On no less a topic than the history and future of Obamacare
Megan McArdle accomplishes the admirable feat of condensing the history of Obamacare into one insightful article that explains how and why the Democrats’ hubris has landed them in such a pickle.
Please read the whole thing. Here’s an excerpt:
…Democrats wanted universal coverage and a major overhaul of both the insurance market and the American social contract.
Unsurprisingly, the massive and unpopular transformation failed to attract any Republican votes. When Republicans had faced similar electoral math on Social Security reform — an opposition party implacably opposed, and the electorate clearly against it — they’d abandoned their efforts. That is what parties do when they reach such an impasse; it’s what Democrats did on Clintoncare. No program this large had ever passed on a party-line vote, because this was correctly viewed as political suicide. Nancy Pelosi managed to get it through the House anyway, which should go down as one of the most impressive political achievements in history, and Harry Reid shepherded another version through the Senate. When Republicans protested, they were rather smugly told that “elections have consequences.”
Then Ted Kennedy died. Massachusetts — Massachusetts! — elected Republican Scott Brown in an election that often seemed to revolve around the health-care bill. Democrats still pressed forward. Without the votes to overcome a Republican filibuster, they had the House pass a draft Senate bill that had never been meant to become law and used some procedural tap-dancing to push some fixes through the Senate. Such maneuvering wasn’t unprecedented, but it wasn’t popular, either. And the limitations of the method they used left the bill with all sorts of problems, many of which we are dealing with now…
Democrats believed that the unpopular bill they had just rammed through on a party-line vote would not only get more popular, but also make them more popular, thereby giving them the political support they needed to pass more fixes — fixes that would have been needed even on a less messy draft bill, because anything this complicated is unlikely to work as written. As I noted at the time, this seemed borderline delusional. Democrats lost the House and some Senate seats in the 2010 election, and Obamacare was a major contributor to that loss. Whereupon Democrats learned what apparently didn’t occur to them in 2009: that there might be other elections, with different consequences…
Democrats have been complaining — loudly and repeatedly — that Republican opposition tactics on the Affordable Care Act are unprecedented. This is true, but not for the reasons that Democrats are telling themselves. No political party was ever foolhardy enough to pass such a big bill, with such sweeping consequences for so many people, without the support of a majority of their countrymen and at least a few members of the opposite party. Once they had done this unprecedented thing, the unprecedented reaction was predictable — and indeed predicted by myself and others.
Indeed.
All this was known at the time. As I wrote two days after the ACA was signed into law with a flourish and major Democratic hoopla:
No, there has never been another bill like it. Historical. The comparisons to Social Security or Medicare are laughable as well. Yes, there was some opposition to both among conservatives of the time. But they were very much minority voices and did not carry the day even within the Republican Party. Both bills were hugely popular with large majorities of Americans, and passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. No one had to go out afterwards to “sell” them like a snake-oil pitchman; they had already sold themselves.
The process by which the bills passed was the normal one, as well. And, more importantly (even though we see the enormous fiscal costs now), they were mostly seen at the time as “win-win” situations by the American public. Nearly everyone paid into them and everyone would be getting something out of them, and for the vast majority of Americans they did not replace better benefits that were already in place…
The comparison many liberals have made to Social Security and Medicare was wishful thinking. There were no similarities in the political sense, and this fact was likely to matter tremendously. The Democrats didn’t think bipartisan support of such a huge program was necessary in the sense that they had managed to find the votes to pass it minus any Republican support. They wanted it so badly that they thought that was enough, because somehow they’d spin it to the American people, who would end up liking it well enough, too, once they saw the goodies it contained. That was the Medicare and Social Security precedent they were looking at: that enough people would like its perks that they would never want to let it go once they experienced them.
What did they forget? They forgot that bipartisan support is good for a lot of other things than just passing a bill. Bipartisan support means that both parties have to take ownership of a bill, both blame and credit. It also gives Congress time to debate a bill, and to possibly even improve it with the help of feedback from the other side that will temper its extremity and/or correct its errors.
But the Democrats couldn’t risk that, and they didn’t really want it anyway. They wanted what they wanted, and they saw their chance after all these decades of waiting (since the Truman years at the very least). They felt they’d compromised enough already this time by not having single payer or a public option (recall that it was only Joe Lieberman’s objection that stopped the latter from becoming part of the law).
They rushed it through while they could, and thought they’d deal with the aftermath later. Well, now they’re dealing.
Even as recently as a week ago, it might have seemed as though the Obamacare tempest would pass. And I suppose that could still end up happening, somewhere down the road. But the revelations of wrongdoing have become so extreme, and the incompetence so undeniable (although many supporters will continue to deny it), that Obamacare seems to unravel more every single day.
I would feel more schadenfreude if it weren’t so frightening that this is the same crew that is at the helm of our ship of state. Is it a ship of fools*?
[*NOTE: I don’t mean to open up the old “knaves vs. fools” debate. Both seem to be operating at once.]
[NOTE II: I’d caution Ben Domenech that the change of mind we’re seeing in many people is not necessarily fundamental, much less generalizable or permanent. Hubris can work both ways. However, when Ezra Klein agrees that the last week has seen Obamacare’s fortunes slide precipitously, and sounds very somber about it, you know things are going very badly for Obamacare.]
In other words – “it’s my ball, we play my way or I’ll take the ball and go home” – and, now, as a result the game sucks and no one is having any fun.
The inability to work with others is key. My small business would have to spend +64% next year to keep the same coverage (premiums, deductables, limits) here in CT. The progressives have no lconception of how business works or empathy for them. I could not conceive of buying a complex service like insurance without a broker (or have a broker’s help when problems occur). So why did the left need to cut them out of the picture in favor of an on-line “exchange”? You could have offered subsidy eligible polices through a massive existing network of brokers. This would not have solved the entitlement problems with the Medicare/aid monsters.
The idea they could solve the political (not medical) problems with health insurance by policy was fatal.
The question now becomes just what Obama might do in an attempt to save his legacy. He has already proven himself capable of acting beyond the scope of his Constitutional authority.And likewise he has ignored a bi-partisan resolution even when it would have been in his best interest. And,as per McCardle’s article has ignored good advise and warnings.
“But the Democrats couldn’t risk that, and they didn’t really want it anyway. They wanted what they wanted, and they saw their chance after all these decades of waiting (since the Truman years at the very least).”
The problem I have with this is that it’s just such an easy claim to make. A complicated legislative process becomes just “arrogant Democrats doing what we all know arrogant Democrats always do.”
I could just as easily claim that conservative opposition to healthcare reform was categorically different from or more intransigent than the opposition that faced Social Security and Medicare (though, despite what McArdle asserts, both programs faced opposition). “Obstreperous Republicans will do what obstreperous Republicans will do.”
The more interesting and difficult question, to me, is how to really figure out whose political influence mattered, how it mattered, and why.
I am away from my computer for most of today and too busy to post, but because Obama’s big face-saving backtracking announcement is coming in a few minutes, use this thread to discuss it all.
Should be “interesting.”
Obama, for all his failures, was always just a symptom. The disease is low-information voting coupled with liberalism (but I repeat myself).
Liberals won’t listen to Republicans (I can’t get either my sister or brother to even consider watching Fox News), but they may have to listen to reality.
When Obamacare implodes, there will be some soul-searching on the left. And remember, Obama only won re-election by a few percentage points so we don’t have to persuade many.
McArdle voted for Obama twice.
And each time she made her career criticizing him afterwards.
Anyone who both voted for Obama and also claims to be some sort of good person doing good economics…..does not add up. She is at best suspect and at worst devious.
That being said, if she is slamming the Dems now you know it is really bad since she wants them to win.
She is probably seeing the handwriting on the wall, and covering her tracks, like a communist sympathizer who then says how wrong it all was after the fact.
Might as well call it the ship of evil, Neo. They’re going to run into more icebergs than the Titanic ever could have.
Ari Fleischer opined on Hannity last night that Obama has only two options – surrender or double down. He also opined that it appears to him that Obama actually gets pleasure from scrapping with the Repubs. Thus, he expects him to double down in spite of the threatened abandonment by Senate Dems who confronted him on 11/6.
It has been interesting to watch the spin coming out of the WH. People are being transitioned from crappy policies to good policies. It’s the evil insurance companies that are making the decision to cancel the policies. Think of all the people who will now be insured that weren’t before. The law doesn’t work well because of constant Republican opposition and “troublemaking.” As each iteration of spin comes out, it seems to be quickly knocked down by the facts.
If Obama doubles down and tries to weather the storm, it will be like Bush staying with the surge in Iraq. The surge worked, but Bush never recovered his credibility. Even if the web site starts working and they get a lot of enrollments. Those who suffer sticker shock and/or cannot travel across county lines to their preferred doctors/hospitals (millions of people) are not going to be silenced. The MSM will try, but not be able to smooth these troubled waters.
The most important thing is for the Repubs to play this correctly. They cannot let themselves be seen as the party of “No.” They have to have workable action plans to correct this awful mistake. I’m encouraged by what I heard yesterday. Representative Tom Price, a doctor from Texas, has a House bill in the making, as does, of course, Senator Ted Cruz in the Senate. Neither bill has a chance of being brought to a vote by Harry Reid, but the existence of positive plans shows that there are ways to correct course and will force a debate on this issue which we never had back when the dems were shoving it down our throats.
Democracy sure is messy. The worst form of government – except for all the others. 🙂
I understand that there was a plan to pass a health care law along with social security, but this was dropped because it could jepordize both. And back then I think Dems owned about 75% of Congress.
The Surge worked. Obamacare won’t.
The Surge actually turned things around in Iraq, and pretty much removed the war as an immediate election issue by 2008. That’s why unhinged Democrat Senators were attacking Gen Petraeus–he was taking an issue away from them.
Now, The Surge came to late to save Bush’s popularity, and then the financial crash, TARP, etc., did their work.
The complication in the process was that Democrats pushed through something no one wanted without any bipartisan support whatsoever.
What was different was public opinion. Conservatives were completely margionalized in the 30s and nearly so in the 60s.
Obama lied his ass off to pass Obamacare, as did Deomcrats in Congress and the MSM. It was a pack of lies, told to pass somethign Americans didn’t want or need, and very destructive. This is fully the fault of Democrats.
Obama: Uhh. uhhh. So. I have a pretty good track record with using IT on my compaigns. But …How we purchase IT in the federal government is cumbersome, complicated.
In other words, it’s not my fault. boo hoo
Do you just want back up a truck full of crap and dump it on him?
Thank God it’s back to Rush.
Literally. Thanks be to God whenever Obama just shuts the hell up!
John Dumb, why don’t you just do what you want to do: suck on sour grapes.
So Neo’s analysis of Democrat’s motives is “simple.” And we have you to thank for lifting us up into that higher air where we can use big words like obstreperous. Really. Gosh. Thanks. You big fat POS.
I’m sure some have noted that Obama just made more law. Se we have a pseudo-intellectual (take note John Dumb. That’s how you use a big word.) as a pseudo-king.
A question for those who know more about the health insurance than I; now that insurance companies can offer the same policies to subscribers how long will it take for them to calculate new rates? get approval from controlling state agencies? and publish those rates to previous subscribers?
And what insurance company is going to make the effort in any case since apparently all of this is contingent on Obama’s good will and not subject to change in the next 15 minutes?
Finally,are the Democrats in the house and senate really dumb enough to kick this can down the road for another year so the adverse effects happen just prior to election 2014
This quote is especially for John Dunne:
Rand Paul on Obamacare [Begins @ 5:40]:
“I’m still learning about it. It’s 20,000 pages of regulations.
The Bill was 2,000 pages and I didn’t realize this until this week, the whole idea of you losing or getting your insurance cancelled wasn’t in the original Obamacare.
It was a regulation WRITTEN BY PRESIDENT OBAMA, three months later.
So we had a vote, this is before I got up there. The Republicans had a vote to try to cancel that regulation so you COULDN’T BE CANCELLED, to grandfather everybody in.
You know what the vote was? Straight party line.
EVERY DEMOCRAT VOTED TO KEEP THE RULE THAT CANCELS YOUR INSURANCE.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22qAbmL0yDw
This reality is going to be spread far and wide.
Barry’s pronouncement this day indicates that he still is not for turning — but he’s going to play for time — and throw the opfor some sugar.
I’ve been away on vacation for a week, so surprise, surprise! Mitsu is back, for a little bit, at least.
I’ve been signing up a friend of mine for the New York health exchange (she is getting an array of plans that will cost her from $138 on up, after subsidies… not too bad, and much cheaper than it would have cost prior to the ACA. She’s 37 and single), so the topic is fresh on my mind.
Speaking of predictions, I might note with some degree of satisfaction that I predicted Obama would accede to political pressure to modify the regulations regarding grandfathered plans. It’s a good idea, it’s good policy, and it’s good politically. There are times when the political process works, even if it appears to be rather bumpy at times.
It’s rather amusing, also, to note that one of the women who famously complained that the ACA had cancelled her insurance and she had to pay 10x the amount in premiums — she later did more research and discovered that there were plans available to her with much more modest increases and when one reporter contacted her to explain her options, she said she would “jump at it”:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115457/obamacare-victim-florida-happy-she-can-get-real-coverage
One holocaust survivor to another: What was that? Reply. That was a little bump. Gets a little bumpy sometimes.
mmmm. mmmMMM. MMMMMM.
I like how it is before Obummercare it was a matter of great concern that 30 million didn’t have insurance. Oh no. We’ve just got to do something. This is no little bump in the road.
But now. Those 30 million? Well who knows. The fix is worse than the problem. Claim otherwise if you are a moron. And the morons will. And give us that the present disaster is “bumpy?”
Heh!
Isn’t that moron of all morons DWS asserting that Democrats will run on Obummercare?
MMMMMM. MMMMM. MMMMMMMM.
Mitsui – New York is one of only a handful of states where premiums were predicted to fall mainly because New York already mandated so much for policies sold in the state. So using a New York resident as an example is ridiculous.
Here’s my experience – I moved from NY to Georgia over a year ago. I’m self employed and my premium in the personal market was 35% lower in GA than it was in NY and covered everything I needed. My wife got a job that offered health so we thought we’d be able to leave the personal market. However because of the delay in the corporate mandate her employer decided it was easier to stop offering coverage for 2014 and restart again in 2015. These types of cancellation aren’t being mentioned. So far I haven’t found out what my subsidized cost will be because despite filling out the form three times my application has failed when checking my eligibility. (It promises to keep my info for when the back end is running but never does). Unsubsidized premiums for my desired level of coverage are about 40% higher than they were in NY.
As my name suggests I’m from the UK so I know how bad the NHS is and have little sympathy for anyone who thinks single payer would be so great. It isn’t.
I’ve already replied to this, but note the passive “complicated legislative process”.
>London Trader
The UK doesn’t have single payer, it has nationalized health care, which is quite different. Every doctor and hospital in the UK is hired, owned, etc., by the government. Single payer is a system like France, where you have private hospitals and doctors and a single universal government insurance program, with the option to buy supplemental insurance (like we have here for supplements to Medicare, a la AARP).
Single payer in France is quite different from NHS in the UK — there’s much lower wait times, you still have total choice in which doctor you can use, etc. I agree nationalized health care doesn’t have a good track record.
Obamacare is even more private than single payer, of course. It leaves private health insurance companies and private hospitals and doctors. Thus you still have market forces, competition, and so on. However, every country that has a similar system to Obamacare has higher costs than countries like France with single payer. However, the upside is even less government intrusion and more choice in insurance options. On the other hand, it is more complicated and hence there’s more inefficiency and paperwork, and thus higher costs.
It’s a ploy by Obama to set the stage for blaming the insurance companies for the mess. Just more of the typical Democrat blame others approach.
So Dear Leader is going to allow us to keep our old crappy healthcare plans. For a while.
Phew. Problem solved.
But… ALLOW us?
Thus, my moronity, is, however, supoorted by considerations of which the portent is only suggested and can only be suggested, however, the mere suggestion provides the existential key for survivial, and it can only be survival in the power structure of the modern world, nontheless and notwithstanding the power of the powerful, the unpowerful can become empowered through massive explications of the nothingness that rules and governs my moronity, and thus, higher costs.
So why is the UK not single payer? Seems more like single payer then a system that includes supplimental insurance.
Notice the lefties always point towards some fantasy care system no one knows about. I recall 2009 when they were suggesting Spain as the right approach to healthcare and energy policy.
Actually, what he is doing is leaving it up to insurance companies, which I think may have already been the case. It is just that the insurance companies can’t do that for economic reasons, they need a huge pool in order to add people with pre-existing conditions etc.
What it amounts to is an effort to place blame on the insurance companies. Obama couldn’t manage a McDonalds, but he is great at political scapgoating.
@Mitsu
UK = Socialism, by owning the means of production
France = Fascism, by “only” controlling the means of production
Neither competes well with the free market.
Obama has made a concession today that will turn out to be hollow. Just like when he said “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” For insurance companies to restore plans will take months. It’s not sure they will choose to do so, considering they will be forced to undo these changes 6-9 months after that. So Obama is giving them the choice to do something that will cost them more.
What do you think they’ll decide?
>why doesn’t the UK have single payer?
“Single payer” just means there is a universal national health insurance program (like Medicare, except it covers everybody). It doesn’t exclude supplemental insurance, usually. Doctors and hospitals do not work directly for the government, they are independent and private. There’s a big difference between a system of private doctors and a system where every doctor actually works for the government. Practically speaking France’s system does seem to offer more choice and lower wait times and so forth than the UK’s totally nationalized system.
The UK is nationalized — there’s no “paying” going on at all, unless you mean paying of salaries. Doctors and hospitals just provide care, and they get paid salaries. There’s no payments that occur for a specific procedure (i.e., the hospital doesn’t get paid $X for doing a surgery, it just gets its expenses covered by the government and salaries covered. In France, doctors and hospitals get paid for doing medical procedures, like they do here, the difference is there’s a national health insurance that covers everybody, and you can also pay more to get additional insurance coverage.)
Does that clarify it? The two systems are different. I personally think the regulated private insurance system has at least a chance of being more innovative, so I support it. But single payer seems to work relatively well also. Nationalized health care, like the NHS, does not seem to work all that well except for routine care.
Mitsui – I’m not sure I see the difference. In the UK I could choose my doctor, hospital etc. The government paid the bill. I could also purchase supplemental insurance to see a specialist privately and not wait in the national queue. Doctors accept public patients but often accept private ones too so they are not working for the government anymore than a French doctor is working for the insurance company. And anyway if the insurance company is the government then what is the difference – its just semantics.
Back from your government subsidizied, Obama allied corporate paid vacation, Mitsu… interesting
Ready to go support Obama all out now?
BTW, it turns out that Barry just wants to send out letters to the state commissioners informing them that it’s okay for the insurance industry and private buyers to break the new 0-care statutes for the next twelve months!
That’s it.
Howard Dean questions the Constitutionality of such a high hand.
He’s NOT proposing that anything be routed through Congress.
As stated several other places, Obama’s speech today was all about blame-shifting. When people get cancelled from their plans, he wants the insurance companies to get blamed for it.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/14/obama-admits-that-obamacare-is-unworkabl
And people WILL continue to be cancelled, otherwise Obamacare wouldn’t work. The only question is whether the public is gullible enough to fall for this.
Obama can’t be trusted to walk anybody’s dog. Let alone the free world. (or MacDonalds)
The problem with wide eyed idealists is that they lack the people skills and basic compassion to take care of a single person. How the hell do they then get to believe that we should trust them to take care of a nation or a world?
Wrote this comment in 2010 actually, modified now.
Ring ring.
Progresso soups.
What? Sorry. Wrong number.
Ring ring.
Hi (bored voice)
Mitsu, is that you?
Yeah, girl, is this who I think it is.
It is girl.
Ummm. What’s up?
Well, Michelle’s out of town and well, you know.
Oh I do. Where do I go?
Back door. Up the stairs. To the left.
Okay. I’m leaving.
Wait, remember, he may get a little rough. He likes a little rough talk. You were real sweet baby girl last time. He likes to bully you know. Let him call you his little professional nigger hoe. Hell, he just designed a website from that last encounter. Um humh. So do it last last time.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/11/14/twitter–obama-first-follower-of-i-hate-n–gers
Mitsu, just put down your crack pipe you lying chunck of crap. You really need to start your new career: autofellationist for Obama. You have the innate talent and the need to swallow any lie pumped out by your masters.
Some may say you are a whore, but you are merely a slut in pantless chaps.
Lol
Mitsu was actually starting to question Obama’s moral sanctity and the lying/breaking of promises thing before his “vacation”.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if his “vacation” was the Left re-engineering a wayward Tech specialist, they needed for their various “projects”.
Now, he should be up and motivated for ObamaCare, no doubts. Nasty, little doubts eh?
The point of single payer is to have a word that does not include “socialism” in the label, so that fewer Americans reject it outright.
that’s it. It’s propaganda.
It is like leftists calling themselves “progressives”, then “liberals”, then “progressives” again. They are neither progressive nor liberal.
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me!
Claimed Mitsu who sailed in her mind for free
Traded her shrew for a health subsidy.
She got nothing; now she’s crying she’ll leave.
We don’t care. Leave.
“It’s a good idea, it’s good policy, and it’s good politically. There are times when the political process works, even if it appears to be rather bumpy at times.” Mitsu, are you on crack? How can it be a good idea or good policy to disrupt the insurance market like this? The insurers and the state regulatory commissions and the medical providers started YEARS ago in planning for the changes imposed by the grandfathering regulations. That planning can’t be undone overnight. The rates for the 2014 policies are based on what the market was told to expect under Obamacare. Now all those expectations are upside down, but it’s too late to change the rates or the provisions in the policies that were written to comply with Obamacare — what will result is utter chaos. I predict most insurers won’t try to reinstate the canceled policies for this reason. The Commissioner of Insurance in the state of Washington has already announced he will not permit insurers to do so in that state, for the reasons I just listed. Plus, the availability of older policies (to the extent it happens at all) will discourage people from buying through the exchanges, which accelerates the adverse selection problem in the exchanges and will drive next year’s premiums still higher, making more chaos down the road. The private market was already in chaos as a result of Obamacare — now it’s much worse because we have a president who apparently cannot understand that predictability and planning MATTER, both in the private sector and in governance. I cannot imagine why you think this is good policy.
Now as for good POLITICS, it’s classic Obama: he now has somebody to blame — the insurers. As he said during his news conference, now people won’t be able to blame Obamacare for losing their insurance. Of course, it is still Obamacare’s fault that they lost their insurance and that the insurers can’t put it back. But many people won’t understand that and will obligingly believe their lying President when he tells them that the insurers could reinstate their policies if they wanted to but are just too greedy and mean and hateful to do nice things like that. So yes, it’s good politics, as it allows Obama to do that scapegoating thing he loves to do so much and to avoid the management/accountability/taking responsibility thing that he avoids like the plague.
Blaming and misdirection and chaos and disruption and deceit are not good policies where I come from. I wait for you to explain why they are in Mitsu-land.
Mitsu, the British NHS is a danger to the life its patients. The most recent scandal was the Liverpool Care Pathway.
“In November last year ministers ordered an independent review into its use after it was revealed up to 60,000 patients die on the LCP each year without giving their consent.
A third of families are also kept in the dark when doctors withdraw lifesaving treatment from loved ones.
The pathway involves withdrawal of lifesaving treatment, with the sick sedated and usually denied nutrition and fluids. Death typically takes place within 29 hours.
Records from 178 hospitals also show that thousands of people on the pathway are left to die in pain because nurses do not do enough to keep them comfortable while drugs are administered.
Concerns have been raised that clinical judgments are being skewed by incentives for hospitals to use the pathway.
Health trusts are thought to have been rewarded with an extra £30million for putting more patients on the LCP. ”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2364029/How-Liverpool-Care-Pathway-used-excuse-appalling-care.html
Don:
But it’s just not true that “no one wanted” it! As you probably know, ACA supporters often talk about how many of the act’s measures are popular, it’s just “Obamacare” that’s pretty unpopular. And though the ACA did ultimately get passed without Republican votes, the law itself takes pains to preserve much of the infrastructure of the private health insurance marketplace, which seems like exactly what conservatives would aim for in negotiating a health reform law.
But more importantly, my point was that the virtual party-line vote could be read in really different ways. Were Republicans so obstructionist that they ended up not voting for a law that, objectively, didn’t seem all that bad from the conservative perspective? Or were Democrats so cocksure that they refused to seek middle ground, hamstringing themselves so that they ultimately had to push the law through on a party-line vote?
“Completely marginalized” is arguable, but I agree generally. FDR did win the presidency with huge majorities, but the New Deal famously faced strong opposition from the Supreme Court for years, until the “court-packing” scandal. Here again, we could talk about whether FDR was an avatar of the American people or an arrogant tyrant, but it just doesn’t seem useful to me to argue about character when trying to understand why politicians and political parties do what they do. It’s more interesting that the Supreme Court, pretty uncharacteristically, stuck its nose out politically in resisting New Deal programs for a while. It’s more interesting that the Court was able to be cajoled, basically, by FDR to produce the “switch in time.” It’s more interesting that, thirty years later, Medicare/Medicaid would be added to Social Security without inspiring the same kind of opposition from the Court. These are the kinds of complicating factors that get overlooked when history is just the source material for fighting present political battles.
In a similar way, I just feel like “the guy’s a liar” is too convenient an explanation for why Obama does what he does.
And sorry if the formatting is weird! I don’t know html stuff.
delete.the.alternative:
I didn’t say it was simple, I said that it lines up perfectly with the caricature of Obama and Democrats as uniquely arrogant and power-hungry and untrustworthy. All I was saying is that maybe that’s not the best way to understand why Democrats do what they do.
And “obstreperous” seemed like the best word. “Stubborn” might’ve worked, but it doesn’t really fit with the caricatures the left often makes of Republicans, which involve kind of a stupid aggressiveness. My point was I try to avoid seeing the news cycle only through those caricatures. But the reason you reacted so strongly, I guess, was because you think what I call caricatures of
Dems aren’t actually caricatures. So… I dunno how we’re supposed to talk about this, frankly.
Anyway, you’re apparently the expert on the use of big words, so I’ll try and leave that to you from now on, I guess.
And as for this announcement, I agree that it seems like a hollow measure meant to pass blame for the cancellations on to insurance companies, rather than to actually “fix” the issue at hand.
John Dunne…
Telling the states that HE’S not going to enforce Federal law INRE 0-care…
Is irrelevant when forever… and ever… the insurance industry was a creature of the state legislatures!
They are regulated, licensed, examined solely at the STATE level.
For reasons note by Mrs Whatis Says… I can’t imagine any state bending the rules for Barry… starting with the Red States… but the Blues are going to be just as adamant.
Barry, as a classic Gonnabee, is entirely behind the flow of events — as is his entire staff. Now it’s pure spin, damage control.
I expect this domestic crisis to rock from bad to worse… almost like watching Adolf’s retreats on the Eastern Front. As we all recall: the smartest generals in Germany couldn’t remediate his strategic folly. Failing to comprehend the nature of military logistics, Adolf always thought that gas and ammo just showed up out of nowhere.
In a similar vein, Barry just figures everything can turn on a dime: Hub coding need only take a few weeks and tweaks; Insurance statistics and pricing commitments from thousands of institutions can be re-jiggered over night…
All of this is because, like Adolf, he never did anything in his life much beyond work his yap. And HIS lies could spin on a dime!
It took FIVE YEARS before Adolf really cut loose. It’s now revealed by insider accounts hitting print that Barry is so radical that he deemed that he was ‘riding the brake’ policy wise and that he really needs to get moving.
With time flying by, Barry has Adolf’s sense of urgency. (Hitler knew that he had 4th stage syphilis — insanity and death could come at any time — his blood pressure was 183/99) (!)
For Barry, death comes January 20, 2017 — noon in fact. After that, it’s the rubber chicken circuit. For Barry that’s WORSE than death. (He can’t write his own speeches… and how long can hectoring sell?)
In a world of Iranian 12’rs and atomic weapons, and suicide troops the world will be most fortunate if Barry doesn’t make historians forget Hitler — because 50,000,000 dead just doesn’t stack up to what a REAL fool can achieve.
@Mitsu
@John Dunne
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Two peas in a pod.
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Are you the progressive ‘Spam the Blogs’ supervisor for Mitsu?
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Or are you the programmer trying to fix the ‘disconnected from reality’ persona software called ‘Mitsu’ ?
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By the way, nice spin. Trying for ‘Bi-Partisan Blame’ are you? No one here is going to buy that.
>NHS
You’re mistaken, London Trader. There are a small number of private doctors in the UK, but they only serve 8% of the population. The vast majority of hospitals and doctors work directly for the government, they are directly employed by the NHS. There is no “bill” to be paid. Supplemental insurance only applies to those who want to see private doctors, a tiny fraction of the health care system in the UK.
France’s system is quite different, where most doctors and hospitals do NOT work directly for the government. There IS a bill, and it is paid by the government or by supplemental insurance.
And there’s obviously a huge difference between the systems. In an entirely nationalized system like NHS, every health care resource allocation decision is made directly by the government. They decide what working conditions are, they hire and direct all the managers, it’s all controlled by the central government, with the minor exception of the small number of private doctors who still practice in the UK. It’s more difficult to innovate in such a system, to experiment with alternative methods of delivering or managing care, because it’s uniformly managed by the government. In France, you can and do see lots of health care experimentation and entrepreneurship because even though there’s one dominant insurer the actual doctors themselves are nearly all private.
As far as whether this move by Obama is a good idea or not — the extension is merely an administrative relaxation of the regulations. Yes, there may well be disruption in the market but that was going to occur anyway — because all the rates were based on guesses as to signup. They were all going to have to be adjusted in a year when actual signup numbers are available, at which point this administrative fix will expire. But at least between now and then there will be more time for both individuals and insurance companies to find a way to ease the transition.
As for “Mitsu before his vacation” I called the entire rollout of Obamacare a horrible fiasco that has made clear that some conservative criticisms of government are correct. Of course I stand by that, but then again so do most liberals like myself. The vast majority of us think the rollout has been a disaster. The narrowness of the grandfathering provision has been an additional mistake. As for whether Obama “lied” or whatever — I really don’t care. You guys can obsess over that question. I’m just interested in what happens policy-wise and what will happen policy-wise going forward.
Mitsu, there’s so much nonsense in your “explanation” about why it’s a good idea to change course mid-stream on policy cancellation that I hardly know where to start. Your arguments about providing more time for the transition are based on complete ignorance about the insurance industry and its state regulators. Yes, it might be nice if insurers could snap their fingers and give everybody “more time” by reissuing all those canceled policies –but they can’t. Pretending that they can won’t change that — unless, as you apparently do, you believe that fantasy and pretense designed to generate a scapegoat for political cover for Democrats is “good policy.”
@Mrs Whatsit
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Mitsu does not read comments.
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Mitsu only posts what is given to him/her. An astroturfer for liberals / progressives.
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It gets very vicious when Mitsu’s supervisor makes an appearance in the comments.
Mitsu is a spambot. There is no point in responding to it.
Sure, there were popular parts of it. That doesn’t make it popular. I don’t think a single person reallly wanted the crap sandwitch that passed the senate, even if some particular parts were popular.
Dems achieved 75% majorities in Congress. The courts are besides the point, since they represented older, conservative viewpoints that by then were out of fashion.
The ultimate irony:
FDR aped Hoover’s government philosophy — while running AGAINST it, himself.
He instantly reversed course and became the Super-Hoover we all we don’t recognize.
Hoover was the go-to man as far back as Woodrow Wilson!
It is HOOVER that created the faith in ‘modern’ big government.
He was, in his glory, known far and wide as the ‘Great Engineer.’
He made his own economic bones via the flotation-cell benefaction process — in the mineral fields — to include Australia. ( Think Broken-Hill )
This technology, in which Hoover was a major player, as a young engineer, became the foundation of his financial independence. It also triggered THE mining revolution of the last 120 years. It’s why open pit mining and super-sized machines are everywhere supporting mankind.
Hoover thought that his engineering approach could solve other major issues.
Consequently, he engineered his role into saving the Belgians from starvation during WWI — to great acclaim. This was followed by his efforts to record the tragic experiences of those affected by the war. These records began the Hoover Institute — which took over US Army training space directly adjacent to Stanford University. (They were in the sticks at the time.)
Time and again, you find that Progressivism started within the REPUBLICAN party, and was launched by Northeasterners. Hoover was a Quaker, ditto for Nixon, a man so conservative he created wage-price controls, the EPA, and the end of the Gold Standard. This latter standard directly possible because of Hoover’s efforts way back when with flotation-cells.
BTW, virtually ALL hard rock mining uses flotation-cells — simply everywhere. That’s how important the method is.
If people wanted a service, they would pay for it. Hey, I want a car so I’ll put a gun to your head and make you buy me one.
That’s their version of “people want it”.
Obama behaves like an autocrat, a king. He is exactly like Louis XIV – L’Etat c’est moi.
He deserves more than impeachment. He deserves approximately what George III received, sine he is every bit as bad and probably worse than George III.
I think we need to stop thinking of the Democrat Party as and actually democratic party of the sort we are used to in our Republic.
It is the American Fascist Party. Obama is Mussolini.
Okay: Louis XIV, George III, Mussolini. He has characteristics of all of them.
The Leftist alliance and their Democrat founding member, have been in a war against AMericans for a long time now. People just didn’t want to recognize it.
Mike:
I was just thinking about that Louis XIV quote yesterday. Only with Obama it’s more like “the law, c’est moi.”
That’s really the only long term important point. The Democrat, now fascist, party wishes to reorder the “social contract.”
But it’s not so bad say some like Mitsu, because, well, ” after subsidies …”
I’m afraid there is no reasoning with an organism that somehow believes that the fact that its mother whelped it in the same polity you live in constitutes a fact that entitles it to a piece of your flesh. But that is the social insurance predicate and the fascist mind for you.
@Neo:
“I was just thinking about that Louis XIV quote yesterday. Only with Obama it’s more like “the law, c’est moi.””
Yes, but in the postmodern state the law is the state – whatever the “good” postmodernist can coerce becomes reality.
There is no truth for a person like Obama but what power he has. There are no other people at all in Obama’s Lawless Lex, c’est moi. There is Obama and then there are the worker bees who serve him in his hive.
We need a revolution or a restoration and maybe both.
Getting rid of Obama wouldn’t solve anything. The Left’s power remains unbroken. Does anyone think the LEft doesn’t have dictators 1000 times worse waiting to replace Obama?