Reviewing the checklist from the President’s speech
9 September
Let’s compare my checklist with what the President said tonight.
- Deadline – No deadline. Update: AP reports VP Biden as saying, “I believe we will have a bill before Thanksgiving.” That’s a prediction but not a deadline.
- “Must” and its variants – I found one bright line, and one fuzzy line claiming to be bright:
- “But I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice.”
- “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.”
- Any new numbers – The President surprised me by proposing a specific number for “his plan”: “around $900 billion over ten years.” While this is less than the $1+ trillion in the House bills, it’s still an enormous amount of money.
- Public option language – He spent the bulk of this part of the speech explaining why he favors a public option. But he was weaker in support of the public option than I anticipated, and he talked more about legislative packaging than I anticipated:
- “But an additional step we can take …” (Rather than “we should take” or “we must take”)
- “But its impact shouldn’t be exaggerated – by the left, the right, or the media. It is only one part of my plan, and should not be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles.”
- “The public option is only a means to that end – and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.”
- And then he explicitly references Senator Snowe’s trigger idea and Senator Conrad’s co-op idea as “constructive ideas worth exploring.”
- Does he think the problem is substance or communications? – Communications: “Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.”
- How does he characterize the opposition? – He went after them hard. He called out “radio and cable talk show hosts,” “prominent politicians” (I assume he means Gov. Palin), and “special interests.”
- What did he learn from the August town halls? – Apparently nothing? He never referenced the August town halls. This surprised me.
- Does he explicitly reject bills developed in July to give nervous Democrats cover? – No.
- Medical liability / malpractice / tort reform – He committed to begin medial liability demonstration projects through administrative action. I assume he believes this obviates the need for the subject to be addressed in legislation.
- What is the priority: helping the insured or insuring the uninsured? – Both, as expected. He puts the insured first, but doesn’t strongly prioritize one over the other.
- “Universal” what? – OK, this one is fascinating. Nowhere in the speech does he promise universal health insurance, or universal health care. His only specific universal statement is “It’s time to give every American the same opportunity [to buy health insurance through an exchange] that we’ve given ourselves.” This is a fallback, allowing him to declare victory if expanded coverage falls far short of universality. You have to look carefully to see this. (I had to word search for “universal” and “every.”)
- Tax increases – He proposes the Kerry policy: “This reform will charge insurance companies a fee for their most expensive policies, which will encourage them to provide greater value for the money – an idea which has the support of Democratic and Republican experts.” This is inaccurate. D and R experts have endorsed repealing or capping the current-law tax exclusion for individuals who buy expensive employer-sponsored insurance plans. Experts on both sides of the aisle have criticized the Kerry variant as inefficient and silly/stupid.
- Lines designed to highlight the partisan split. – He made the Kennedy linkage. To my ear the speech sounded extremely partisan.
- Falsely claiming that opponents have no alternative. – As best I can tell, he avoided the direct accusation.
- Straw men vs. valid substantive critiques – He again highlighted the straw men. He tried to address the deficit point. I’ll address this more tomorrow.
- What does his speech signal about his strategic legislative choices? – I’m not changing my projections this evening, but expect I will update them before the weekend. I need to see at least a day of public and Member reaction.
- Cut a bipartisan deal on a comprehensive bill with 3 Senate Republicans, leading to a law this year; (5% chance)
- Pass a partisan comprehensive bill through the regular Senate process with 59 Senate Democrats + one Republican, leading to a law this year; (25% chance)
- Pass a partisan comprehensive bill through the reconciliation process with 50 of 59 Senate Democrats, leading to a law this year; (25% chance)
- Fall back to a much more limited bill that becomes law this year; (40% chance)
- No bill becomes law this year. (5% chance)
The deficit language is the most interesting. He tries to be definitive:
I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period.
He immediately follows this with language that is written as if it strengthens this commitment. I think instead it undermines the commitment.
And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.
I think he’s anticipating that the Congressional Budget Office will continue to score legislation as increasing long-term budget deficits by an increasing amount each year. The President and his Budget Director will, I think, continue to assert that their “game changers” will reduce long-term budget deficits, despite providing no quantitative evidence to support this claim. This new Presidential language suggests that they will include additional language that requires actual spending cuts if (when) the game changers don’t work.
If I’m right, it’s a transparent gimmick designed to try to get CBO to say the bills don’t increase the long-term budget deficit, without actually making any of the hard choices needed to do so. If you care about the deficit, keep a close eye on this element of the President’s proposal. I will help you do so.
Finally, the President characterized his proposal as a “new plan.” We’ll see if he backs that plan up with anything more on paper.
Related Posts
(best matches are listed first)- A checklist for the President’s health care speech
- The text of the President’s health care speech
- Updated legislative scenarios for health reform
- Updating the legislative scenarios (already)
- Apparently $634 B is only the down payment for health care reform
- President Bush’s speech on financial markets and the world economy
- Incorrect conventional wisdom about health care reform
- The legislative landscape for health care after House passage
I too am tired of Obama's lies but what I'm really tired of is the press covering for him. Obama would stop lying if the press would at least ask some really simple and obvious questions.
It's obvious that a significant portion of the American public is not buying this method of health care reform. If they ram through another bill before the public (or congress) gets to read it, is this finally going to be the straw that broke the camels back?
Will the public finally demand a major change next November or will they continue to let themselves be treated like childeren who can't make informed decisions for themselves?
We spend 2.5 trillion a year right now on health care. Over 10 years assuming god comes down from the heavens and stops all growth in this number, that's 25 trillion dollars. 900 billion is 3.6% of this amount. But there is growth, of course – diverting enough money and getting enough cuts in growth over 10 years will not be that difficult.
I'm reading a lot of /whine here, and plenty of sophomoric ad hominem attacks from people who can't see far enough past their own nose to have an actual grasp of economics.
Don't drop out of school, kids.
Yes indeed, as your grasp of economics will demonstrate, dropping out didn't help you one bit.
(My apologies: this just kept getting longer and longer the more I thought about the speech. I truly did not intend to take up all this room. Especially since my reactions duplicate those of almost everyone else here.)
This was not some new plan of the President, nor a distillation of various Dem and Repub proposals. He merely endorsed exactly what's been on the table during the whole of August. This speech was supposed to offer specifics, but it added nothing to what's already been debated and rebuked by a huge portion of the general population at the August town halls and tea parties. For example, the President says that various items will be paid for by savings in, and squeezing out waste and abuse from, existing programs. After all this time, he still can't identify (or won't?) any specific areas of targeted savings: he's still extremely vague and ambiguous on that topic. I ask you this, when's the last time you saw the government decrease its spending anywhere (other than that recent charade where the administration found, what, a few millions by two-sided copying or somesuch), and by that I don't mean just a decrease in a planned budget increase? The public is absolutely right to doubt that government can accomplish that. Further, offering Repubs a sop of a tort reform “study” by one of his agencies is not bipartisan compromise; it’s an insultingly cheap attempt at a buy off. This man has no interest whatsoever in alleviating any concerns or adopting any proposals that not only the Repubs, but also many of both persuasions in the general population of voters have voiced.
He is obviously completely tone-deaf to the complaints and outrage of August. His arrogance and that of his advisers is just unbelievable. Does he think that all these people will simply accept being steamrollered, and be pacified and just go away come 2010?
Does no one on his team realize that, likely due to federal student aid and PC offerings, universities are probably the one industry where costs have likely increased over the last few decades at an equal or an even greater rate than health care (with little-to-no improvement in overall quality of product)? Bad, bad comparison.
It’s also apparent that each side is speaking a different language. The President says, no one will require that you take the public option. He's right, the plan (as offered) does not do that. However, the Repubs say, well, follow the natural economic consequences of what your plan proposes, and yes, given expected fines, taxes and costs, employers will find it most cost effective to stop offering a private plan to employees, and therefore most employees will end up in a public plan, whatever form it takes. So the Repubs call the Dems disingenuous (or liars), and the Dems accuse the Repubs of using scare tactics and worse. Same-same with access by illegal immigrants to the health care coverage: notwithstanding that the plan, as offered in August, does not explicitly allow such access, neither does it provide for verification of legal status. So, the letter of the plan says one thing, and the expected natural consequences of the plan end up somewhere else. And each side accuses the other of false (or scary) statements.
Last thing: I believe it was inappropriate, coarse and beneath the dignity of the Presidency to specifically target former Gov. Palin as he obviously did although not by name. Her "death panels" allusion hurt his cause & he could not help but try to skewer her personally. He is a vindictive & unlikeable person.
98 lb governor kicks sand in the face of the bully pulpit:
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Our objections to the Democrats’ health care proposals are not mere “bickering” or “games.” They are not an attempt to “score short term political points.” And it’s hard to listen to the President lecture us not to use “scare tactics” when in the next breath he says that “more will die” if his proposals do not pass.
In his speech the President directly responded to concerns I’ve raised about unelected bureaucrats being given power to make decisions affecting life or death health care matters. He called these concerns “bogus,” “irresponsible,” and “a lie” — so much for civility. After all the name-calling, though, what he did not do is respond to the arguments we’ve made, arguments even some of his own supporters have agreed have merit.
In fact, after promising to “make sure that no government bureaucrat …. gets between you and the health care you need,” the President repeated his call for an Independent Medicare Advisory Council — an unelected, largely unaccountable group of bureaucrats charged with containing Medicare costs.
————————endquote——————
Sounds like, 'Bring it on.'
A speech by Obama on his healthcare vision is completely inadequate. These are merely desires, slogans, and goals. We need good medical care, affordable for everyone, with caring doctors, served by super-regulated insurance companies, and a chicken in every pot. Nice wishes, as if wishing would make it so.
The government demands detailed, researched Environmental Impact Statements before starting a building. We should have Official Policy Impact Statements before our representatives change our society.
We need proposed results, expected evolution, methods, justifications, comparative studies, past successes of similar policy, funding sources, expected difficulties, the works. What has worked, not what might work.
(continued below)
I hope people of all parties and positions could agree that this is fundamental. It is non-partisan to demand that the President and all politicians show how they have carefully researched their proposals.
No company can run without books of account. No government can write legislation without a plan in the background. The plan is there. Let's see Obama's written plan. Then, he can talk about it.
The Congress and Obama should proudly present their careful research that supports their proposed rearrangement of healthcare. Obama is a Harvard trained lawyer. He should be up to it.
Where is the policy paper, Obama's research on healthcare reform?