Patterico's Pontifications

8/19/2009

Who is to blame for ObamaCare’s woes?

Filed under: General — Karl @ 2:52 pm



[Posted by Karl]

As ObamaCare has run into difficulties moving through Congress, there has been no shortage of finger-pointing. People have been blaming Pres. Obama right and left for failing to lead, remaining aloof, voting present and delegating too much of the work to Congress. Some communications professionals believe Republicans have done a good job at capitalizing on the vagueness of the bills as presented to date, though I would agree with Eric Dezenhall that the GOP has been disorganized and that the pushback is “largely organic and through nobody’s genius.”

This rap on Obama is not entirely fair. The Obama administration’s strategy has been based on the supposed lessons of the failure of HillaryCare in 1993-94. They may have been a bit too knee-jerk on that score, but it is a reminder that putting out a concrete White House proposal is an approach that has failed before. Perhaps some think that Obama would have been better positioned to sell it, based on his personal popularity. But that argument is belied by the past few weeks, in which Obama has been campaigning on the issue to little effect.

Amid the lefty foot-stomping about the possible abandonment of a government-run health insurance plan, a few lefty bloggers are looking at the bigger picture. Ezra Klein casts a critical eye on some of his fellow travelers:

What’s been striking, however, is the implicit argument that this is somehow a simple failure of liberal will. Rachel Maddow called it “a collapse of political ambition.” The problem, she said, is that “Democrats are too scared of their own shadow to use the majority the American people elected them to in November to actually pass something they said they favored.” The question, writes Chris Bowers, is whether Obama is “more willing and able to pressure the Progressive Block in the House or the Conservadem Block in the Senate.” Ed Schultz said the president needs to “start doing some arm-twisting with some folks that aren’t listening to him.”

The unifying idea here is that someone can just go into a back room and torture Max Baucus and Kent Conrad. But how? Rahm Emanuel isn’t a shrinking violet. Neither was Clinton or Carter or Nixon or Truman or FDR. But none of them managed to get health-care reform past the Congress. There’s not really a record of presidents being able to bend committee chairmen and wavering centrists to their will. Even LBJ, the master of this stuff, decided to go for Medicare rather than full reform. He thought the latter too ambitious. The history of health-care reform is the history of health-care reform failing. If there was some workable presidential strategy, or foolproof negotiating lever, presumably someone would have used it by now, or at least mentioned it in public.

Kevin Drum also notes that Washington DC is a tough place to get anything done, using the Bush administration’s domestic record as an example.

In contrast, Steve Benen has a fit of partisan blindness, responding that Pres. Bush had trouble with his domestic agenda because “Americans didn’t really support the conservative agenda.” Benen has apparently missed the fact that Obama has majority approval only among Democrats on a range of issues, including healthcare. As the Weekly Standard’s Matthew Continetti put it:

The public option controversy exposes a flaw in the liberal agenda. Liberals viewed the 2008 election as an affirmation of their program rather than a repudiation of Bush’s (and by extension McCain’s). In order for liberals to implement their program, however, they require the support of people who do not attend Netroots Nation or read The Nation. But most Americans, as today’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation poll reveals, are satisfied with the health care they receive from America’s hybrid public-private system, and do not support a major government overhaul of such. Indeed, as Arthur Brooks argues in today’s [Wall Street] Journal, “There is no evidence that more than a minority of Americans accept the idea that a $17 trillion national debt, greater reliance on government for jobs and health, and hyper-progressive taxation offer the hope they deserve for themselves and their children.”

Pres. Obama may bear his share of the blame for that delusion, but not much more than the Unreality-based community that supports him.

–Karl

22 Responses to “Who is to blame for ObamaCare’s woes?”

  1. You’re not blameless.

    happyfeet (71f55e)

  2. When the election was actually occurring, we all had echoes of ‘95% tax cut for everyone’ and ‘Mccain supported far too high a deficit’.

    Obama ran as a compassionate conservative. He may have promised goodies to limited audiences, but he ran while promising to spend much less and give us all tax cuts. He helped sweep into office dozens of blue dog freshmen democrats. That’s why he’s falling on his ass. All he’s done since taking power is spend a hell of a lot of money on stupid ideas. That’s what Obamacare is… a lot of spending to create something inferior to what already exists.

    Juan (bd4b30)

  3. Like 1/7th of the workforce and a highly paid workforce at that was going to be socialized by a guy who couldnt break 54% at the polls

    Yeah healthcare workers tend to lean alittle liberal but wait until you cut their pay and tell em who they are going to work for (which was the next step) and see how they vote.

    EricPWJohnson (40a8c4)

  4. This is above Obama’s pay grade. He is not an intelligent or experienced man. Governing is much different than campaigning or voting present.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  5. Apparently today he thinks that he’s partners with God on health care–or so he told the group of rabbis he was addressing.

    rochf (ae9c58)

  6. Great post. (I have become of fast fan of the blog after discovering it a few weeks ago… thanks, btw!)

    Even though Obama is an amateur in so many ways, I assumed that if any modern president could get healthcare reform passed, it be Barack Obama.

    The problem for Obama isn’t a collapse of liberal political will. It’s the fact that most Americans are reluctant to see the Federal Government manage/control their healthcare.

    Isn’t it refreshing, however, to see the Obamacare issue revitalize conservatives across the nation.

    Federal Farmer (99386a)

  7. Is it “Who gets the blame” or “Who gets the credit?”

    dchamil (ca7622)

  8. Obama is just a mediocre with one talent. Reading-out-loud.

    The liberal establishment picked him because he was a symbol of what they pictured back at Woodstock.

    They got exactly what they imagined. Lots of scattered nonsense with a tinge of hallucination to make seem sensical.

    Tricks are for Kids (be8a16)

  9. With Social Security’s woes well known, as are the VA’s, Medicaide, Medicare, and Indian Affairs; coupled with the deficit and the fact that most Americans seem to retain that wonderful distrust of the government (any government) none of us see the US government taking over all our healthcare options as a good thing. It’s a TERRIBLE thing.

    Vivian Louise (c0f830)

  10. No president ever controlled so much media befores

    hf (9bda9c)

  11. “Obama ran as a compassionate conservative. ”

    Ouch! another ‘Obama is the new Bush’ jabs. … that’ll leave a mark!

    “Obama is just a mediocre with one talent. Reading-out-loud.”

    Exactly. What you do with such a mediocrity is speak platitudes and take credit for the sun rising, *NOT* attempt to radically take over 1/7th of the economy.

    Travis Monitor (e991bc)

  12. The real mistake is that in the process of trying to bring the 15% without health care up to the same level as the 85% who do, somebody got the brilliant idea that it might be easier to lower the 85% down to the level of the 15%.

    Gone are the promises of keeping your old health care plan, those negotiations on C-SPAN, and the cost savings that would play for it.

    Simply too much Hope and Change.

    Neo (46a1a2)

  13. Sorry for the threadjack, but perhaps DRJ or Patterico can look into a NYT editorial about a “barbaric” dissent by Thomas and Scalia against ordering a new hearing for a death row inmates.

    Troy Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer. Seven key witnesses have since recanted, and several people have charged that the main prosecution witness was the shooter. Rather than arguing that there were procedural flaws in his trial, Mr. Davis is making the more basic claim that he is innocent and that new evidence proves it.

    Just possibly, the NYT might be leaving something out unfavorable to its position. Shocking thought, I know.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407)

  14. Jesus I have heard about this, and gods I am sick of hearing about it. The “EEEEEEEEEEEEvil Scalia” meme has been think the last day or two…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  15. “With Social Security’s woes well known, as are the VA’s, Medicaide, Medicare, and Indian Affairs”

    Someone needs to clue in the libtard elites that mentioning the wonders of the USPS and Social Security does NOT win them the argument.

    I for one resent a program that robs me of 15% of my income, doesnt allow me the option to opt out, and may not even be solvent by the time I am old enough to use it, to be a ‘success’. It’s a success in the same way that CNN can claim ‘success’ in airports: Captive audience.

    Travis Monitor (e991bc)

  16. “Rahm Emanuel isn’t a shrinking violet. Neither was Clinton or Carter or Nixon or Truman or FDR. But none of them managed to get health-care reform past the Congress. There’s not really a record of presidents being able to bend committee chairmen and wavering centrists to their will.”

    Perhaps the real issue is that something this sweeping and overblown is simply foreign to the American political way. It doesn’t compute. The Constitution never gave the Congress the power to nationalize whole tracts of the economy, but even if it had the Congress would not have been able to exercise the power. The institution makes deals. It allocates among competing interests.

    Nationalization is different, and too complicated.

    MTF (551a4b)

  17. “This rap on Obama is not entirely fair.”

    What? Of course it’s fair. No one forced him to introduce this legislation or in the manner he introduced it. He’s the chief executive. Moreover he’s repeatedly and publicly misrepresented the bill and his positions on its key points. Instead of acting in negotiating good faith with all the various parties of interest, most importantly the American people, on a hugely important bill covering so much of our economy, he’s gone out of his way to try to isolate and smear those parties and all critics. He’s conducted this entire process not as an American leader combining confident vision and mediating patience but as a precocious, sneaky and spoiled child trying to con his peers and parents into getting his way without any regard for the greater good. He deserves every shred of responsibility.

    rrpjr (500191)

  18. rrpjr,

    I agree w/ your critique of Obama, but none of that is the “rap” I was referring to in the post, which was that if Obama had been more involved, everything would be going better for the Dems now.

    Karl (ade276)

  19. Due to the vagueness of the plan, I imagine that it will end up with some combination of
    – more expensive for me
    – increases the deficit
    – poorer heathcare service
    – rationing (by not covering certain procedures in certain circumstances, or long wait times)

    It may be just small amounts in each category above, but there has to be some significant negative impact on me in order to bring an additional 46 million people into the system.

    Mike S (d3f5fd)

  20. Obama ran as a compassionate conservative.

    Really? I think he ran mostly on nothing at all, unless as a national Rorschak Test for anyone to project their own hopes and desires onto a thoroughly empty vessel. Hope! Change! OK, but what kind of hope and change? No details were made available, so our own little Chauncy Gardener became President.

    Dmac (e6d1c2)

  21. Karl: I read your piece hastily, and see your point. There was a prevailing delusion here (always a problem with leftist schemes). Anyway, Obama is proving himself through this ordeal to lack the fundamental quality of a good leader, i.e., not allowing oneself to be swallowed up in the “passionate intensity” of followers but to mediate those emotions toward a greater good.

    rrpjr (d35625)

  22. dmac, you have a point that Obama, like many politicians, tried to be all things to all people.

    But Obama’s primary message just before the election was tax cuts for 95% of Americans. He ran as a republican who would be moderate on social issues. I think it’s hilarious that he managed to do so after running to Hillary’s left on many issues in the primary. But with the MSM, all things are possible. His message of fiscal responsibility, reduced deficits, aggressive war actions in Pakistan, and repeating that 95% number thousands of times really gave me the impression that Obama doesn’t have faith in his true views being popular.

    Juan (bd4b30)


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