Why Obamacare is faltering
As confirmed by recent polling data, Obama’s pitch that the country’s existing health care system is in need of radical alteration has fallen upon deaf ears. The more people learn of the details of Obama’s plan, the less they like it.
One of the reasons Obama’s health care initiative is now badly floundering is that ever since his inauguration, he has failed to appreciate the difference between campaigning and governing. Oddly this is a man who still thinks that his capacity to captivate swooning crowds with his stirring rhetoric is sufficient — in and of itself — to persuade Americans to revamp 1/6 of the nation’s economy.
Yet, to govern is to choose, and to date, as evidenced by his willingness to outsource the crafting of the stimulus and cap and trade bills to his party’s congressional left wing, Obama has been missing in action in terms of exerting some control or establishing some boundaries over the sausage making process.
The results have been predictable. The stimulus has neither stemmed rising unemployment nor stimulated the economy, but rather, has set in motion a cascade of bad faith between President Obama and the American public. With absolutely nothing to show for depleting our national Treasury by over 3/4 of a trillion dollars, he has now finally squandered his good will.
Obama oddly seems to think that his detachment from the legislative process is a regal virtue. Yet, since he has chosen to remain uninvolved in the legislative process, as myriad versions of his health care proposal work their way through the various committees of both the House and the Senate, Obama cannot say with any confidence which iteration of the bill is reflective of his wishes. This has led to the anomalous and politically untenable situation where most Americans don’t know the details of Obama’s health care plan and sadly, neither does Obama.
Created and succored by an adoring, compliant media, the myth of Obama as an above-the-fray transcendent figure bringing recalcitrant parties together was reaped to fruition on the campaign trail, but this iconography has served him ill as President. All of Obama’s talk of “crisis” in connection with our “broken” health care system is fomented. Since he is so dependent on his rhetorical skills, and so unaware of their limitations, Obama has failed to realize that most Americans with existing private insurance plans see no compelling need to explode the existing system, with all its attendant imperfections, in favor of having their health care delivered by the same folks who run Amtrak, the Post Office and have exhibited such dereliction in disbursing stimulus funds to all those “shovel ready” projects in a timely manner.
Yet Obama displays an obliviousness to this reality. Instead, he persists with his talk of “false choices”, establishing unreasonable deadlines for the plan’s completion, and by issuing his tiresome non sequiturs, the most notable of which is that the only way to resuscitate the economy is to “fix” a health care system that isn’t broken by expending another trillion dollars on a universal scheme that most Americans oppose and which the CBO says is fiscally unsustainable.
The “Hope and Change” train inevitably derailed on health care when it was forced to square all the noble sounding and multitudinous promises, with the reality of its preliminary $1+ trillion price tag. This is why at his press conference last Wednesday, Obama was reduced to mouthing the same platitudes that may have served him so well on the campaign trail, but when offered in response to tough questions about choices and scarcity under his plan, left him looking like he was hawking a Ron Popeil gadget. But wait! There’s more… Everyone will get better health care and at a lower cost — and it will be paid for by taxing only “The Rich.” No sentient voter who watched this display of presidential detachment from reality believed a word he was saying.
After the stimulus and cap and trade fiascos, with his health care proposal, Obama has come to the well for a third time, and insists that the bill be passed with the same alacrity as the stimulus. Yet due to his squandered credibility, it should come as no surprise, that no one is buying the health care plan that he and his fellow Democrats are selling.
In terms of his credibility, Obama crossed the Rubicon with the stimulus. This explains why a healthy skepticism on the part of voters now greets his every pronouncement on the virtues of his radical alteration of our health care system.
If Obama’s political strategy seems increasingly detached from fiscal and economic reality and at odds with public sentiment, it is because, blissfully unaware of his diminished standing, he is reading from the same script that has reliably served him so well on the campaign trail. But the gig is up. The stimulus debacle has permanently tarnished the halo of the New Messiah. The political splendor of Obama as a transcendent political figure has dissipated, as Americans conclude, that the words of the silver-tongued rhetorical magician are just that — words.
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John- while I too am feeling a bit of Obama disappointment at the moment, did you seriously think that the stimulus plan would have an impact just six or seven months after creation? It may ultimately fail, succeed or, most likely, something in-between. But we have no magicians and nothing of this size shows an impact (good or bad) so quickly.
[...] alacrity as the stimulus. Yet due to his squandered credibility, it should come as no surprise, that no one is buying the health care plan that he and his fellow Democrats are selling. As evidenced by some angry Town Hall meetings on the health care reform plan, there is a palpable [...]
Rick, has an insufficient amount of time passed in order to judge the results of the stimulus? Perhaps, perhaps not…
But that is not the issue. The issue is the manner in which Obama sold the package. He insisted that it be passed forthwith and with haste. He also stated that it would help maintain unemployment at 8.5% — ostensibly by virtue of all those “shovel ready” projects. A Democratic Congress dutifully complied with his desire for alacrity and the results were predictable: a 3/4 of a $ billion legislative behemoth that has not curtailed unemployment and has had no discernible impact on stimulating the economy.
The stimulative effect for some of the projects funded is highly dubious: #320 million for STD prevention; $700 million for horse contraception; money for bulk purchase of Ham, etc, etc.
No one had a chance to read the bill, so no one had any idea what was in it. By outsourcing the drafting of the bill to his party’s congressional left wing, the bill was loaded with pork for favored liberal projects. In short, Obama over-promised and under-delivered. It may not be fair, but by failing to oversee the crafting of the legislation, Obama and the Democrats now own this stinker.
John- I do see your points. However, sometimes legislation has to be sold exactly in that way in order to make it happen. It’s almost like you want to jam it through before the special interests and lobbyist catch up with it. Certainly, the stimulus money has, in some instances, been spent in ways not intended (the ham example is a good one). Still, looking at the better than expected GDP numbers today, it seems fair to ask whether the stimulus had anything to do with it -or not. If we are, in fact, coming out of the recession, then the stimulus may well end up getting the credit (whether deserved or not). If unemployment can take a turn to the better by the midterm elections next November, Obama will be a hero. I think much time has to pass before we have the distance between the event and the outcome to make a judgment on who did something right or wrong. True?
In response to another comment. See in context »Rick, I agree. Obama now “owns” the economy. If it continues to deteriorate, he will be blamed; if it improves, he will get the credit.
In response to another comment. See in context »No one had a chance to read the PATRIOT Act, either. Where was your sanctimonious caution then?
In response to another comment. See in context »Your column is a tissue of lies. This is the first and last time I will read anything you have written.
“Yet, to govern is to choose, and to date, as evidenced by his willingness to outsource the crafting of the stimulus and cap and trade bills to his party’s congressional left wing, Obama has been missing in action in terms of exerting some control or establishing some boundaries over the sausage making process.”
That’s just bullshit. If anything, Obama has outsourced legislative crafting to the most conservative members of his party in a futile effort to achieve bipartisanship.
“Created and succored by an adoring, compliant media, the myth of Obama as an above-the-fray transcendent figure bringing recalcitrant parties together was reaped to fruition on the campaign trail, but this iconography has served him ill as President.”
A media that put Dick Cheney’s daughter on 24/7 for several weeks (to choose one example) is hardly adoring or compliant. And, after being told for eight years that Republicans outnumbered Democrats 3:1 on the Sunday talk shows because they were the part in power, we find that Republicans still otnumber Democrats on the Sunday talk shows even thought they are not the party in power.
As for having “health care delivered by the same folks who run Amtrak, the Post Office,” a less dishonest writer would have added “Medicare.” But that would destroy your argument wouldn’t it? So just screw the truth, right?
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr.Kinsellagh,
I think your blog has muddled several different issues (economic stimulus &c) but buried in it you have hit a key point..”..Obama has failed to realize that most Americans with existing private insurance plans see no compelling need to explode the existing system…”. I am not sure this exactly true in a strict numeric sense but it is true in a political sense. I think that the majority of people who are more or less satisfied with with their health care are against Obamacare and they exert much more influence than the much larger number of people who either do not have any health coverage at all or are dissatisfied with the system. The people who need health care reform are under-represented in the voting population and have not much of a voice in Washington. In contrast, those more or less happy with the current system for themselves are over-represented in the election and have greater ability to express their views in Washington.
[...] preview of what Congressmen will be hearing from their constituents during August recess when they try to defend the stunning alacrity with which major proposed health care reform legislation was produced in the [...]
It’s ironic that you decry “false choices” when you yourself present them — you (and other critics of health care reform) insist that the only choice is to leave the system as it is or put everyone in a government-run plan. But that’s not the reform Obama is envisioning — any sane person knows that reform is somewhere in between.
And your comment that Americans with employer-provided care don’t see a need for reform might need a little tweaking. Any person who changes jobs can get dinged for pre-existing conditions, new requirements, costs, changes in coverage, etc. Heck, I’ve changed jobs and moved to a new employer who offered the exact same plan as the previous employer, and the big blue shield still considered me a “new” applicant whose ailments, previously covered a week before, were now considered pre-existing conditions.
In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who seems to think their health insurance is “just fine.”
Matthew,
The present health care delivery system has many imperfections. But, as confirmed repeatedly by numerous opinion polls, most Americans who have private health insurance are satisfied with their plans. The reason I often enclose the word “reform” in quotation marks is that Obama wants to explode the existing system in favor of a single payer scheme. I know that’s not what he says he wants to do, but he has on one more than one occasion in the past stated that this is his preference (Barney Frank and other liberals in Congress are similarly predisposed).
The insurance industry has agreed to end the practice of denying coverage for pre-existing conditions as well as insuring portability. So, why destroy the existing system that most people are satisfied with (even if there is considerable room for improvement) for a public option that would put the private insurance industry out of business?
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] White House’s resources to operate like a campaign war room, and I worry that this may prove our John Kinsellagh’s critique of the president that he needs to learn a lot about [...]
[...] is one of the reasons why Obama has developed a rather substantial, and perhaps irreversible, credibility gap with the American public. As is evidenced by the growing opposition to his health care scheme, no one now believes a word he [...]
[...] when he was sworn in at his inauguration, to date, the real story of the Obama Presidency is that he never left the campaign trail. Sphere: Related ContentShare Category: Democrats, mid-term elections 2010, obama [...]