Perhaps He Isn’t Unpopular Enough?
According to this Washington Times article, President Obama isn’t letting health care drop. Perhaps he doesn’t think that he’s umpopular enough, even though Rasmussen has him with some of his lowest ratings ever:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19.
The worst rating Obama has had was -21 two days before the Senate voted on final passage of their health care bill. It isn’t coincidence that his worst rating came at the height of this debate. Still, he insists on pushing his backwards plan:
“There are things that have to get done. This is our best chance to do it. We can’t keep on putting this off,” Obama said Friday at a town hall meeting in Elyria, Ohio. “I am not going to walk away just because it’s hard,” the president said.
Mr. President, if I may be so bold, might I suggest that you walk away from this legislation because its approach is bassackwards? This legislation cuts Medicare by $460,000,000,000, raises taxes by $490,000,000,000, does nothing to lower costs and gives a special $60,000,000,000 tax break to the unions for their Cadillac health care insurance plans.
Compare that with PFR’s plan to reform government mandates:
Various states have different mandates that the insurance companies have to follow.& there are things that are mandated that are covered that aren’t necessarily needed by all the patients. If our primary concern is access for the millions of people that don’t have access, then we need to lessen the mandates so we can provide basic coverage. For example, a healthy 25-year-old male in New Jersey will pay about 6 times as much as a healthy 25-year-old male will pay in Kentucky simply because of state mandates.
The federal government should lift its prohibition of selling health insurance across state lines to eliminate this type of ripoff. There’s no justification for a 25-year-old to pay 6 times more for the same coverage in New Jersey than he’d pay for the identical policy in Kentucky. PFR CEO Dr. C.L. Gray says the minute you get 50 states competing to keep their business in their state, premiums will drop.
I stated that there’s another set of benefits to this type of legislation: because it’s so straightforward, there’s no need to cut deals with corrupt special interest groups, there’s no need to raise taxes on middle class families and you wouldn’t create a new raft of federal agencies.
One potential approach could allow the Senate to act with a simple majority instead of the 60-vote total Democrats now lack with the election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts. A supermajority of 60 votes is needed to overcome Republican filibusters, a legislative procedure that blocks measures from coming up for a final vote.
Reconciliation isn’t a serious option because you can’t create legislation using that process. That’s a budgetary tool only. If Democrats attempt to pass sweeping reform through the use of reconciliation, they’ll waste even more time because they’ll have to go back to committees to write that language into the bill. Then the minute that legislation hits the Senate floor, Sen. Judd Gregg would offer one point of order after another, leaving it looking like Swiss Cheese, not serious reform legislation.
While that fight rages on, the American people would see that the Democrats put a higher priority on a flawed piece of health care legislation than they put on righting a flailing economy that isn’t creating jobs. If the Democrats insist on pushing those priorities, they’ll lose their majority in the House and come extremely close to losing their Senate majority.
President Obama is unpopular because he’s getting awful advice, like this advice from David Plouffe:
Pass a meaningful health insurance reform package without delay. Americans’ health and our nation’s long-term fiscal health depend on it. I know that the short-term politics are bad. It’s a good plan that’s become a demonized caricature. But politically speaking, if we do not pass it, the GOP will continue attacking the plan as if we did anyway, and voters will have no ability to measure its upside. If we do pass it, dozens of protections and benefits take effect this year. Parents won’t have to worry their children will be denied coverage just because they have a preexisting condition. Workers won’t have to worry that their coverage will be dropped because they get sick. Seniors will feel relief from prescription costs. Only if the plan becomes law will the American people see that all the scary things Sarah Palin and others have predicted, such as the so-called death panels, were baseless. We own the bill and the health-care votes. We need to get some of the upside.
Mr. Plouffe pretends like there’s no consequences to cutting Medicare by $460,000,000,000. In mocking Sarah Palin’s death panel post, Mr. Plouffe pretends that there wouldn’t be tragic consequences if President Obama’s deep Medicare cuts were enacted.
Mr. Plouffe is a true believer in President Obama’s agenda. He isn’t prone to listening to We The People types. He certainly isn’t listening to the voters in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia. If the Democrats, starting with President and his closest advisors, don’t start listening to and acting on the American people’s priorities, they’ll soon find themselves without any levers of power.
During this week’s SOTU, we’ll see whether President Obama will listen to We The People or if he’ll listen to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Harry Reid and Speaker Pelosi.
If he chooses the path of politicians lik Emanuel, Axelrod, Reid and Pelosi, today’s poll ratings might soon look like the good ole days compared with what they’ll look like a year from now.
Technorati Tags: Polling, President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Speaker Pelosi, Harry Reid, Health Care, Reconciliation, Democrats, We The People, Election 2010
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
January 24th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Plouffe: “Americans’ health and our nation’s long-term fiscal health depend on it.”
This is one of the red herring arguments of the left. There isn’t a person, adult or child, legal or illegal, who can’t get health care in this country. All they have to do is step up to the plate.
Speaking of which, I’ve come to realize the donkeys are the ones who really believe in “trickle-down” economics. They are the ones who wish for the masters (themselves) to have everything (literally) and any crumbs that happen to fall from the table are what we, the people, should be grateful for. It’s the ultimate in a caste society. If they really believed their health plan was so great they’d make it mandatory coverage for all Americans (themselves included), and would be up front about the design, which is to take over yet one more private industry.
They are snakes, liars and evil people, whether they believe that or not. Stealing from one to give to another is not the same as one voluntarily giving to another. They know it, but the Obamabots fail to see that distinction. One is charity, the other is theft.