How to Stump a President in Sixteen Seconds
This morning, I’m betting that President Obama wishes he hadn’t called on Zach Lahn during his townhall meeting in Grand Junction, CO. It took just sixteen seconds for Zach Lahn to ask the question heard round the anti-Obamacare world. Here’s the question that Zach asked:
Can a private corporation providing insurance compete with an entity that doesn’t have to worry about making a profit, that doesn’t have to worry about paying local property taxes. They aren’t subject to local regulations. How can a company compete with that?
That short question totally eviscerates the Democrats’ argument that the public option is needed to provide competition. Considering the facts that Zach Lahn laid out, doesn’t it sound like the government sound alot like the earliest monopolies? Those monopolies could run smaller companies out of business because they could take a loss for a period of time, knowing that smaller companies didn’t have the capital needed to withstand their own losses.
The Obama administration, with the assistance of the Democratic Congress, could tilt the playing field simply by subsidizing the public option. In that situation, the government wouldn’t be a competitor. They’d be the monopoly. I’d love hearing the Democrats explain how a government monopoly that can self-subsidize, can increase taxes and can impose price controls is considered a competitor.
Based on that information, shouldn’t Democrats admit that the government ‘option’ is really the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room, not the competitor?
This week, thousands of people will watch that video. When they do, they’ll distrust this administration more than they currently distrust him. That’s a crippling blow to the administration. They’re already tanking in terms of support for their health care reform legislation. This administration isn’t trusted on the health care issue. Scott Rasmussen’s most recent polling shows that 54 percent of likely voters would rather see no health care reform passed than having this legislation passed:
Thirty-five percent (35%) of American voters say passage of the bill currently working its way through Congress would be better than not passing any health care reform legislation this year. However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that most voters (54%) say no health care reform passed by Congress this year would be the better option.
Despite this information, Salon’s Bruce Reed thinks that there’s ample support to pass sweeping health care reform:
Legislatively, health care reform’s prospects are further along than ever before. The remaining policy differences, as Ezra Klein points out, are relatively narrow and far from irreconcilable.
Most important, the political hay-making in town halls and the legislative sausage-making that preceded it obscure a deeper consensus: Virtually all Democrats in Congress want to get health care reform done, and most Americans support the outlines of what they’re trying to do. For all the passionate arguments over a few particulars, congressional Democrats across the spectrum want to pass a bill, not kick it down the road or try to make the issue go away.
Process-wise, I’ll admit that sweeping health care reform has gotten further than at any other time. Sweeping health care reform is still as far from passing as it’s ever been because people are worried that a government-run co-op or public option (Co-op is essentially the same thing as a public option) would quickly become a monopoly. That monopoly would quickly be able to eliminate choice and introduce rationing without fear of competition.
People also fear that sweeping health care reform would add trilions of dollars to our debt while not providing universal coverage and without driving down the cost of health care longterm.
Here’s another bit of delusion on Mr. Reed’s behalf:
Down the stretch, Democrats still need to close the deal on health care—and the president was right to hit the stump and recognize that the cacophony in Congress can’t win the debate for him. While Washington tends to go weak when polls wobble, Obama is a voice of reassuring calm.
I’ll agree that Democrats still aren’t close to closing the deal on sweeping health care reform but I’m laughing at Reed’s statement that “Obama is a voice of reassuring calm.” During his speech at the fundraiser for Creigh Deeds, he essentially told the American people to shut up. Political pundits of all stripes said that that’s the first time he sounded totally on defense. I agree.
President Obama’s charisma is gone. That’s because he isn’t a policy wonk. His speeches are filled with empty platitudes. They’re utterly lacking in substance. That’s why people aren’t afraid of challenging him on the specifics of his plan. That’s why he hasn’t closed the deal with the American people. In fact, that’s why he isn’t even close to closing that deal.
Already, he has helped lower the temperature, rebut the rumors, and focus the debate on the overriding imperative to pass health care reform because too many families and businesses will be sunk without it.
I’ve paid attention to this debate since the outset. President Obama hasn’t helped drop the intensity level even slightly. The American people are just as engaged now as they’ve ever been. As for President Obama focusing the debate on the importance of health care reform, the public was there before his inauguration. It’s just that mr. Reed is just noticing that people are united in the goal. I can’t wait until he notices that they aren’t united in the specifics.
That’ll be as big a shock to him as it was to President Obama.
Technorati Tags: Recess, Public Option, Monopoly, Rationing, Competition, Health Care, President Obama, Democrats, Zach Lahn, Townhall Meeting, Republicans
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
August 18th, 2009 at 6:04 am
Obama has already answered that question. It may take 5, 10, 15 years, but there will be a single payer system. Created by the public option and unfair advantages inherit within.
August 18th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Your opening argument relies on a question from a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t know that. The confidence and skills he received that allowed him to ask that question were the result of a publicly funded education. His low-cost education competes against thousands of private institutions that have to charge much higher costs in order to offer competitive services. Apply his argument to education and he’s now against his own education.
I ask everyone who is against publicly funded healthcare for all (opposed to the hundreds of thousands, if not million plus, who already receive healthcare and/or salary/benefits from taxpayers). If you want to stop this so badly are you willing to give up public schools, fire departments, law enforcement, public transportation, the military, municipal tap water, the postal service, prisons, the library and so on and so on? Why is it ok to pay for my neighbor’s children to be educated, but not their health and wellness? Why should I pay the police department to protect children from crimes, but not their health and wellness? Why should I pay for those criminals to go to prison but not the health and wellness of those children they harmed?
Everyone should have healthcare coverage. It’s as basic essential as water and air in my eyes. I do believe we can easily pay for it without raising taxes as well, because schools, the post office, prisons and public transportation should be privatized. If you believe that a corporation can do a better job of running health services then you should trust them to run those aspects of our lives too. Corporations are heralded for running things more efficiently and cost effectively so there should be plenty of money left over in our wallets to fund healthcare.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:42 am
MSGIRO:
Should the government (i.e, we, or us), be responsible for providing all the essentials, whatever they may be ?
Since healthcare is as essential as water, and air, shouldn’t your list also include ‘food’, and ’shelter’, and ‘clothing’, etc, etc.
Where does it end ?
===========================
There are plenty of steps that the government can take to reduce health care costs, without a massive reform plan.
I hope that if/when this Plan fails, the momentum will continue towards HC reform.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:45 am
MSGiro, you’ve just given the best argument I’ve seen in a long time against the power of the federal government. Except for the military, can you find one thing in your list of goodies the feds have their greedy fingers in that’s authorized by the Constitution?
I can show you very specifically where they are forbidden, yet we all (yes, even most conservatives) “expect” some or all of those goodies as our “rights”. The government (through the courts and legislation) has made a sham of the Constitution. What we are seeing now are the fruits of that sham, specifically, where nearly everyone thinks that whatever their immediate need is is a “right” guaranteed to them.
Am I against health care, or education, or fire departments, or prisons, etc.? Of course not. But I’m also not for lying, and that’s what our entire system is doing now, teaching us that if we scream “victim” loud enough whatever our “want” is can be transformed into a “right”.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the list mentioned above is what rightfully belongs to the states individually, per the Constitution, if voted for by the representatives of the people or by the people themselves. Call me an old-fashioned troglodyte, but it sure seems to me that wonderful education you espouse has seriously hampered thinking in this country.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:47 am
MSGiro, your argument falls apart just on the basis of your ignorance of the differences between federal, state and local government and their respective rights, powers and responsibilities. Once that aspect of your education is properly addressed and corrected, then we can see about helping you understand concepts like rights, entitlements and services provided. When you are ready to grow up, we can then help you out with some really complicated matters, like not stealing from others, or enforced servitude. Then, if your little morally retarded brain can handle it, we can help you apply all that new learning to the fact that no one has any right to anything that requires the products or labor of another person.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:48 am
MSGiro, there’s some flaws in your argument. You say:
“public schools, fire departments, law enforcement, public transportation, the military, municipal tap water, the postal service, prisons, the library and so on”
Almost all of these except for the schools are monopolies. The postal service competes inefficiently against UPS and Federal Express, it is losing billions, in part because Congress refuses to allow it to do the things it needs — shutter unprofitable sites, and fire underperforming mail carriers — to stay in the black.
As for public schools, they compete with private schools in ways that health care does not. Schools offer variety in teaching areas and reputation. Can you shop for health care insurance that way? This notion that you’re going to shop for doctors and hospitals. How? Ask to see their degree while you’re bleeding? While you’re in the ER? It’s like shopping for electricity.
And you still did not answer the question: how are private, for-profit companies going to compete against a government entity that can pay its bills by turning on the printing press?
August 18th, 2009 at 8:51 am
You are comparing institutions where established and traditional government as well as some private spending have existed along side each other from our earliest history. It is a long established principle, going back to the Northwest Ordnance of 1787, that education, for example, be provided for by the state and local governement.
Health care, and in particular the form of health care the Obama administration seems determined to have, in which the government option becomes both a heavy handed competitor, as well as a final authority on what private medical coverage will and will not be, is quite something else than what exists in education. Lets not kid ouselves, we know from Obama’s own statements and the writings of those around him, that his ultimate goal is natioanlized healthcare on the European model. His way of getting this is to allow private enterprise to exist, while forcing it out of business by heavy handed regulation of profits and taxation.
If technical conditions, make a monopoly the natural outcome of competitive market forces, there are, it seems only 3 ways to go: private monopoly, public monopoly or public regulation. While all three are bad, Americans instinctively know from experience that public regulation and/or monopoly are the less responsive to social and economic changes and conditions, and less readily capable of elimination, than private.
August 18th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
MSGIRO made my argument for privatizing education quite nicely. Corporations that make profits drive this country, make things, employ our graduates, pay mommy and daddy and offer healthcare options, not the government who produces nothing. And yes, she is mixing up federal, state and local responsibilities, but nearly every bleeding heart with good intentions does.
Healthcare is not essential as air and food. I am living quite nicely without it, by choice. Having no healthcare does not prevent me from working or eating or driving a car or breathing in air. But when it does prevent me from doing all those things, I’m sure that the government will be behind it, not private industry. Corporations are not the all controlling, manipulative boogey man. It’s the government. And they’re here to help until the money runs out…oh, but it never will for them, will it?
August 18th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
MSGIRO made my argument for privatizing education quite nicely. Corporations that make profits drive this country, make things, employ our graduates, pay mommy and daddy and offer healthcare options, not the government who produces nothing. And yes, she is mixing up federal, state and local responsibilities, but nearly every bleeding heart with good intentions does.
Healthcare is not essential as air and food. I am living quite nicely without it, by choice. Having no healthcare does not prevent me from working or eating or driving a car or breathing in air. But when it does prevent me from doing all those things, I’m sure that the government will be behind it, not private industry. Corporations are not the all controlling, manipulative boogey man. It’s the government. And they’re here to help until the money runs out…oh, but it never will for them, will it?
August 18th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
MSGIRO made my argument for privatizing education quite nicely. Corporations that make profits drive this country, make things, employ our graduates, pay mommy and daddy and offer healthcare options, not the government who produces nothing. And yes, she is mixing up federal, state and local responsibilities, but nearly every bleeding heart with good intentions does.
Healthcare is not essential as air and food. I am living quite nicely without it, by choice. Having no healthcare does not prevent me from working or eating or driving a car or breathing in air. But when it does prevent me from doing all those things, I’m sure that the government will be behind it, not private industry. Corporations are not the all controlling, manipulative boogey man. It’s the government. And they’re here to help until the money runs out…oh, but it never will for them, will it?
August 18th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
whoa. how did that happen. sorry!
August 18th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Server hiccup. Good point by the way.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Dear MSGiro,
Could it possibly be that Zach Lahn of the University of Colorado at Boulder actually learned common sense from someone other than his liberal professors at UC Boulder? Mom and dad, maybe?
Perhaps a solid, conservative upbringing prepared him to resist the irresistible tug, the siren song of leftist mentors throughout his schooling.
Or maybe, he’s just an exceptionally bright kid. Kudos to him and his folks.
yours truly,
sonny
August 19th, 2009 at 5:10 am
It’s obvious to me that Zach Lahn became educated in spite of UC Boulder. And if he is from out of state the tuition is excessive. Actually in state tuition is excessive for the crap “taught” there.