I saw most of the Healthcare Summit today, I missed the first two hours. The sense I got was that Obama understands the details of all the issues in all the proposals. A few times a Republican would say something specific and Obama would say something to the effect, that's in our bill or we have part of that but then that means we also need this to prevent this issue.
The best example is regarding interstate insurance. To prevent all insurance companies from relocating to the state with the least regulation they want to set some minimums, but then Republicans cry "regulation". But Obama then pointed out that they wanted regulation that limited malpractice payouts.
The unfortunate thing is that whenever there was a substantive exchange, the next person to talk would use it as a platform to repeat campaign talking points. Obama pointed this out after McCain did it. The democrats mostly just repeated problems they heard from constituents or said they wanted to work together to solve problems. Then again, they mostly agreed on the bills that passed each chamber.
Here's the real problem Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said after the summit: "I just don't think the president was listening even though he invited us to hear our ideas. He actually consumed more time than all of the Republicans combined or all the Democrats combined and much of it was responding to our ideas. So it wasn't a matter of just inviting us down to listen to our ideas he wanted to argue with us."
Yeah, I'm sorry he didn't want just to listen, he wanted to engage you in meaningful conversation. That must be rough and you're probably not used to it.
My problem was that not once did I hear a Republican respond to a point that Obama (or a Democrat though it was mostly Obama) made. Obama replied to substantive points over and over, pointing out places where they might agree, but Republicans never commented on his points.
In fact at the same press conference, Sen Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was asked "Senator was this a waste of time?"
He replied "I wouldn't call it a waste of time, it was a good discussion. You had in the room, I think, most of our, virtually all of our really knowledgable people on the subject so I wouldn't call it a waste of time"
But then there was this wonderful followup: "Senator, not to be argumentative, it sounds like you think it was a waste of time. You just said to us, at the end of an all day meeting, the same thing you said early on in the healthcare summit. What was gained by all those hours?"
McConnell said: "Well, the President kept saying the same thing too. I think it's pretty clear on this big important issue we had very strongly held opinions on both sides and we think the best way for this to be resolved is to pay attention to the people who sent us here, who are saying overwhelmingly 'Do not pass this bill'".
Jon Stewart will have a lot of fun.
3 comments:
Rachel Maddow had a very nice and succinct opinion piece (from her show last night) on why a health care system based primarily on payment by private insurance does not by its very nature seek to deliver healthcare to its participants, but rather profits for its management and shareholders.
She did not think that insurance companies are evil, just amoral, and cannot be relied upon to actually improve the cost effectiveness of healthcare delivery in this country.
Not sure if you can post it, but I think it's a great piece and cuts through all the complexity and gets right to the core problem with our current system and why it needs a complete overhaul.
TT
I saw it and liked it too. MSNBC often isn't as easy to post exerts from so I've stopped trying.
One limitation is of course she was talking about for-profit insurance companies and not all are and in fact many states only have non-profit ones and they still have problems.
My reaction from her piece is that she's so good at explaining things I wish she'd do more of that and a little less of the repetitive bashing. I'm ok with her bashing, since she's factually correct, but I think she'd make her point better if she spent more time pointing out the flaws in the GOP arguments. I'm thinking of the race-to-the-bottom problem with inter-state insurance and that tort reform is only a tiny fraction of the problem, etc. In a week she could cover the whole platform.
Maddow is one of the few people who can put together an airtight dissertation in under 2 minutes.
Maybe the only way to unleash the inventiveness of the private sector is to treat health insurance like we do the auto industry.
Mandate good gas mileage (think better treatment outcomes) and industry will figure out a way to do it.
Mandate seat belts and airbags (think all citizens get covered) and industry figures out a way to put them into even econoboxes.
Monopoly pricing and weak regulation simply doesn't work, no matter what the industry.
Not-for-profits can suffer from the same traps as for profit enterprises; i.e., when they are run primarily for the benefit of management.
TT
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