Obama's Healthcare "Flexibility" Ruse

Townhall.com ^ | 2/28/2011 | Guy Benson

[Servant of the Cross]

I fleetingly touched on this point in a previous post, but it's important enough to merit its own item. The MSM is reporting President Obama's newly articulated support for state-led alternatives to his healthcare law as if it's a major concession to post-partisan consensus. It's nothing of the sort, as CATO's Michael Cannon incisively describes:

The New York Times reports:

Seeking to appease disgruntled governors, President Obama plans to announce on Monday that he supports amending the 2010 health care law to allow states to opt out of its most burdensome requirements three years earlier than currently permitted.

[CATO again]:
It's significant that the president is finally acknowledging that ObamaCare is unworkable and will impose enormous burdens on the states. Or is he?

A closer look shows that the president is not lifting the burdensome requirements ObamaCare imposes on states. All he's doing is proposing to move up, from 2017 to 2014, the date on which states can apply for federal permission to impose a different but equivalently or more coercive plan to expand health insurance coverage...

So states can "opt out" of ObamaCare's individual mandate if they cover as many people, with as many benefits, and as many government subsidies, as ObamaCare would. The Times quotes "administration officials" on how states might do that:

The administration officials said the so-called state innovation waivers in the Wyden-Brown bill might allow a state to experiment with ways to entice people to obtain insurance rather than requiring them to buy policies. It also might allow interested states to establish a single-payer system in which the government is the sole insurer. Gov. Peter Shumlin, a newly elected Democrat in Vermont, is pursuing such a proposal.

No such state plan can make a dent in the federal laws that are fueling the relentless growth in the cost of health care (see Medicare, the federal tax treatment of health care, etc.). Therefore, the only way that states could cover as many people as ObamaCare does is by using ObamaCare's tactic of forcing people to buy exorbitantly costly health insurance. And if they're not going to use an individual mandate, the only remaining option is a single-payer health care system.

President Obama's move is not about giving states more flexibility. It's about moving the nation even faster toward his ideal of a Canadian- or British-style single-payer health care system. [end CATO]

In other words, the president's pronouncement generously allows states to slide faster down the path toward a government administered, single-payer system -- which has been the Left's endgame from day one. The media is along for this ride, compliantly touting the president's announcement as a grand gesture of moderate pragmatism, rather than the devious statist machination that it is.

UPDATE: Surprise, surprise -- White House officials are whispering to "liberal allies" that the president's historic concession to Republicans is actually designed to be a Trojan horse for the implementation of "public option" and single-payer systems:

...A source on a White House conference call with liberal allies this morning says the Administration is presenting it to Democrats as an opportunity to offer more expansive health care plans than the one Congress passed.

Health care advisers Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter stressed on the off-record call that the rule change would allow states to implement single-payer health care plans -- as Vermont seeks to -- and true government-run plans, like Connecticut's Sustinet. The source on the call summarizes the officials' point -- which is not one the Administration has sought to make publically -- as casting the new "flexibility" language as an opportunity to try more progressive, not less expansive, approaches on the state level.

The Obama Administration: Yanking an unwilling nation to the left, while demanding to be congratulated for its non-partisan pragmatism. Don't be bamboozled.

[Servant of the Cross]

[FrankR]

[WayneS]

This 'flexibility' is nothing more than a transparent attempt to shift the upcoming blame for the inevitable utter failure of "obamacare" FROM those who are actually responsible for it, Barack Obama, his handlers and democrats in congress, TO those who are not, the States.

[Matchett-PI]

bttt

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

...A source on a White House conference call with liberal allies this morning says the Administration is presenting it to Democrats as an opportunity to offer more expansive health care plans than the one Congress passed.

Health care advisers Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter stressed on the off-record call that the rule change would allow states to implement single-payer health care plans -- as Vermont seeks to -- and true government-run plans, like Connecticut's Sustinet.

The source on the call summarizes the officials' point -- which is not one the Administration has sought to make publically -- as casting the new "flexibility" language as an opportunity to try more progressive, not less expansive, approaches on the state level.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Oops, forgot the link.

...A source on a White House conference call with liberal allies this morning says the Administration is presenting it to Democrats as an opportunity to offer more expansive health care plans than the one Congress passed.

Health care advisers Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter stressed on the off-record call that the rule change would allow states to implement single-payer health care plans -- as Vermont seeks to -- and true government-run plans, like Connecticut's Sustinet.

The source on the call summarizes the officials' point -- which is not one the Administration has sought to make publically -- as casting the new "flexibility" language as an opportunity to try more progressive, not less expansive, approaches on the state level.

[sickoflibs]

The states were free to implement single payer before Obama-care, they just didnt and still don't have the money.

That article above is consistent with a segment MSMBC Maddow had on this the other night. You cant cover as many people as Obama-care does without mandates and taxes. This is a political move (trap) to use against any sitting Republican governor that tries to run against him. It forces them into a corner of saying that it is not the Federal government's job to make sure people have medical coverage, which polls have shown many people think it is unfortunately.

There is a side issue that the mandate is not really a mandate (no punishment for not paying the low fee/fine/tax) and won't work if people figure that out and will bankrupt insurance companies, but Republicans probably won't point that out.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

This is a political move (trap) to use against any sitting Republican governor that tries to run against him. It forces them into a corner of saying that it is not the Federal government's job to make sure people have medical coverage, which polls have shown many people think it is unfortunately.

There is something more important at stake than Republican govs' political careers. Of course GOP politicians keep repeating that there should be a health care safety net for those who really cannot get health care, but if there is a majority of voters who believe that something like Obamacare is the answer, the future looks dark.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”This is a political move (trap) to use against any sitting Republican governor that tries to run against him. It forces them into a corner of saying that it is not the Federal government's job to make sure people have medical coverage, which polls have shown many people think it is unfortunately ......There is something more important at stake than Republican govs’ political careers. Of course GOP politicians keep repeating that there should be a health care safety net for those who really cannot get health care, but if there is a majority of voters who believe that something like Obamacare is the answer, the future looks dark.”

That Obama-care decision in FL is encouraging. Keeps Obama-care in the news in a negative light.

I am just pointing out what they are up to. You know how fickle American voters are over cutting spending or cutting liberal ‘rights’ when the MSM creates a straw-man. I have noticed that few elected Republicans know how to counter the Democrat tactics and so when put on the spot they get scared and end up sounding crazy on TV contradicting themselves, or worse backing off. .

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

I am just pointing out what they are up to. You know how fickle American voters are over cutting spending or cutting liberal ‘rights’ when the MSM creates a straw-man. I have noticed that few elected Republicans know how to counter the Democrat tactics and so when put on the spot they get scared and end up sounding crazy on TV contradicting themselves, or worse backing off.

Yep, leave it to the GOP to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Yep, leave it to the GOP to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”

There is something else floating around that is disturbing. It is 'observation' and specualtion that no Republican has announced a run (beyond Newt's exploratory) because Obama’s chances for re-election has increased greatly from last year.

On one hand Obama lost Pelosi as Speaker which get’s him off the hook for having to get her to pass things, on the other hand Boehner is not using the House to effectively damage Obama politically. Obama is playing Mr Moderate-reasonable to the voters.

I would like a Republican candidate spell out what they will do to defeat Obama.