Obama Frets that Sinking Obamacare Will Destroy His Presidency

Below is an excerpt from www.TIADaily.com:

"You're Going to Destroy My Presidency"

Barack Obama worries that if Republicans and moderate Democrats block his
health-care bill, "You're going to destroy my presidency."

Yes, we can.

********************************************************************

"I linked a few days ago to an Investor's Business Daily editorial revealing
that the House health-care bill would ban new individual private
health-insurance policies. See also the Wall Street Journal on another important
aspect of this issue. If you have employer-provided health insurance, your
coverage is on the chopping block, too.

The Democrats are now trying to claim that this isn't true, and California
Representative Henry Waxman sent a letter to IBD which is unintentionally
revealing. It says that private insurers can write new policies under the
bill—so long as they sell them through a government "exchange" which requires
that those policies meet a whole list of conditions dictated by the government.

My favorite is this one: "Insurers…will be prevented from…charging different
premiums based on an individual's need for health care." Does Rep. Waxman even
know what insurance is?

IBD has a reply which makes the real nature of this "exchange" clear:


But the exchange will not be a private market…. The exchange will be a highly
regulated clearinghouse of providers that meet the government's standards.

Only those providers that follow Washington's stringent guidelines will be
allowed to join this exclusive club.

The government, through an unelected health choices commissioner, will set
premiums, dictate benefits, determine deductibles, and establish coverage.

Exchange participants will be required to insure anyone who asks to be covered
and to accept all renewals. Ryan believes the weight of the mandates will mean
only five or six providers will be able to survive and sell coverage in the
exchange.

In other words, private insurance companies will be offered the privilege of
administering health-insurance policies whose terms are written by government
bureaucrats.

So we get socialized medicine either way. The only "choice" we have is between
two different variations of socialist economics: communism and fascism. The
health insurance plans offered through the exchange are based on the fascist
economic model: they are nominally private, but every aspect of them is actually
dictated by government.

The "public option" is the economics of communism: the pretense of private
ownership has been dropped, and everything is openly owned and run by
government.

This is why Obama has to push through his bills so quickly. If he lets us read
them and examine them, we might have time to figure out what the bill actually
does.

And we also might find out that even he hasn't read the bill and doesn't know
what's in it.

The other reason Obama needs to move fast is to prevent the political opposition
from discovering effective counterarguments and building up political momentum
against his legislation.

But he may already be too late.

One of the lines of argument the right has been using is to point out that
smaller versions of Obama's plan have already been tried on the state level—in
Maine, in Massachusetts, and elsewhere—and have failed to meet any of the
promises made for them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

For an important analysis of the causes and consequences of the failed
Massachusetss "universal health care experiment" - which set up state-regulated
insurance purchasing exchange identical to the one Obama proposes on a
*national* level- see this important article:

Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-fall/mandatory-health-insurance.\
asp

-----------------------------------------------------------------

See for example an op-ed on Tennessee's attempt to overhaul Medicaid along the
lines envisioned by Obama:

In 1994 Tennessee implemented managed care in its Medicaid program, creating a
system known as TennCare. The objective was to use the anticipated savings from
Medicaid to fund and expand coverage for children and the uninsured. The result
was a program that nearly bankrupted the state, reduced the quality of care, and
collapsed under its own weight.

And it turns out that the revered Mayo Clinic has even turned against Obama's
health-care plan. See the article linked to and excerpted below, and also this
one.

The result is that Obama's poll numbers are beginning to slide—quickly. ABC News
has an overview of the latest numbers:


Barely over half, 52 percent, now approve of [Obama's] work on the economy, down
8 points from its peak. Just under half, 49 percent, approve of his handling of
health care, also down 8. And fewer, 43 percent, approve of his handling of the
deficit, with 49 percent disapproving—only the second issue on which more have
disapproved than approved of Obama's work. (The first was the automaker
bailout.)
Intensity is running against the president on these issues as well.

For the first time more people "strongly" disapprove of his work on the economy
than strongly approve, 35 percent vs. 29 percent.

Ditto on health care, 33 percent vs. 25 percent. And on the deficit, strong
disapprovers now outnumber strong approvers by 2-1, 38 percent vs. 19 percent.

The only issues on which Obama still shows strong approval ratings are in
foreign policy—that is, issues that neither the public nor the administration is
paying much attention to.

Gallup reports that in their poll, Obama's approval is moving below 50% on
health care specifically, with more people disapproving than approving.


[T]he latest USA Today/Gallup poll finds that more Americans disapprove (50%)
than approve (44%) of the way US President Barack Obama is handling healthcare
policy…. Obama's marks on healthcare are among the lowest of seven issues tested
in the July 17-19 poll, better than only his rating for handling the federal
budget deficit.

Notice how the budget deficit keeps popping up as the real disaster in Obama's
poll numbers? And what caused the deficit to yawn open and swallow the economy?
Obama's "stimulus" plan, a piece of legislation so unpopular that Republicans
are now trying to exploit the issue by calling for a rollback of unspent
stimulus money.

I have pointed for a while to the paradox that Obama has enjoyed high approval
ratings even though the public generally does not support his policies.

I think the reason is obvious. Americans voted for Obama because they wanted to
put racism behind them by voting the first black president into office. But as
for socialized medicine—they're not so enthusiastic. So the gap between Obama's
popularity and the unpopularity of his agenda is about to come crashing down.

This will have cascading political effects.

If Obama doesn't cram the legislation through before the August recess, it will
probably fail.

Someone from a local pro-free-market group e-mailed me a link to a YouTube video
of a Democratic congressman being booed and heckled when he claimed that the
health-care bill would actually save money. The subject line: "Note to Congress:
Here's a preview of your August recess!"

And there's another factor lurking in the background. According to a recent
article in the New York Times, Washington lobbyists have so far been kowtowing
to the administration on the principle (or anti-principle) that "if you're not
at the table, you're on the menu."


Industry groups and lobbyists typically hostile to intrusive government programs
have been professing solidarity with Mr. Obama and his agenda on matters like
health care, energy and financial regulation.

Industry has calculated that it stands a better chance of achieving its ends by
negotiating with the White House than by fighting it—at least publicly, and at
least until the various proposals get down to the final details.

This means that when Obama no longer seems untouchable and his agenda no longer
seems inevitable, the lobbyists will begin to turn against him.

It's no wonder Obama is beginning to panic. The National Journal reports on a
rumored admission by the president of the do-or-die stakes involved.


A telling episode recounted by Senate Finance ranking member Charles Grassley
reveals the Obama administration might be more worried than they are letting on
that a Republican senator's comparison of the healthcare overhaul to Waterloo
might be dangerously close to the truth.

Grassley said he spoke with a Democratic House member last week who shared
Obama's bleak reaction during a private meeting to reports that some factions of
House Democrats were lining up to stall or even take down the overhaul unless
leaders made major changes.

"Let's just lay everything on the table," Grassley said. "A Democrat congressman
last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had
trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn't going to pass if there
weren't some changes made...and the president says, 'You're going to destroy my
presidency.'"

To which our answer should be: yes, we can.

********************************************************************

"Mayo Clinic Calls House Plan Bad Medicine," Christina Bellantoni and Jennifer
Haberkorn, Washington Times, July 21

Minnesota's not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly hailed as
offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats'
version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several
bills from each chamber and multiple committees.

The Mayo Clinic said there are some positive elements of the bill, but overall
"the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality,
more affordable health care for patients."

"In fact, it will do the opposite," clinic officials said, because the proposals
aren't patient-focused or results-oriented. "The real losers will be the
citizens of the United States."…

White House aides did not have a response to the criticism from the Mayo Clinic,
which Republicans exploited. Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, used his
Twitter feed to spread the Mayo Clinic statement, adding: "They are right."

An ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that Mr. Obama's approval rate on how
he's handling health care has slipped below 50 percent for the first time. The
president's overall popularity has dipped just slightly.

*****************************************************************

What is TIADaily.com?

http://www.intellectualactivist.com/about.html

"This magazine is for those who take ideas seriously — those who realize that
fundamental ideas shape our culture and change the course of the world — those
who believe that the philosophical ideas we accept are a matter of life and
death.

This magazine is for those who agree that the job of a thinker is not to play
academic word games, but to address the crucial issues of human life: what kind
of government we should live under; what we should seek in art, in love, in
friendship; what standards we should uphold in our thinking; where our
civilization stands in history and in contrast to the rest of the world.

The Intellectual Activist examines and evaluates the ideas that influence the
whole spectrum of human action — from the immediate practical realities of
politics and economics — to the vision of human potential offered by art — to
the vast achievements of science and the threats of ignorance and superstition —
to the grand-scale drama and powerful lessons of history — to the way in which
basic ideas filter down to the smallest details of our lives, to our habits, our
pastimes, our entertainment.

This magazine is for those who want to change the world, not through mindless
street protests, but by changing the ideas that shape our lives. It is for those
who want to be activists, not just in politics, but in the realm of the
intellect."

Subscription information:
http://www.intellectualactivist.com/php-bin/ecomm4/categories.php