Posted on 12/03/2014 1:02:56 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Was heathcare reform a fatal political blunder by the Democratic Party? That thesis of Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, received a respectful airing this week from the veteran political journalist and New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall.
Schumer's position--that the Democrats should have delayed healthcare reform at the start of Obama's first term and focused instead on policies to help the middle class--goes to the heart of what it means to govern. It's proper to give it a closer look.
It's even more important to examine the misconceptions about Obamacare that lie at the heart of Schumer's analysis. The fundamental flaw in that analysis is a misunderstanding of Obamacare, as some of Edsall's own data reveal. The lesson, as I've written before, is that the Democrats' blunder was not in passing the bill, but in running away from it once it became law and abandoning it to be defined--misdefined--by their Republican opponents.
"We must convince the middle class that the only way out of their morass is by a stronger and effective government, not by demeaning or running away from it," Schumer told his audience. But by trampling over the Affordable Care Act, he became part of the problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Jonathan Gruber.
I doth think you giveth the LA Times too much credit. IMO
Oh no you don’t!
Hey Chuck! You a$$hats insisted Obamacare WOULD help the economy. It would put MORE money into the middle class wallets by SAVING them so much. It WOULD bring down the cost of health insurance across the board, and that would creat jobs and grow the economy.
You don’t get a 20/20, armchair quarterback do over now. You communists pushed this through on Christmas Eve using a tax legislation trick called “reconciliation”. You had to change the name of a previously passed bill that was unrelated and already approved to call it reconciliation. Democrats subverted the letter and intent of all legislative rules and our constitution to RAM this $hit down the the throats of Americans against the majority will.
No, Sir. Democrats need to just keep chewing the fat on this one. Good luck getting the stink off.
Harkin jumped on this too.
But realize they want a 100% govt run health system a la Hillarycare rather than Obamacare, not a free market.
This is the heart of the problem:
“We must convince the middle class that the only way out of their morass is by a stronger and effective government”
For liberals, the only way to remedy the destruction that the big-government Nanny State has wrought is by an even bigger big-government Nanny State.
The Demorats have shown themselves to be lying sleezballs. What else is there to know?
Nah. It’s Amnesty.
Most of the upper midwest and northeast working class people understand now that the Rat leadership holds them in total contempt as low class white trash.
The party of snooty Ivy League liberals and angry, grievance driven non-whites is all that’s left.
Yes, we do need to study that huge iceberg the ship ran into. Perhaps ...
****glug glug glug glug *****
Very well said.
The author is saying there was no life raft needed.
“But realize they want a 100% govt run health system a la Hillarycare rather than Obamacare, not a free market.”
We’re being grubered again.
It’s pitchfork and torches time.
GOP better take note because, they will be first for not rising to oppose it.
Big business, and the Chamber of Commerce want Obamacare. It will NOT be defunded.
Big business, and the Chamber of Commerce want amnesty. It will NOT be defunded.
At the Health Care Summit in February 2010, Pelosi claimed Obamacare would increase 400,000 jobs “almost immediately.”
I don’t think the Obama economy has added 400,000 jobs in total since February 2010.
Do Liberals have any relationship to reality and truth? Any? At all?
Yeah, it’s all Bush’s fault. Or they were just misunderstood. Or, they didn’t get their message out. Or, it was those Republicans again.
Hard to argue that.
My doctor just informed me he is taking early retirement at the end of the year because he is disgusted with Obamacare. He said he just couldn’t take it any more. He has sold his practice to a healthcare chain. I had been trying since last Thursday to make an appointment through them.
And my health insurance rates have almost doubled since Obamacare was passed.
We have all been screwed by Obamacare. And no, I didn’t get to keep my doctor.
Chucky the schmuck Schumer is a lifelong PARASITE (never had a job other than eating out of the government trough) who passed the ACA and now regrets it... goodbye Chuckie 2016... unless NY voters are truly STUPID... could be... they have eleted him and reelected him and he is paid off by the INSURANCE COMPANIES...(HIS BIGGST SUPORTERS ALONG WITH WALL STREET) OH I MEAN CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS... the most dangerous place to be is between Chuck the schmuck and a TV camera....
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