congress allowed a complicated health care reform to dominate political scene for more than a year. The more a  public already rattled over economy learned about it "reform", more public rebelled. 


Diversity: Despite the "Tea Party is racist" meme that Democrats, NAACP and some parts of the media tried to push, this GOP wave "looked more like America" than its 1994 counterpart. That's a good thing for the party and the country.  

Labels: Barack Obama, Democrats, health-care reform

...Victory:  Fortune, 'tis said, favors the bold:  When all is said and done, the turning point on health care may have been -- ironically enough -- President Obama's decision not merely to attend the GOP's January retreat, but to ask for cameras to be allowed in.  As good as the Republicans looked (it was hard for them to be seen as the "Party of No"), Obama looked better. Whether Americans knew all the facts and assertions being traded back and forth, the president seemed in command of the discussion. He didn't appear afraid to stand up to criticism (he declared how much he was "enjoying" the debate).  He didn't even flinch when he was called on the lack of transparency in the broader health care process. Ironically, that event itself went quite aways to undercutting the lack-of-transparency argument.  He also didn't appear as an empty suit that couldn't perform without his Teleprompter (though he used it in his introductory remarks).

Perhaps most significantly, Obama's televised performance re-energized congressional Democrats demoralized over Scott Brown's win. They realized that -- despite everything -- Obama was more popular than they were and they were smarter to let him take the lead in the endgame.

...Defeat:  Democrats won the war, but Republicans look forward to taking this Fall's battle -- the congressional midterms. By all past accounts, the party out of White House power almost always gains seats. The rare times history has been wrong?  1934 -- an initial "referendum" on FDR's first two years; 1998 -- GOP impeachment drive created unexpected backlash and caused Democrats to gain seats; 2002 -- the first post-9/11 election rallied voters to President Bush's Republicans. Given public frustration over continuing unemployment and general dissatisfaction with health care reform, it seems unlikely that 2010 would be a replay of either '34 or '98.  However, Republicans would do well to put together a broad philosophical and political critique of Obama and Democrats -- beyond health care -- if they hope to have an above-average midterm election.  Having achieved a goal that has eluded their party multiple times over in previously (see below), Democrats -- as a party -- have every right to want to get their base to turn out in force. That means that the "intensity gap" among base voters -- which has favored Republicans and conservatives over the last six months may narrow. Obama may be able to energize his party with the GOP's own rallying cry of "Repeal the bill!"  Except Democrats will put a question mark on it.  Since midterms are usually decided by who shows up at the polls -- and their intensity to vote -- passage of the bill may mean that an activated liberal base could blunt the energized conservative/Tea Party turnout. In short, this is in uncharted territory. By getting health care passed, Obama has seriously raised the stakes. A few weeks ago, Democrats were looking at a '94 style defeat and repudiation. Today, I'm not so sure.

...History: Appropos of the NCAA's, Barack Obama has proven himself to have a better inside political game than many presumed. Seemingly overwhelmed by the focused pushback on health-care coming from the Tea Parties and elsewhere, Obama looked back on his heels for most of the latter part of '09 and into this year.  Several times, HCR seemed dead (again, most notably after Scott Brown's win in NH), and Obama raised it from the dead.  As NBC noted this morning, there's a similarity between health care and Obama's latter-day win in the Democratic primaries in 2008. At a certain point, Obama had the numbers in his favor: It was a matter of finally executing them to close out the game.  The history he was going for in '08 was being the first African American to gain a political party's presidential nomination.  This year it was national health insurance. Again, this is a goal that Democrats, in one form or another have been trying to achieve for nearly 70 years -- or a century, if you include early presidential attempts like Teddy Roosevelt's. Obama went all-in during the first two years of his first term. Having succeeded, and thinking that the best defense is a good offense, it's entirely possible that he may try to push for more -- before he (likely) loses his majority in November.

He's got a major success now, and, despite pushback from exhausted Democrats, he may decide to keep raising the stakes.    

Labels: Barack Obama, health-care reform

RNC Chairman Michael Steele called out Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on his comment yesterday likening opposition to health care reform to opposition to ending slavery. He rightly called it "ignorant." Reid's spokesman said Steele's response was "feigned outrage."

Labels: Harry Reid, health-care reform, Michael Steele

In Washington, DC, it's sorta the "best of times" for Democrats: On Saturday, the "motion to proceed" on health care reform passed along party lines in the U.S. Senate. Despite varying poll numbers, various twists and turns and hours-to-come of debate and amendments, this decades-long legislative desire for the Left is closer to becoming the law of the land than at any point in history.

Labels: debt, deficit-spending, health-care reform

The following quotes are from President Obama's speech last night (transcript from Fox News):

Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined.

Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.

No, our deficit problem is irresponsible politicians spending more than they get in tax revenue. Medicare and Medicaid are just two examples.

Medicaid is a welfare program, period. People who get Medicaid aren't paying for it. Even if they did pay taxes previously, that money was long gone by the time they actually received Medicaid benefits, since our politicians don't let money lie there unspent.

As for Medicare, if you think "I paid into it all my life", you are mistaken. You paid a tax, which the politicians spent on current Medicare expenses, and anything left over was spent on whatever else the politicians decided to spend. But you can be certain it was spent.There was no "Medicare lock box" which held your funds. Can you say "ponzi scheme"?

Even if you believe these programs are necessary, it is economically foolish to give away something for nothing. If grocery stores worked this way, would you be getting steak and lobster every night, or just the food you needed? So why would you expect people with no fiscal responsibility for their own health care to get just what they need when they can get far more? When this happens, the cost of health care rises, not only for taxpayers, but for everyone else who uses health care.

So when Obama proposes a plan which offers more free health care to more people, what do you think will happen to the costs?

For example:

[Insurance companies] will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime.

We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of- pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick.

And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies.

Because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse.

That makes sense. It saves money, and it saves lives.

A simple question: Does anyone NEED preventive care in order to live? If they don't have the condition, then the answer is no. Do most people have conditions such as breast cancer or colon cancer? Again, the answer is no. So why should we provide free testing for conditions which will not affect the majority of the American public?

Before you call me heartless, consider this: What happens when you get an incurable cancer? You die. What happens if you DON'T get an incurable cancer? You die. What are we preventing by screening people for cancer? In the end, nothing.

Mind you, I am not insensitive to the horrors of cancer. I saw my mother die from it. But shouldn't we find better ways of treating people AFTER they have cancer? Screening for cancer is NOT 100% effective. Tumors will get missed. Unless you plan to screen everyone everyday, you will miss some. It is inevitable.

The most cost effective approach to cancer is to find a cure for those who have it. THAT will save money and lives.

Speaking of cost effective:

Finally, let me discuss an issue that is a great concern to me, to members of this chamber, and to the public, and that's how we pay for this plan.

Now, Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future.

I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit now or in the future -- period.

I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promise don't materialize.

How can Obama say he won't sign the bill "if it adds one dime to the deficit" in the future, and in the next breath claim there's a provision that requires spending cuts if savings don't materialize? We know how our legislators treat such provisions: They just override them as needed.

Consider our government's debt ceiling, which Obama & Co. are calling for raising once again, this time above $12 trillion (see this link).

Can Obama guaranty that any costs which raise our deficit will result in spending cuts? As Bill Clinton might have said, it depends on how you define "raising the deficit". Which spending do you consider within our current budget, and within our current deficit? Technically speaking, unless the total cost of this program exceeds our ENTIRE budget, then our politicians can say that NONE of it is increasing our deficit. It's all those other things we are already paying for that are above the current costs.

Very clever Obama. But Joe Wilson was right: You're lying.

Labels: Barack Obama, health-care reform

Tonight, President Obama will deliver what is undoubtedly the most important speech of his presidency so far. His domestic policy priority depends on convincing Congress -- or at least the right mix of influential moderates (like Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus) and liberals among Democrats -- that a reform plan to better guarantee the American people's physical health is a necessity at this time, not a luxury.

Problem is, the aforementioned American people -- the other principal audience to which this address is directed -- seem to have adopted a priority that may ultimately be 180 degrees away from the president's.

To wit: The public has seemingly decided that fiscal health might be more important than guaranteeing physical health.

The signs are everywhere: Debt was cut by a record amount in July. And it wasn't even close -- debt was slashed five-fold from what economists were predicting. Consumers are turning more frugal in all areas. The back to school period -- traditionally the second-biggest sales period of the year (after pre-Christmas) -- has seen a clear drop since last year.

Besides cutting debt and adopting thrifty behavior from a bygone days, the public is also putting more cash into savings.

So, with all of this, President Obama will ask the Congress to approve a plan that will cost taxpayers at least $1 trillion over the next 10 years. And, yes, that's in the face of a projected 10-year deficits of $9 trillion.

Barack Obama, who adopted then-brand-new social media devices like Twitter and Facebook two years ago as he launched his presidential campaign, found novel ways to reach his voters and the public at large.

Alas, President Obama has forgotten the old Nietzsche phrase, "If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Just as individuals are achingly aware of their own financial circumstances, so too has this information-drenched age made the public as a whole much more painfully aware of how much the nation is now over-spending. Indeed, they are more worried about ballooning red ink than they are about whether health care will be overhauled. They're cutting up the credit cards in their personal lives and are beginning to wonder why the government can't start doing the same with their public dollars.

That's the reality to which President Obama speaks this evening. He may be able to corral enough of Congress to get members to go his way.

But what if that direction is completely different than the one the American people are going in?

Labels: Barack Obama, Congress, health-care reform

From the Daily Telegraph:

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.

“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."

This is what happens when politics mixes with medicine. Even if Obama and the Obamacare cheerleaders have no intention of making a healthcare system like Britain's NHS, who is to say we won't see this in the U.S. when our government cannot afford to provide wonderful health care for everyone? What happens when our government has to ration health care because the costs have NOT gone down, and in fact have gone up because everyone starts using health care services like a free buffet?

President Obama can laugh off the "death panels" arguments because that is not his intent. But once government controls health care, and it becomes too expensive to provide everything to everyone, what then? By then, it will become another third rail of American politics, and the politicians will be faced with making hidden sacrifices or raising taxes, just as they have had to do in Britain. When faced with a choice of angering all voters, or killing off a few of the already dying voters, which choice is obvious?

Dead voters can't vote against you.

Labels: Barack Obama, Britain, death panels, health care, health-care reform, NHS

"People say, well, how can a private company compete against the government? If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. Right? No, they are. I mean, it's the post office that's always having problems." - President Barack Obama

Ironically, when President Obama made the above statement to defend how a public option for health care would not put private health insurance out of business, he actually made the argument against having a public option at all.

But let's take his comparison a step further. Think about the mailings for which you use the post office, versus the mailings for which you use UPS or Fedex. A simple greeting card? The post office is good enough, because if it doesn't get there, it doesn't matter (you can always tell grandma that you sent it). A business package which could cost you a deal? Fedex it.

Health care should work similarly: If you have important health problems, you will probably use the private option. If you are healthy, you will probably use the public option. Unfortunately, like in mailings, this will cause the price disparity to grow between the two options. As more unhealthy people choose the private health insurance, it will become prohibitively expensive, sending more people who cannot afford the private option into the public option. In turn, this will cause them to receive "post office"-quality health care, when they really need it "Fedex".

This begs the question of what the government response will be when the public option becomes more expensive than they expect? If it is anything like their handling of the post office, you can expect funding cutbacks. In health care, that means lower quality, or fewer available treatments.

In other words, the poor people who cannot afford the private option will STILL not be getting equal health care. But what if the government were to force the private insurers to charge the same thing as the public option?

Just consider what would happen to UPS and Fedex if the government forced them to charge what the post office does. Simply put, they would either go out of business, or provide approximately the same quality service you get at the post office.

Translate that possibility to health care, and the results are scary.

On the bright side, Obama's original quote above might be a nail in the coffin of this health care fiasco. At the very least, it should have the opposite effect of what he hoped to accomplish, and effectively kill the public option. If we don't need the post office to mail packages, why would we need a public option in health insurance?

Labels: Barack Obama, health-care reform

How times change.

At the end of President Obama's first 100 days, he was at the top of his game, His approval rating was over 60 percent, the stimulus package had passed and the public waited for it to work its magic through the economy. Around certain parts, however, some cautionary advice was offered to watch out for "rhetorical overkill" that could endanger "his likability and credibility."

Today, on his 200th day in the White House, those words seem somewhat prophetic. Yes, Obama got his first Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor confirmed on Thursday. But not only did that 68-31 vote turn out to be a far more partisan than anticipated, everywhere else there are clouds on the horizon.

The Quinnipiac poll has him at just 50 percent approval -- and 42 percent disapproval. While others look a little better, the overall picture is the same -- a downward trend. He's clearly lost control of the health-care debate. This month's PR push is beginning to look more like a defensive gesture to recover lost support, rather an affirmative building effort. When White House operatives are forced to refer to health-care reform opponents in town hall meetings across the country as members of a "mob," it begins to reek of desperation.

How did it get to this point? Better yet, how did it seem to fall apart so quickly in the jog from Day 101 to 200?

Three reasons: Spending/economy anxiety, health-care fears and woes and, sad to say, the Henry Louis Gates affair:

1) Economy. The public was willing to accept the ratcheted up spending -- but only to a point. The stimulus package seemed to make some sense at first, given what had been seen over the previous six months. But added to the bailouts for banks, auto industry, and others, it was inevitable that a stopping point would be reached. Obama thought that would discovered later rather than sooner.

No such luck.

The same poll shows deep concern over the rising deficits. With another estimated 550,000 jobless claims filed in July -- and the deficit having reached $1.3 trillion -- it becomes more difficult for Obama to convince a wary public that his economic proposals are working. More than just authorizing federal funds to auto dealers, perhaps there's an expanding fear that "cash for clunkers" also describes Obama's general plan for the economy -- throw money at problems. Regardless, with unemployment still rising, the anxiety spills into the debate on...

2) Health-care. In a vacuum, the promise of near-universal health coverage sounds promising. But, just as with the Clinton approach 15 years, the more the public hears about the various plans coming out of Congress, the less they like it. What's scaring people away? Fear of both the long-term fiscal costs of a health-care program and fear that the insurance benefits that most Americans already have might be endangered.

At one time, the White House might have imagined that Obama's personal popularity and likability would have been enough to convince a wary public that the health-care reform was essential to the nation's long-term recovery -- despite their doubts.

But even his personal popularity has taken a hit. For that, one can thank...

3) Henry Louis Gates. The aforementioned Q poll is the first one that truly illustrates what self-inflicted damage Obama did with his press conference response to the Gates arrest:

Obama acted "stupidly" in the dispute between a black professor and a white police officer, American voters say 49 - 33 percent. White voters say 54 - 27 percent that he acted stupidly, while black voters disagree 61 - 16 percent. Hispanic voters split 42 - 43 percent.

By a 62 - 26 percent margin, voters say the President should not have intervened in this matter. Black voters split 44 - 42 percent on whether Obama should have intervened.

These sort of black-white splits on issues are precisely what the first black president doesn't want. An earlier poll showed that his support among white voters plunged under 50 percent in the days immediately following the incident:

The poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 41 percent of respondents disapproved of Obama's handling of the Gates arrest, compared with 29 percent who approved. The poll also found the incident and Obama's reaction saturated the public consciousness. As many as 80 percent of Americans said they are now aware of Obama's comments on the matter.

The president's approval ratings fell, especially among working-class whites, as the focus of the Gates story shifted from details about the incident to Obama's remarks, the poll said. Among whites in general, more disapprove than approve of his comments by a two-to-one margin.

It should also be noted that those working-class whites were the same group that Obama had the greatest difficulty attracting during the protracted primary battle with Hillary Clinton. It's quite clear that they remain the loosest part of Obama's coalition. The Gates affair quickly re-stoked suspicions they had over Obama. Coming at a critical moment in the health-care debate (literally, at the end of a press conference which had been focused on health reform issues), the doubts inspired by the race controversy may have subconsciously spilled over white voters views of Obama in general, as predicted here at the time.

If health-care is ultimately doomed because of Obama's "stupid" response, that will be a high price to have paid for just a couple of lines in a lengthy press conference. But politics isn't fair.

The question for the president now is: Can he recalibrate the debate in a month where the public traditionally tunes out politics -- and especially policy? He has little choice. With the critical policy issue of his first term tied up in Congress now, if he doesn't create more fertile ground to get some form of health-care reform passed this fall, Democrats face a woeful mid-term election atmosphere in 2010 -- especially if the economy doesn't turn around.

It's not too inaccurate to say that Obama's third 100 days -- and subsequent weeks and months -- may largely depend on the success of strategies crafted and implemented over the next 30 days.

Labels: Barack Obama, health-care reform

News reports tell us the government's "cash for clunkers" program, also known as the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), has already burned through the $1 billion allocated for it.

(On a side note, this means the CARS program is officially over. From the CARS website: "Program runs through Nov 1, 2009 or when the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.")

What a surprise that people would take $3,500 or $4,500 if you offer it to them. All they have to do is make the huge sacrifice of going out and buying a new car. Oh the horrors of "new car smell"! Of course, the biggest sacrifice is the frequent visits to the mechanic and the gas station.

Sarcasm aside, the American people naturally did what the program intended. But as we have seen with too many recent government attempts to plan our economy, you CANNOT plan an economy.

The money quote on this subject comes from car salesman Rob Bojaryn (in an article on wcbstv.com):

"If they can't administer a program like this, I'd be a little concerned about my health insurance."

Good question indeed.

Labels: Car Allowance Rebate System, Cash for clunkers, health-care reform

Everyone remembers that old joke: "How can you tell if a lawyer is lying? His lips move."

Here's a variation of it: "How can you tell when a politician gets desperate and disingenuous?" He (or she) declares that an expensive program will actually be less costly because of all the "waste" that will be identified and eliminated. ("Waste, fraud and abuse" are the Washington, DC, version of the Three Fates -- or maybe the Three Stooges.)

Was President Obama a bit desperate and disingenuous Wednesday night? Based on the above rule, oh yeah. Big time. And it suggests that his plans for broad reform are in really big trouble.

Let's consider the setting. A host of polls have been released this week showing public support dropping -- a large reason being, the $1 trillion price tag that' been put on one version of the plan going through the House of Representatives. The Congressional Budget Office director's declaring last week that that bill wouldn't have anywhere near the cost savings that the president has been claiming accelerated the speed of the political opposition to the reform effort.

So, with that in mind, what did the president do Wednesday? He made some reference to to the savings derived from eliminating "waste" no less than seven times!

1) "Already we've estimated that two-thirds of the cost of reform can be paid for by reallocating money that is simply being wasted in federal health care programs."

2) "We also want to create 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."

3) "But what I want do is to see what emerges from these committees, continuing to work to find more savings, because I actually think that it's possible for us to fund even more of this process through identifying waste in the system."

4) "And given the waste that's already in the system right now, if we just redesign certain elements of health care, then we can pay for that. We can pay for it in the short term, but we can also pay for it in the long term."

5) and 6) "It's not enough. But in order for us to do more, we're not only going to have to eliminate waste in the system -- and, by the way, we had a big victory yesterday by eliminating a weapons program, the F- 22, that the Pentagon had repeatedly said we didn't need -- so we're going to have to eliminate waste there."

7) "Well, the reason is, is because there's probably even more waste than $80 billion in terms of how the drug plan in Medicare is administered. We might be able to get $100 billion out or more, but the pharmaceutical industry voluntarily said, 'Here's $80 billion.'"

The president isn't necessarily lying when he makes these statements: He sincerely believes he can wring waste out of the system. But, so has every other politician who's ever uttered similar words. The problem isn't that there's not waste in any budget -- whether local, state or federal. The problem is that one person's "waste" is another person's beloved program that must be saved at all costs. That's why it is so difficult to kill a program once it's been invented: A constituency grows up around it to defend it at all costs.

Obama was right to take some credit for getting the Senate to cut funding for the F-22 jet (both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Sen. John McCain have called for its elimination) -- but don't think that the plane's defenders won't be working to try to get the funding restored when the defense appropriations bill goes into conference in the House. The plane has some powerful allies -- including Teddy Kennedy, who cited the jobs that would be lost in Massachusetts if the F-22 was eliminated.

So take that example and multiply it by hundreds and thousands of different line-items in the federal budget. Can some things be trimmed here and there on the margins? Sure.

But one trillion dollars worth? Forget it. How about even half that much? Not bloody likely.

The saddest thing about Obama trying to make this case was how incredibly stale the argument sounded. Anyone who has been around Washington, DC, for even a few years has heard the "waste, fraud and abuse" mantra.

How ironic -- and sad -- that the "candidate of change" ends up resorting to one of the oldest DC rhetorical devices in the book. Sorry, Mr. President, that's not change we can believe in.

In fact, it's not change at all. That he tried to package it as such demonstrates how much trouble health-care -- and possibly a whole lot more of his agenda -- may be in. The seasoned reporters in that room have heard all this before. The press conference was a "wasted" opportunity in all senses of the phrase.

Labels: Barack Obama, health-care reform

If President Obama's health care reform plan were a patient, it would be in the emergency room, its condition downgraded to critical. The prognosis may not quite be terminal, but long-term survival looks iffy.

Six months into a new administration and DC reality has sneaked in rather quickly -- and on three fronts.

1) House conservative Democrats began voicing their concerns as a group last week on the direction of health care. This week, one key Democrat lawmaker went from expressing reservations to out and out rebellion. And considering that Obama narrowly won Indiana last year, Rep. Baron Hill's opposition is particularly troubling: It endangers not merely the policy itself -- but the president's electoral chances in a key swing state.

2) A splash of cold-water from the director of the Congressional Budget Office won't help. Douglas Elmendorf blew a hole through the president's main reason for the health care overhaul -- that it will save money. Au contraire, says Mr. Elmendorf: "The coverage proposals in this legislation would expand federal spending on health care to a significant degree and in our analysis so far we don't see other provisions in this legislation reducing federal health spending by a corresponding degree."

The Democrats' response to Elmendorf's analysis contained an interesting irony:

[Connecticut Sen. Christopher] Dodd complained that CBO refuses to assume that government savings will occur from an increased focus on wellness and preventive health care.

“The only thing CBO does is tell you how much taxpayer money has to be invested to achieve those results,” Dodd said.

“We believe we have crafted legislation that does bend that curve, bring health care costs down and make it affordable for all Americans,” he said. “I appreciate their work, but frankly we’re on the right track, we have a solid bill and one that’s affordable.”

Dodd's words almost semm like the mirror image of Republican complaints on CBO's analysis of the impact of tax cuts. The GOP argued for decades that the CBO should adopt a so-called "dynamic scoring" model that would allow for the impact of tax cuts in stimulating economic growth. By doing that, Republicans argue, the CBO could see how much revenue would be brought in -- and thus the tax cuts wouldn't have such a negative impact on the deficit.

Democrats now argue that the CBO isn't taking into account the possibility that "wellness" growth will bring in as-yet-unrecognized savings which will keep annual deficits from rising.

Right.

3) A dissing of the president from one of solons of the Senate: The key committee chairman that all health-care observers are keeping an eye on is the head of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus. A Montana centrist who's been known to vote with Republicans in the past -- much to the distress of activists on the left -- Baucus is essential in getting through the funding component of health care. Well, it's not so good for the effort when he mouths off that, the president, "is not helping us" structure workable legislation. Baucus apologized later. Nice thing about those quotes, senator: The dis gets the headlines. The apology? Nada!

The heading-into-the-weekend prognosis? Dr. Obama's patient's not getting out of the intensive care unit anytime soon.

Labels: Barack Obama, health-care reform

Can this be happening before our very eyes?

Can it truly be possible that despite the most popular Democrat in the White House in 45 years and commanding Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate (the latter nearly filibuster-proof), that the quest for the Holy Grail of politics -- a national health-care insurance program -- is likely to fail yet again?

For the Nth time since Harry Truman first suggested the idea in 1948?

That seems to be the building consensus -- even from Democrats, with phrases like "on the rocks" being uttered.

Barely five months into the Obama administration, how could this be the case? And how could the attempt fall apart in accelerated fashion -- much faster than the much-maligned, abortive Clinton effort of 1993 and '94?

Well, cost is certainly one problem: The Congressional Budget Office estimate of the preferred Ted Kennedy-authored bill -- $1.3 trillion -- over ten years terrified a lot of folks, especially given that it would reportedly only reach one-third of the uninsured population that were the main targets of the legislation. When that figure was added to the multitude of polls reflecting growing anxiety over the deficit and debt, it's not surprising that Congress is balking.

However, my friend Jim Pinkerton also identifies another culprit: Health-care reform -- because of Obama decisions on the economy -- has crashed into the political reality following Wall Street meltdown.

When confronted with a choice between healthcare for the poor and the near-poor on the one hand, and the continued overstuffing of the overclass on the other hand, Obama made a decisive choice: He chose the overclass. He put rich people first.

Such skewed preferences in him were evident last October, when Senator Obama voted for the Wall Street bailout. That was a signal, the first of many, that Obama was supportive of bank bailouts, and a generally Wall Street-centric policy. Since then, the bailouts have grown more and more costly, as the Treasury, Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—to name just three spigots of off-budget cash to banks and rentiers—all joined in the bailout binge.

By late November 2008, the cost of the bailout was estimated to be $3.5 trillion. But Obama, by then the president-elect, had no objection; indeed, his financial team worked closely with the outgoing Bush team to keep the money coming. Those great minds all thought alike, and so by January, when Obama was inaugurated, the total cost of those bailouts had risen to $8 trillion. The next month, February, the new president added nearly another trillion in spending, signing into law a $787 billion stimulus package. And thus by May, the cost of the various bailouts had swelled to as much as $12 trillion.

That's a lot of money, and not surprisingly, it's driving up interest rates, causing the dollar to fall, and even causing other countries to make plans to convert their assets to currencies other than the greenback—or even to create a new world currency altogether. Such talk has spooked not only the markets, but also the country. And Democrats are getting the message on spending: enough is enough.

Pinkerton places the blame squarely on Obama's shoulders -- though the prototype for the bailouts, of course, was the first TARP in September, under President Bush.

But even so, if Pinkerton is correct, it would mean that -- in an amazing irony -- the rather liberal Democrat Barack Obama has actually helped fulfill a long-term conservative Republican strategy, recently discussed in these parts -- "starve the beast." The rather diabolical, Machiavellian plan reasons that the continued combination of ongoing tax cuts (the preferred Republican policy option) and expanded government spending (the preferred Democratic policy option) is unsustainable. Eventually, the will of the public for never-ending debt cannot last. At that point, it will be impossible for Democrats to build ever-larger public policy programs.

It would seem that we have reached that point -- notwithstanding the attempts of House Democrats to put forward a full plan with a so-called "public option." The fact that the voices of doom are already coming out of the Senate foretells that there are enough moderates to sustain a filibuster, if it came to that.

Who killed Obama's health-care plan? Might it be an assisted suicide?

Labels: Barack Obama, Democrats, health-care reform

The Manhattan Institute's David Gratzer outlines where conservative should make their stand on what appears inevitable -- a health-care system run by the government (or at least parallel with the current system).  

First, draw a line in the sand. If there is any lesson to be learned from the economic-stimulus package, it’s this: A few votes count. The key for Republicans will be to make those votes actually amount to something more than trimming at the edges.

[SNIP] 

Republicans can compromise on some things; they can’t allow new public programs for everyone.

Second, remind Americans of why we care. No one would deny that America’s health-care system is unsatisfying. But acknowledging the obvious doesn’t necessarily mean that a sweeping White House plan is the right approach. Democrats may care about this issue, but their passion blinds them: They understate the deep problems with Medicaid and Medicare; they are eager to embrace expensive new entitlements; they dismiss the incredible shortcomings of socialized medicine in countries like Canada.

[SNIP]

Third, provide alternatives. Americans want solutions, not just criticisms. We need to point Americans to the road less traveled in health reform: individual choice and competition. It’s possible to allow the unemployed and the self-employed more options in health insurance, not by expanding Washington’s reach, but by allowing people to purchase health plans across state lines. We favor better quality of care, not through the creation of a government committee, but by empowering patients with better information.

Labels: health-care reform, Republicans