Posted on 09/08/2009 2:12:42 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Things may look bleak for President Obama in the first week of September. They'll look a lot different a few months from now.
The cooler days of September have brought no change in the heated political weather. The stakes in the battle of health reform are too high to permit a cooling off, whatever the President may wish for. The outcome will be politically and historically decisive—for the Obama presidency and for both political parties. So let’s look past the arguments of the moment to a vantage point a few months ahead, when the commentators, many of whom today doubt it will happen, offer their explanations for Obama’s victory.
Here’s mine.
For Obama, there was no substitute for victory. He stayed the course -- did whatever he had to and was ready to settle for a narrow partisan margin -- because the alternative was a descent into a Clintonesque, post-1994 presidency, in which defeat on health care led to shattered authority, a lost Congress, and major initiatives that were impossible, impassable or generated by political opponents.
Obama understood that as economic recovery takes hold, he will almost certainly be re-elected regardless of the outcome on health reform. Like Clinton, he could even have chosen to put the issue behind him. But Obama didn’t become president to do small things; he was thinking not just of a term in office, but of a time of transformation. He brushed off the concerns that he wasn’t emotionally connecting with people, along with the polls showing he was taking on political water. He kept his eyes on the prize, confident that, no matter how hard-won, success on health reform would mean momentum for the rest of his far-reaching program. Without a health bill, for example, there would have been no prospect of big steps on energy and climate change. Obama would have been consigned to a shadow presidency. He knew he had to prevail -- and he did.
Democrats, too, could read history and were determined not to repeat it. They hadn’t acted as an effective governing party since the mid-1960s; unlike Republicans, they’ve regularly abandoned Presidents of their own party on signature proposals -- Carter on energy, Clinton on health care. The breaks represented a political calculation to assure their own electoral survival. Both times this was a miscalculation; in 1994, when Republicans swept to control of Congress, the most prominent victims included the most self-consciously "moderate" Democrats who had conspicuously separated themselves from Clinton on health care. They were punished at the polls for his failure.
Knowing this, Obama gave the Democratic "Blue Dogs" room to object to reform proposals, and the chance to claim subsequently that their qualms had been addressed. This was the real aim -- and genius -- of his ostensibly bipartisan negotiations. The Blue Dogs might not have been enthused about walking the plank on health reform with him, but they preferred that to the threat of another Gingrich Revolution decimating their ranks and dooming their committee chairmanships.
Progressive Democrats, the other half of Obama’s winning equation, had to face the same reality. They could have insisted on a purist approach, which they threatened even as September dawned. But they ultimately realized they didn’t have the votes and, in the end, they couldn’t bring themselves to kill reform. They couldn’t secure a full-blown public option -- which, as important as it may be, is properly understood by too few Americans and is misunderstood by too many as "socialized medicine." The progressives considered lesser options to ensure competition and hold down costs, including creation of effective co-ops and a mechanism for triggering a public option in the event costs continue to soar. Following Ted Kennedy’s final lead, they opted for legislation that was less than perfect, with the understanding, in Kennedy’s phrase, that they "can adjust and improve the program next year or in the years to come."
While progressives were unwilling to kill reform, the Republicans embraced that role, partly out of instinct, partly out of ideology, partly because they were simply too far down the tea-bag path of paranoid negativism to turn back. Only the moderate remnant, the two Republican senators from Maine, threatened to breach the GOP's wall of implacable opposition. The GOP "negotiators" on the Senate Finance Committee talked sensibly behind closed doors with Democratic counterparts and then went public parroting Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. The party whose members had repeatedly resorted to the filibuster-proof process of reconciliation to push Reagan and Bush legislation through the Senate, hypocritically denounced the process as undemocratic. (Perhaps they meant it was only supposed to be used by Republicans.)
Where do things stand afterwards? First, Republicans are now hoping against hope for a non-recovery, a slow recovery or a jobless recovery. But it's a long, long way from this September to next November; by then, the odds are that both economic performance and the public perception of Americans going back to work will be working for Obama and the Democrats. The Congressional Republicans, by contrast, will be viewed as both the anti-prosperity and the anti-health care party. After clinging to their default position of "no" on climate and energy policy, they will lose again in 2010. It will probably take several more elections before they modulate and moderate -- and face the prospect that they must accommodate somehow to the Obama era.
Politics isn’t everything. As the Obama plan phases in, nearly 50 million Americans will gain health insurance -- and all Americans will find that their insurance is more affordable, more portable and that it can’t be cancelled when you get sick and need it most.
That achievement ranks with the creation of Social Security and guarantees Obama’s standing as a redefining political force in America. The consequences of the passage of health reform include a Democratic Party that has come through the fire tempered and ready for 2010 and 2012, and a Republican Party that could become more isolated than it has been since the mid-1930s.
That’s not the way the story’s written in the first week of September. But that’s how it will be. To paraphrase Theodore H. White, that’s my retrospect on tomorrow’s future.
Hey, guys... No means No!
We have a right to say “No”,
To your advances...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2334197/posts?page=4
Thats where the story was posted with the “selective amnesia” thing
A big fantasy masturbation about politics.
This article is all about making sure OZero gets a “score” in the game. ‘Shruum has invested in OZeros political legitimacy that isn’t, and he’s hoping to see a return.
He’s a regular Nostradumbarse.
right. the msm calls it a joke....
“Our Recovery plan is working,” Mr. Obama declared, “The financial system has been saved from collapse. Home sales are up. We're seeing signs of life in the auto industry. Business investment is starting to stabilize. For the first time in 18 months, we're seeing growth in manufacturing. When was the last time you heard that here in United States of America?”
I guess that was also part of the joke. haha, knee-slapping funny!
Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared beneath Barack above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known he’d ever say goodbye
And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives... are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I’d of had to miss the dance
—Shroom, after he gets thrown under the bus someday
“Some people have already forgotten how bad it was just seven months ago. You noticed that. They have selective amnesia,”
As I recall there were a lot more people employed 7 months ago than there are now, odumbo!
Selective amnesia my arse. Keep repeating the lies. Fewer people believe odumbo and the dumbocrats every day.
I guess we need to make MORE PHONE CALLS and WRITE MORE LETTERS to the Congress....seems SCHRUM hasn’t talked to the ones who have had Town Halls!!!!
Sen. John Kerry to Don Imus on RomneyCARE=HillaryCARE: "I like this health care bill".
Shrum lives in the merry old land of Oz.
Bob Schrum - consistently wrong since the 60’s.
I've said before, and will say again, Clinton was one of the luckiest Presidents EVER, for this among many reasons.
I wish they would follow his lead on health care, and let it die.
My local paper editor would never let me lie in a column, but maybe this is being run in the New York Times.
Reconciliation only applies to the budget. Since the amount of money you take in and spend is a budget item, the republicans could use reconciliation to set up tax cuts, but not to decide what those cuts would be.
When they tried to set up a budget item to spend the money from leasing ANWR, the media and the democrats attacked them viciously, claiming they were subverting the reconciliation process. ANWR of course was not opened -- I can't think of any substantive legislation that made it through by reconciliation.
If you could actually make a health insurance plan that would meet these goals, the democrats might actually get enough support to pass it from americans who are too used to having everything handed to them.
The problem is you can't make insurance "more affordable" by making it mandatory unless you also use price controls, in which case it won't work.
We could have more portable insurance next week -- there is strong bi-partisan support for insurance portability. Problem is that this means throwing out 50 states worth of insurance mandates, many of which were put together by liberals. So while they SAY they want portability, the details would require the liberals to dictate the minimum standards at a national level, meaning abortion, coverage for gay couples, all the things they have fought to get into the most liberal state's required medical plans.
No plan currently proposed would cover 50 million people anyway; well, in fact they would, but the democrats are currently insisting that their plan doesn't cover illegals, which make up 10-15 million of the non-covered.
The rest would be people who wouldn't lose coverage for 4 months when they switch jobs (because of portability), and millions of young adults forced for the first time to pay thousands of dollars for health insurance they don't need -- because the democrats won't let the insurance companies price the plans based on costs, by age.
the times
Northwest Indiana
Company offers affordable health care sans insurance
Sarah Tompkins - sarah.tompkins@nwi.com - 219-836-3780 | Posted: Tuesday, September 8, 2009 12:00 am
Hoosier Healthcare co-owner Donald Kiger went to see his physician in May for an annual test. About three hours and $250 later, Kiger left the office thinking there had to be an easier way to get preventive healthcare.
“There’s a big market out there that’s not being developed,” said Kiger, company CEO and president. “We already had the clinic. We already had the experience. Why not build?”
And build he did.
Now Hoosier Healthcare’s traditional occupational health center has opened its doors to the public. Its new Health eAccess program charges $25 per month for discounted medical services, unlimited access to physicians and practitioners, and discounted prescriptions through Fagen Pharmacy. Kiger said there are no other healthcare models like Health eAccess in the Midwest.
More than 200 patients have signed up for the program since it began in June. There are now locations in Portage and Valparaiso, with plans to open additional Porter County clinics.
The program does not work with insurance companies or other middlemen. There are no deductibles, co-pays or appointments necessary. Those not part of the Health eAccess program pay $75 for a walk-in visit.
Additional services beyond office visits, such as X-rays, hearing tests and injections, cost a small fee. Kiger said the cost is much lower than at other healthcare providers, because the program does not deal with insurance, Medicaid or Medicare.
Kiger said Health eAccess’s for-profit model is the future of health care, and its startup is timely, given that leaders and policy-makers in Washington, D.C., are debating public programs and nonprofit cooperatives as potential pieces of national healthcare reform.
But Samuel Flint, an assistant professor of public affairs at Indiana University Northwest, said this model would help only a niche group of patients receive affordable care and is by no means a systemic solution. He said it just provides another healthcare option.
“The unfortunate part is the healthcare system is so fragmented,” Flint said. “We need to reduce the fragmentation and duplication. ... We need to move toward a more comprehensive, uniform, electronic system.”
Some patients see superior care
Kiger believes the Health eAccess program is the kind of grassroots innovation that will change health care in the United States.
“I believe healthcare reform is not going to change by regulations,” Kiger said. “It has to change by the patient model and how a patient accesses health care.”
Patient Lynn Wellsand, who has muscular dystrophy, agrees. She and her husband have catastrophic insurance that would cover them in extreme, unexpected circumstances, such as if they were diagnosed with cancer, but they do not have health insurance. Wellsand said she went to the Hoosier Healthcare clinic to get a prescription refilled and ended up joining the monthly program in July.
“I wasn’t just a patient’s name; I seemed to be a person,” Wellsand said. “It made me feel like they take my health seriously.”
She said the care and attention she was given, including a nurse practitioner’s follow-up phone calls to check on how she was doing, inspired her to take better care of herself.
“I (had given) up checking my blood sugar every day,” Wellsand said. “Now I’m faithfully testing my sugar.”
Dr. Dean A. Shoucair, Hoosier Healthcare co-owner, medical director and medical review officer, said Health eAccess patients get more time with their practitioner or physician than patients at traditional primary-care offices, where low insurance reimbursement rates can force doctors to see up to 40 patients each day.
“I want to make sure the person is taken care of,” Shoucair said. “I’m their advocate.”
Shoucair said the clinic’s one-stop-shop model also saves patients money. A suture that would cost about $750 in an emergency room would cost about $125 through the Health eAccess program, he said.
Small businesses embrace low-cost approach
Some area small businesses such as Family Mobile Medical Services in Merrillville are using the Health eAccess program as a way to offer its 150 employees affordable health care. Not having to keep track of premiums and deductibles is a plus for them.
“It allows us to offer our employees some sort of health plan,” said Hilary Anderson, assistant to the company’s president.
Anderson said the company’s insurance rates were increasing about 40 percent each year.
“This year when it went up, it sort of priced us and our employees out of health insurance,” she said.
In the past, the company was paying about $170 per month, per employee, for health insurance, Anderson said. Now it pays about $20 per employee for the Health eAccess program.
Programs like Hoosier Healthcare’s are great at offering more access to health care, but it cannot replace insurance coverage, said Leigh Westergren, employee-benefit specialist with Anton Insurance Agency, with locations in Valparaiso and Chesterton.
“The Health eAccess program is going to provide an opportunity for people to come in off the street and see someone and not have to wait,” Westergren said. “But as far as a health-insurance program, it is a provider, not an insurance program.”
Westergren said it would be a great supplement for catastrophic insurance or for people with a high-deductible plan, where they have to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pocket before insurance reimbursements kick in.
“People can see someone for something minor, and they don’t have to freak out about it because they have to pay until they reach their deductible,” Westergren said.
http://nwitimes.com/news/local/article_c3e4c85f-8443-5e04-9387-cfe7ecb5706f.html
Obama fictionally won because he will pass “something”.
These are the same people who wanted to run away in Iraq and then declare victory.
We have not destroyed enough of Obama’s political capital. Pelosi needs to feel smarter and MORE IMPORTANT than Obama, same for Reid. These politicians are feeling waaaaaay too much job security.
We need a few more czar resignations.
"The progressives considered lesser options to ensure competition and hold down costs, including creation of effective co-ops and a mechanism for triggering a public option in the event costs continue to soar"
"In the event that costs will soar?" Costs will continue to soar because there isn't any tort reform, which is why costs soared in the first place.
Thus leaving the door wide open for the socialist Democrats to socialize medicine.
He should have to submit to drug tests before anything he writes is published.
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