On healthcare, Republicans earn deep skepticism
Allow me to bury the lead by beginning with a couple of the usual caveats:
I think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to debate the design, implementation, cost and philosophical principles underlying the Democrats’ Healthcare Reform Act.
A lot of legitimate questions remain about how the program will be paid for long-term, how many people it will actually help, and whether better, less complicated and less intrusive alternatives might be found.
And now for the punch-line: As they seek to score political points on “Obamacare,” Republicans have largely blown their own credibility as the party with the right ideas to answer those questions.
Indeed, GOP leaders have earned for themselves a deep reservoir of skepticism.
The first blunder, of course, is that top Republicans have adamantly refused to offer alternatives, or talk about how they would approach this differently.
Nor have they adequately explained the fact that during the years when Republicans controlled Washington, they ballooned the public costs of healthcare (pushing through a huge, budget-busting prescription drug entitlement for seniors) without addressing the tens of millions of Americans with no insurance coverage.
So when Republicans say their message in 2012 will be “repeal and replace,” journalists like myself and voters like you should be asking for specifics: Replace with what? How will you get it right this time?
The other reason the GOP has drifted into “pants on fire” territory on this issue is that so many of their most adamant claims about the Democratic plan have turned out to be flimsy, exaggerated or downright false.
Just this morning on our airwaves, New York state Republican leader Dean Skelos argued that a new Congressional Budget Office accounting of Obamacare suggests that it will cost twice as much as originally predicted.
This is a widely parroted theme among conservatives and it is, simply and factually, false. Here’s what the non-partisan website FactCheck.org found when they looked at this issue:
Several readers asked us about Republican comments and news reports saying that a new Congressional Budget Office report had found that the federal health care law would cost double the original estimate. But that’s not what CBO’s report said. Instead, the report shows that the gross yearly costs of the new health care law are likely to be 8.6 percent higher than originally estimated.
Politifact — another non-partisan fact-checking team — reached the same conclusion, calling conservative claims bluntly “false.”
Politifact also investigated conservative claims, echoed by presidential candidate Mitt Romney, that the Healthcare Reform Act would somehow ration or deny certain Medicare treatments received by elderly Americans.
Their probe concluded that the assertions were “pants on fire” lies, saying that the a new political ad about the issue “isn’t just wrong. It’s also ridiculous.”
So what’s up with that? If Obamacare really is so toxic, why does the GOP have to keep trotting out full-blown whoppers to attack it? If the truth about the program is ugly, hit us with the truth.
And then there’s the complicated issue of whether or not the GOP’s top candidate, Mitt Romney, actually some of the most controversial policy provisions of Obamacare, while serving as the governor of Massachusetts and while campaigning in 2008.
The Washington Post’s Factchecker site concluded that Romney embraced the idea of personal mandates, insisting as recently as 2008 that “mandates work.”
But Romney never embraced a national mandate requiring that all Americans purchase health insurance.
That’s an important distinction, but it still leaves a lot of of unanswered questions. If mandates work but we don’t want them in national policy, what are the alternatives?
How does the GOP leadership plan to confront the complex, thorny problems posed by uninsured Americans, both those who can’t afford coverage and those who carelessly choose not to buy protection, thus ballooning costs for the rest of us?
As Republicans campaign this summer, these are the questions that they should be answering. And to win the high ground on this issue, they should make sure that their answers are based in fact.
Tags: analysis, election12, health, politics
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Factcheck.org, themselves are mixing apples and oranges.
They conveniently switch the numbers and the years, which was the trick that the Dems used all along.
The original claim of $940Billion used income for 10 years and expenses for 6 years.
Trickery.
Why Factcheck.org is trying to cover for the Dems while pretending to be non-partisan is also trickery.
Health care in this country is a cruel joke. Medicare is a cruel joke. Health insurance is a cruel joke.
Every health insurance plan will tell purchasers that the larger the pool, the lower the cost. Stands to reason that if everyone were in the same pool (National Health Care – same for all) would be the least expensive way to go. Same health care for me, you and all of our dearly beloved elected representatives including the President.
As thing now stand, if at all possible, I intend to work until I drop dead so that the health insurance I do have and pay for at my workplace continues and I can keep just part A of Medicare because all the other parts cost too much and aren’t worth a darn.
The issue is not uninsured Americans, the issue is that our health care system itself is broken, it costs too much for everyone, far too much and any sort of public financed national health care is a lie; as it is unaffordable, it can’t be done at the current prices of health care without large tax increases. We can’t pay for Medicare now or in the future how would we pay for expanding the whole system?
The Affordable health care act is just an unfunded mandate, right now its a paper tiger that these guys pushed the hard parts out into the future after the election. From that perspective it is just a cynical going through the motions kind of thing that is also heavy handed; mandates and ordering people and companies to pay for something that is not affordable is just a government plan to pad the pockets of the health care business.
The Republicans have no plan except the status-quo.
Who is benefiting from both of these plans?
I just had my annual physical, and learned that my GP is excited about the Affordable Health Care Act. He says that provisions are starting to be activated that will be very good for his patients and for the work he does, which focuses on preventive care to the largest extent possible. We hear a lot about dollars and cents, much less about whether healthcare reform will have benefits for people who will use it. He thinks we are all going to be a lot happier with this act as it rolls out. I am encouraged by what he has to say, and hope that the AHCA is given a chance to prove whether or not it can improve health outcomes and stabilize the costs of medical care.
I pay for my own health Ins, In the past 2 yrs it has gone up over 30%, something has got to give.
I don’t pretend to have the answer to this problem but I strongly suspect that the uninsured demographic is composed of younger people who choose to gamble on their good health. The truly poor will never buy coverage as long as medicade is available or coverage is provided at government expense. In the end it is seniors, the major consumers of health care services, who will have to accept the fact that their care will be rationed and that services they now take for granted will no longer be instantly available. I am reminded of an elderly Canadian lady I met in Lake George about three years ago who needed a hip replacement. She told me that she could afford to have it done at the Mayo Clinic which is where it was going to be done because she would be dead by the time she qualified to have it done in Canada.
Other than the recent (false) claims that the GOP have espoused about contraception, there has not been an identification from any of them as to what exactly it is under the Patient Protection and Affordability Act that they specifically object to. Is it the increased coverage, or is it the lowered cost across the board? This Act isn’t even a single-payer system. What it does is it gives the private insurance companies more policy holders than they would have had otherwise, and in return, they (the private health insurance companies) are expected in return to change a few of their inhumane and barbaric practices (ie: kicking people off when they get sick or denying people coverage because of a “pre-existing condition”. You don’t hear the insurance companies complaining. It’s just certain Republican politicians that are (probably because they all fought it tooth and nail and therefore cannot take any credit for it or any of its successes). If anything, this Act doesn’t not go nearly far enough. I’m a red-blooded “survival of the fittest” American capitalist, but there are two areas in life that I believe everyone should have an equal shot at, and that’s education, and health-care. It comes down to whether or not you believe that health-care is a fundamental human right. I do. We need to join the rest of the developed free world and create our own single-payer, universal, health care system that covers all Americans all of the time. You need to take the profit motive out of health care in this country. If you have a fire in your house, or a burglar breaking in, the Fire Department or the Police Department don’t send you a bill after they put the fire out or arrest the burglar. It’s past time we start approaching health care in this same mindset. Ridiculous. I lived in the U.K. for over a year, contracted severe respiratory illness, when I was there, which required hospitalization twice, received absolute top-quality attention and care, and the only thing I had to pay for was about $10 for my prescriptions (and I wasn’t even a citizen).
Be careful SirLeland. It has been reported just this week that volunteer fire companies in Ohio have allowed dwellings to burn to the ground rather than to extinguish fires at residences of people who have failed to contribute. I’ll stand corrected but I think I heard this on NCPR.
What I object to is that the act is simply an unfunded mandate.
It doesn’t do anything. Until we fundamentally change the cost structure this act won’t work, it will make things worse by increasing the cost of health care. Has anyone’s health care costs gone down since this act was passed? 1/8 of the US economy is sucked up into health care right now, it is a mess.
I agree the UK and Canada and pretty much every other developed country does it better.
The Republican solution is no solution simply let the current creaky boat lumber on toward the rocks.
The cost of health care increased from $256 billion in 1980 to $2.6 trillion in 2010. Kaiser reports that costs are expected to grow faster than national income for the foreseeable future and characterizes this fact as “a major policy priority.”
Really? For whom?
During these three decades, Republicans held the presidency for 20 years and Democrats for 10. During this period, two presidents attempted to confront this crisis; both were Democrats. And in each case, the GOP turned every possible resource toward defeating the effort.
What else do we need to know?
jdm, meet paul krugman:
does anyone else get sick of jdm’s unending efforts to pollute this blog with misinformation?
Bob S, you exactly make SirLeland’s point. In this country we have decided that police and fire protection needs to be socialized because the free-market approach – ie if someone hasn’t paid their yearly fire bill you let their house burn down – is reprehensible.
I agree with Mervel that a mandate to buy insurance is wrong. Is it un-Constitutional to require people to buy insurance? I don’t know. But there isn’t anything in the Constitution to say the government can’t provide health insurance to everyone. Pay for it through taxes and take the profit motive out of the system.
Exactly Knuckle!
I am sorry but if we had this great health care system which really took good care of us but was expensive I would feel differently. The fact is we die young compared to other developed countries, our health care system sucks in quality AND it is a rip off. It makes profits by selling Viagra, Vicodin, botox, sleep aids and every other sort of crap while our infant mortality rate rivals undeveloped countries.
And now the government is going to force me to buy private insurance from the same jerks that set this system up in the first place?
During the writing of the health care reform bill the Republicans had a golden opportunity and a national televised platform to show the country their ‘better ideas’ when the president held the health care summit. What did they do? They called for scrapping the whole plan and starting over from scratch to do something (they never said what) years in the future. “We can’t rush into this” they said. Rush? We’ve been talking about it for over 60 years. We are the only industrialized country in the world without universal health care. We have the best technology but the worst outcomes, not only among industrialized countries but worse even than several third world countries. Oh wait. I forgot. It took over a century to give women the vote and that was a simple thing. Health care is complicated. It needs a millennium to figure it out.
2nd anniversary of Obamacare. Celebrations from the administration? or did they go into hiding?
Complaining about being forced to buy health insurance doesn’t work because you are already forced to buy insurance if you own a car.
Now if you want to say that requirement is unconstitutional and needs to be scraped, I might agree with you about health insurance.
Some very thoughtful comments here.
Of course, our friend JDM is NEVER happy with anything the Dems or the Prez does, has done or will EVER do! JDM even has issues to websites that do “fact” checking. JDM does not like researched “facts” that do not match his/her’s imagined facts.
JDM, you can be counted on to daily deliver a steady RUSH of witty criticisms but where can I find where you give your solutions or well-thought out alternatives.
As this article well states, lots of negativity and absolutely no creativity from the CONservatives running for office or from you.
Prove me wrong. Please!
Glad you asked, JDM!
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/ninja-move-obama-campaign-accepts-obamacare.php?ref=fpa
I don’t need health coverage, I need health care. The difference is whether the dollars go to doctors, nurses, and technicians, or to lawyers and insurance execs. If we take these insurance/investment types out of the middle, we’ll Have a LOT more available for health care.
The affordable care act is doing good work, and saving money for people right now. The work is quietly happening and doesn’t have a label affixed to it, but it covering the uninsured or self-pay patients every day. This said, I applaud the accomplishment, but a single payer, government run, program will provide universal care without creating a new group of one percenters.
frankjoseph: right back at ya.
Of course, our liberal friends are NEVER happy with anything the Republicans or George Bush did, or any Republican will EVER do! Liberals even have issues to websites that do “fact” checking, if they reveal anything other than the liberal agenda of transfer of wealth, deny man-made climate change, or the usefulness of fossil fuel. Liberals do not like researched “facts” that do not match their imagined facts.
Hey Knucklehead; you are correct – under a socialized system if you fail to pay your fire protection bill (taxes) they don’t allow your house to burn down, they just boot you out and auction your house off.
The US Government (Republican Or Democrat in charge) has not been sucessful at running anything right. Medicare,Medicaid, Social Securitiy,FannieMae,FreddieMac,Hell Even the Post Office has Been running in the red for years. I don’t think I want the Federal Government in charge of my health care.
For Advocates of the new health care law, Dick Cheney’s heart transplant could not have come at a more opportune time. The top-shelf public-financed health coverage received by active and retired federal politicians—with no denial for pre-existing conditions—is one of the greatest hypocrisies of the ongoing debate in Congress.
oa: I’m glad you found a link on tpm, because all the liberal media outlets missed Obama’s big day. ABC, CBS, NBS, NPR, CNN, et. al.
Here’s the headline that you linked to:
Obama Campaign Again Tries To Reclaim ‘Obamacare’
Most liberal media outlets try hard to avoid using Obama’s name in the title of this failure of legislation.
In your link, Axelrod was the one who sent out the email. Obama was no where to be found. Axelrod used the word “Obamacare”.
Let’s see how many brave liberals on this thread follow suit.
THE OUTRAGEOUS COST OF HEALTHCARE
I have GERD. OTC medication for 1 mo. supply: out-of-pocket cost $18. Same medication by prescription with insurance co-pay: $5. Same Rx prescription: out-of-pocket: $90. Somebody with strong lobbyists, i.e. AMA & Big Pharma. is ripping us off.
SirLeland & Knuck, right on! Single payor was sadly sold out to the lobbyists and Republicans, because it was too much like Canada and the UK, disregarding that their healthcare programs works just fine without the price-gouging we are saddled with.
Our only hope for single payor healthcare, is if the Supreme Court strikes down the requirement for citizens to carry health insurance. The cost of insurance will skyrocket, healthcare costs with it, and perhaps the public will finally realize that the beloved Medicare model is what we need and can afford. In order for Congress to pass it, we can’t call it socialized medicine.
JDM, your solutions?
Still waiting?
BobS, ugh! Where do I start…
JDM “Of course, our liberal friends are NEVER happy with anything the Republicans or George Bush did, or any Republican will EVER do! ”
I liked the big marine wildlife sanctuary that President Bush created. I like the EPA that President Nixon created. And I’ll be thrilled if the Republicans fail to elect their candidate to be president. So you are wrong, wrong and wrong.
I liked it when Obama extended the Bush tax cuts and got Bin Laden.
So, frankjoseph is also wrong, wrong, wrong.
My point is that is fruitless to attack the person who has an idea that you don’t like, frankjoseph and khl, because everytime you point a finger at someone, there are three more pointing back at you.
Instead, if you disagree with one of my ideas, present your idea in the best manner possible, and contrast it to mine.
“…if you disagree with one of my ideas, present your idea in the best manner possible…”
Yeah, right. I can only echo frankjoseph: “JDM, your solutions? Still waiting?”
Walker and frankjosephs:
I’m a little confused. My solutions to what?
oa posted a link to the BIG celebration of Obamacare that consisted of Axelrod, alone, promoting it, invoking the word “Obamacare” as if say, “there, we used it, now go away!”
There’s your solution. Join in with the Axelrod chorus.
frankjoseph and Walker:
What are your solutions?
I’m waiting.
I should have thought it obvious: my preferred solution is a single-payer system; Obama-care as a Best-We-Could-Get solution.
OK, now it’s your turn: we presently have a health care system that costs roughly double what the rest of the world pays, but ranks poorly on health outcomes– what would you propose we do about it?
JDM, I use the term ObamaCare all the time for the reason you point out above. People who don’t like the Presidents health-care reform proposal, the Affordable Care Act started to use ObamaCare as a pejorative. Gay people showed that the way to diffuse the power of a pejorative is to embrace it, “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”
ObamaCare is here. The President cares about the health of his constituency – every single American. The best interests of the United States are served when the American people are as healthy as possible. One way to try to increase the health of the population is to ensure that all people have access to affordable healthcare.
A healthy person is more productive, and less costly to the healthcare system. A more productive person makes more money which will increase help increase tax receipts which will help to lower our deficit and national debt. A healthy person is less of a burden on government services and society as a whole. And if that person pays for their own health care they aren’t a free-loader on the rest of society.
The way I see it government mandated health care is a fiscally conservative position.
JDM, when I asked you for your solution, I fully expected that you would come back with such a vapid response. It would be nice if you could stop with the child-like word games and answer the question.
We are not the folks writing here with stubborn negativity and snide insults of the President or the Affordable Health Care Act. YOU ARE that person!
So, why is it incumbent on us to provide an alternative solution?
The deal, JDM, is that unless you can write here with some intelligence and heart as to what you believe the CONservative solution is to having 40 million uninsured, denied insurance because of previous existing conditions or see premiums go through the roof when actually get sick – then all you are doing is coming here directly after watching FOXyFiends and/or Rush and ditto-heading the Rupert Murdoch propaganda machines lies. I like Obamacare, and I would LOVE it had he gone for a universal health care system similar to the one I enjoy throught the VA and similar to the government program that just covered 71 year Dick Cheney’s heart transplant.
Just as they tend to only deliver negativitiy and snide insults with no solutions and no answers to the decades long “health care crisis” in America, so it seems to be in your case as well. No solutions, just lots of empty rhetoric.
frankjoseph:
“JDM, when I asked you for your solution, I fully expected that you would come back with such a vapid response.”
You mean like this one:
frankjosephs: JDM, your solutions?
Still waiting?
vapid: Adj. Offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging: “tuneful but vapid musical comedies”.
frankjosephs: you started with the “vapid” responses, not me. If you want to have a meaningful conversation with me, please apologize.
JMB – your daddy is dumb.
Frankie – prove it?
JMB – I just did, your daddy is dumb.
Frankie – my father is not dumb.
JMB – prove it?
JMB, writing vapid responses and 3rd grade responses since the 12th grade.
You will give us your solution(s) if I apologize? Really? I’m so sorry that I said you copy FOX and Rush and repeast their vapid comments with your own vapid comments.
JDM – so you chose to take the “high-road” and refuse to answer the question that has been posed to you by myself and others.
You do not want to have a conversation with ne because of “vapid” but you also seem to be avoided Walker and Knuckleheadedliberal as well? Did they make any remarks concerning your vapid writings?
They too would like to have a conversation with you in which you share with all the world your solutions to our health care situation.
We are still waiting.
JDM – Obamacare stinks.
Frankie – No it doesn’t.
JDM – Yes it does!
Frankie – What’s your alternative/solution?
JDM – Obamacare stinks, so you provide an alternative.
Like I said, vapid.
I do not know why I even bother addressing whomever JDM is or what he/she has to repeat from FOX and Rush.
Like Barney Frank once said, “Madam, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.” (Frank responding to a woman comparing President Obama to Nazis at a town hall meeting in 2009.)
So, from now on, Mr. JDM, the scornful critic without answers, I’m done trying to have a conversation with dining room tables or yourself.
Enjoy reading your posts without need for any further conversation from me. I would suggest that the rest of us living in an reality based adult world follow suit.
NCPR – “And now for the punch-line: As they seek to score political points on “Obamacare,” Republicans have largely blown their own credibility as the party with the right ideas to answer those questions.
Indeed, GOP leaders have earned for themselves a deep reservoir of skepticism.
The first blunder, of course, is that top Republicans have adamantly refused to offer alternatives, or talk about how they would approach this differently”
That applies to the bottom feeding Republicans who adamantly refuse to offer alternatives as well. Excuses aplenty. Alternatives? No.
Rick Santorum, GOP candidate was telling his audiences some really BIG and vapid lies about Dutch health care and euthanasia. Check out the video where he claims Dutch elderly wear bracelets saying “do not eutanize me.” Can Santorum be outdone in the crazy department?
NCPR again – “Politifact also investigated conservative claims, echoed by presidential candidate Mitt Romney, that the Healthcare Reform Act would somehow ration or deny certain Medicare treatments received by elderly Americans.Their probe concluded that the assertions were “pants on fire” lies, saying that the a new political ad about the issue “isn’t just wrong. It’s also ridiculous”.
So what’s up with that? If Obamacare really is so toxic, why does the GOP have to keep trotting out full-blown whoppers to attack it? If the truth about the program is ugly, hit us with the truth.”
Don’t expect to see an answer from the CONservatives any time soon.
The questions now to ask are: Does Dick Cheney’s heart transplant mean he now has a heart and what poor person died to provide him with one?
I’ve heard tell that back in Oz (a really beautiful Kansas alternative) there is a rapidly rusting Tinman who is going around claiming that someone dressed as Darth Vador came along and stole Tinman’s heart.
Tinman does not have any medical insurance. And he is barred from a getting a new heart due to his pre-existing condition.
Covering the medical costs of VP Cheney and his pre-existing heart problems leading to multiple and costly operations? No problem.
The insistence of placing blame upon the “government” for the health care problems in the US, in lieu of placing blame where it actually resides, appears to be irresolvable, based upon the political situation herein. Money really is the “root” of all evil when it come to virtually all economic endeavors within the US. The 1% via their legions of lobbyists are the government of the US not the so called representatives of the people purportedly elected by same. The 1% are the primary recipients of the largess, dispensed and guaranteed, to the few, via the laws of the land for the singled minded purpose of keeping them in the 1% economic class.
What is insurance? Is it a pool of members who pay a periodic membership fee for which in the unfortunate incidence of loss they are compensated at some defined level for such loss? Does it matter that you happen to be lucky enough to not collect? Sure it does, if one is so greedy that the concept of altruism towards the unfortunate leads one to believe that “the almighty” is punishing “them” and that “I/we” of the “lucky class” have no responsibility in the matter. Additionally, if the membership fees were collected as a portion of the taxes one is assessed and disbursed by a governmental authority those in the 1% crowd who currently rake off significant “profits” would be removed from the equation; definitely not a palatable situation for the 1%ers.
Why do we have the blivet called “health care” and virtually every other “conservative versus liberal” political conundrum in the US? Because those who own the gold own the government and, as they have since the inception of the US, use the power of the government to levy laws to ensure that they will always own the gold. Look around; are not the natural resources of the US, and the world, coupled with the efforts of the 99% the source of economic value that fills the larders of the 1%, despite the “conservative blather” about resources being in the “public domain”? Is it any different now, other than scale, than it was 100, 200, 300, 400, …. years ago?
i really like what jonathan chait had to say on the anniversary of the passage of the aca (emphasis in the original):
“Only in the United States does the conservative party uphold the operating principle that regular access to doctors and medicine should be denied to large chunks of the population.”
That’s what the liberals tell themselves in a feel-good way. Too bad it isn’t true.
It would be more accurate to say that conservatives want each individual be responsible for their own health care, or health insurance, and in the exceptional case of one who cannot provide for themselves, society will help them out.
It is the conservative intention not to go the way of nations who are currently bankrupting themselves.
“…in the exceptional case of one who cannot provide for themselves, society will help them out…”
Would you care to pin down the mechanism and the limits of “one who cannot provide for themselves” being helped out?
And would you say that France was bankrupting itself with its socialized medicine?
“In 2010, the wealth per French adult is a little higher than US$290,000, down from a pre-crisis high of US$300,000 in 2007.
“Virtually every French household has at least US$1,000 in assets.
“Proportionally, there are twice as many French with assets over US$10,000 and four times as many French with assets over US$100,000 than the world average.
“The French are also among the least in debt populations in the developed world with personal debt accounting for ‘little more than 10% of household assets’.” — Economy of France
How is it that they can provide for all their citizens, and we cannot?
Per capita debt in France is $33,491. http://tinyurl.com/72ldxuj
Not sure how that jibes with your findings: “The French are also among the least in debt populations in the developed world…”
How is it that they can provide for all their citizens, and we cannot?
Watch what happens to them this year and next. Hopefully, we won’t follow suit.