President Obama’s selling skills are questionable. He says things that aren’t true and acts as if we won’t be able to figure that out. A minor case in point: On 60 Minutes tonight, he says that he will “own” Obamacare and be held politically accountable if it doesn’t work. From the story:
I have no interest in having a bill get passed that fails. That doesn’t work. You know, I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it. And if people look and say, ‘You know what? This hasn’t reduced my costs. My premiums are still going up 25 percent, insurance companies are still jerking me around.’ I’m the one who’s going to be held responsible. So I have every incentive to get this right.”
Except: Obamacare, if it passes, conveniently won’t go in to effect until after the 2012 election. So, unlike say, the success or failure of the stimulus bill or his policy toward Iran, President Obama will never be directly accountable to the voters if his version of health care reform doesn’t actually work. Indeed, it would not be until the 2014 Congressional election–at the earliest–that the policy’s real world impact on the public could influence their votes.
September 15th, 2009 | 1:00 pm
You know, I am one of the most dyed-in-the-wool paleo-neo-con believers in free-market economics. But I’m having second thoughts on Obamacare. Maybe we need it after all.
What made me reconsider is observing all the ladies who need breast implants. They can’t get them under the present system (or they certainly would have got them already), but under the Public Option they would be free. All the ladies who need implants (and their name is legion) would get them. The ladies would all feel better about themselves, and the guys would all be better entertained. What better way to foster the common good of our great republic??
September 15th, 2009 | 1:38 pm
Mr. President: You Lie!
September 15th, 2009 | 5:12 pm
OK, in a crude way I was trying to be funny while making a point. Sorry about being crude.
The serious points are these: what is “health care”; who decides between what is necessary and what is elective; how does the elective, if any, get funded; who decides how much of the essential care should be given to whom, and who gets left without? What “quality of life” criteria would be applied to cosmetic surgery decisions? Who makes all these decisions, and to whom are they accountable?
These are not new points, but maybe this is a provocative way of highlighting the questions? Or maybe not.
September 15th, 2009 | 10:03 pm
Joe, right now all the decisions you describe are being made by the underwriters at the private insurance companies, as well as what public plans we have, plus the boards of HMO’s.
Unless you’re one of the 46 million uninsured, in which case there are no decisions to be made until you are so ill you can go to an emergency room and demand care.
Nicholas Kristof wrote a terrific piece about this which may be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13kristof.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1253066423-rkqPX2gI2Zw4yL0rn26T3Q
or you can just go to http://www.nytimes.com and work through the opinion section to find it. His central story is anecdotal but he backs it up with solid numbers showing the inherent problems in a system where health care is tied to employment status.
September 17th, 2009 | 10:54 am
Correction: now apparently the official count of uninsured, that is, people to whom health care coverage is not available, is now roughly 30 million. Obama dropped non-citizens (illegal or not, ~10 million) and those who have insurance available but do not exercise their option (~6 million) from his official number.
I can agree with dropping non-citizens, although I’ve worked with a number of foreign nationals that are here on open-ended visas and pay the same taxes (or more) than I do.
I’d probably keep the other group, though having been in that group, I’d call them the “taking a gamble and haven’t gotten burned yet” group. When/if they do get sick or injured they’ll show up at the ER expecting essentially free care, which guess who pays for anyway? I’d just as soon have something available to them to get rid of this distortion. But hey, that would be a “public option”, wouldn’t it? Can’t have that.
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