President Obama told Republican lawmakers that if they have good ideas for improving healthcare he is willing to listen. Republicans responded by presenting a long list of the kind of proposals that sound great to people like me and others who favor smaller government and freer markets, yet we continue to hear from Democrats that the Republicans are offering no plans.*
Is this because of a disconnect between the parties? Is this just politics as usual? Or is the president not listening?
Unfortunately it’s a combination of these factors but I also think it is indicative of a much bigger divide among the people of this country. Those in favor of less government and freer markets on one side of the divide and those in favor of more government control on the other side. The debate runs through every aspect of our economic and political lives. We the People are fundamentally and dangerously divided. Each side is locked by mental habit into a preset viewpoint that assumes theirs is the only right way. For example, I cannot see how greater government control of our health care or any other part of our economy could be good for us. I can understand the need to improve our regulatory structure by making it vastly more efficient and effective but by this I mean that I want the burdens reduced, not increased. Maybe I am right in my less government and free market view. Or, and this is hard for me to envision, maybe I am wrong.
We are talking past each other.
There are still millions of Americans that believe that the recent economic crisis was caused by free markets and free markets alone, and no evidence of the government programs involved in bringing down the market by creating bad loans and bad regulations will change their mind. At the same time there are also millions of Americans who believe that everybody can and should be able to climb the ladder and achieve great success no matter the odds stacked against them and no matter the barriers they face. People hold this view regardless of the advantages they were born with. Keep in mind that being born in America provides a huge advantage over the people in most of the rest of the world. Having even one parent that cares about you is an advantage many don’t have. The ability to attend school, eat enough food, get decent medical care are also advantages.
President Obama has offered to meet Republican lawmakers on health care. For this meeting to achieve anything, the President and the Republicans will first have to get past the usual political nonsense. So far, neither party seems capable of even that small feat. If they succeed in avoiding politics, they are going to have to find a way to honestly assess each other’s positions. They are going to have to study the options. That is going to take time and effort. This can’t be rushed. And it is going to require our politicians and the politically active and interested public to act calm and rational.
We the People are fundamentally and dangerously divided over the path forward. Now is the time for careful, rational thinking and vigorous but respectful debate. Not shouting as usual.
*For an example of Republican plans see yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Ten GOP Health Ideas for Obama, by Newt Gingrich and John C. Goodman.
{ 23 comments }
It is unfair and dishonest to claim that Democrats have simply ignored what Republicans have to say on this subject. The truth is that Obama held his peace for months last year while Senator Baucus spent those months trying to negotiate a bill with Republican Senators Enzi and Grassley. Why do you folks keep pretending this never happened?
The negotiations ended when Enzi and Grassley pulled out, frightened by the anger they heard from the Right wing of their party during the famous town hall meetings last summer. Only then did Baucus move ahead to write a bill on his own. Again, why pretend this didn’t happen when we all know it did? You really should be honest about this.
Henry
Can you explain to me why Mr Obama(who I voted for), needs any of the Republicians for anything?
I thought when we got the House and Senate it would be a cakewalk to “SinglePayer”, but it seems as though Mr O can’t get his own people to agree on this, how is it possible he could get the R’s to agree, even if they were needed.?
The talk of Baukus, Enzi and Grassley seems a moot point when Mr O has ALL the numbers on his side. My husband called it a 5 on zero” fast break”..How could Mr O have missed the slam dunk?
Juno, you already answered your own question: Mr. O can’t get his own people to agree.
Dems got control of the House and Senate in part by running candidates who are more moderate than the average Dem in districts and States and that are more moderate. One result of that strategy is that some of the Dems in Congress don’t agree with most Dems on some issues.
When Al Franken got elected and Arlen Spector switched, some said Dems now had the magic “60″ in the Senate and could do whatever they wished. Wiser heads among the pundits pointed out that that “60″ includes people like Lieberman and Ben Nelson who can’t be counted on to support what most Dems want just because Obama asks them to. That is exactly what has happened. Didn’t Bush have similar problems when he tried and failed to get Reps in Congress to act on immigration and social security? You know he did.
Conservatives have been screaming at Obama for months for not being more “bipartisan” on health care as he promised.
But to take that position you have to pretend that the months of negotiations between Dems and Republicans in the Senate never happened. They did happen, but the Reps just wouldn’t make a deal. That’s hardly Obama’s fault.
Henry/Paul/Hesh
All you fellows sound alike. Are you brothers?
Anyway, the question was, if Barack can’t get his own party to agree, how does he expect to get R’s to agree, who are 180degrees opposed to him.
He’s made the former Party of NO, the Party of HELL NO, and FU.. I’m afraid it’s back to square one.
No chance for “SinglePayer” now..
and I’m wondering alot about Barack’s political skills and competency…
JUNO
You forgot the other 2, Cryojenics and Arthur, with Lynn
making 6 lazy, good for nothing Socialists, posting here, against me and Shinequa, the poor under educated Black lady in Detroit.
You’re in the middle, showing more patience then necessary with what is really 1 (one) fool and hopeless Lynn, who is beyond hope, so I just ignore her…
Juno, Thanks for the compliment. One of the others is a friend and the other I don’t know except from posts here.
You are being very unfair when you say “he’s made” Reps the party of no. That is a decision they made. As you and I both know, those who say there was no attempt by Dems to negotiate a compromise bill with Reps are l-y-i-n-g. Baucus spent months on it and got nowhere.
I agree with the Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman who has been very critical of Obama’s handling of the health care issue (as well as other issues). His take (and mine) are that Obama gave up on things like single payer at the outset in order to make it more likely there would be a deal with Reps. He ended up not getting a deal, so his sacrifice was for nothing. Very, very bad.
JUNO
Don’t be listening to this Socialist devil, he steering you wrong, Girl.
I never did hear an answer to yo’ very poignant question, “If Mr O has all the numbers, I like the 5-0 fast break analogy, why he need Repubs?. And if he cant get his own idiots to go along, why should he expect the Repubs to go along?”
This dummy Paul Crane can’t even see that MrO can’t get them to go along because they KNOW they will lose their f**kin’ jobs if they vote for the Obama mess.
Now, you a smart lady, and not an idiologue like Mr Paul the blabermouth Socialist. He never can give a short concise answer, has to be blowhardish and longwinded. So don’t pay no mind to the likes of Paul Crane, Paul Krugman and David Brooks, they be tin-eared out o’touch Statist Commies, not worothy o’ yo respect.
So in conclusion, Socialism is Slavery…Don’t you be fallin for it, girl…
I would like to confess that I am one of the millions of Americans who “believe that the recent economic crisis was caused by free markets.” Conservatives keep claiming that the government somehow forced lenders to make bad loans. Whenever I ask for details, they don’t seem to have any. I know of no US statute that requires any lender to make a loan to a borrower who does not have sufficient income or assets to pay it back. If you do, please cite the statute and quote the language of the statute, language stating that the lender must ignore the borrower’s financial condition. I would like to see that.
My understanding is that our largest commercial banks (like Citigroup and Wachovia and Bank of America) found themselves with huge losses due to one simple fact: they invested vast amounts in mortgage-backed securities that fell drastically in value when the real estate boom collapsed. If you invest $100 in a security that is suddenly worth no more than $30, you’ve just lost 70% of your capital. AIG had to be bailed out by the government because it insured many of these transactions, so many that had it been called on to pay all the claims due it would have been bankrupt.
Is government innocent in all this? No. Congress and the Federal Reserve were well aware that our largest financial institutions were betting huge amounts of money on the notion that real estate prices would keep going up forever, or at least never fall by more than a very small amount. As we now know, that was not a safe bet. Congress and the Fed could have reined in this wild speculation but they did not. Their sin was inaction, not action.
JUNO
Paul/Henry/Hesh/Cryojenics /Arthur are all the same cat…So when you see one, you seein’/readin’ all 5…(But he does try to make Cryojenics seem slightly more reasonable, in a mal-adjuated simpleton sort of way.)
Look at the sentence and paragraph structure in each, all exactly the same, none of them answers a question directly, lots of hedgin’, dancin’, pontificatin’, plus they all recite the same retarded lib drivel they be hearin’ at MMfA, or HuffPo, or the KOS…He probably works at one…’cause he a pretty good writer, no typos, no spelling errors, and no cogent content, only MSLSD/WhiteHouse Communist talkin’ points…
No real point in arguin’…Their collectivist mind(s) be made up and will go to their/his grave as commie toetag collectivists…
WHO ARE TOO STUPID AND CHEAP TO BUY THEIR / HIS F**KIN’ HEALTHCARE…
I agree with some of this post. There are a lot of people on both sides of every major issue who can’t admit that there is any truth to any of the arguments on the other side. I happen to think that more of those people are on the Right. The author complains that Obama has not acknowledged any Republican proposals on health care. Can he give us some examples of Democratic proposals that Republicans have said they would support?
In both the House and the Senate Democrats passed health care bills with no Republican support. If anyone knows of any Republican member of Congress who said “I will support this bill if you make the following changes,” please post his name here. What I have read is that Republicans in both chambers offered amendments, but none said he or she would support the bill if his amendments were accepted. Am I wrong about that?
I think the author should admit that one major reason the two sides have different plans is that they are not trying to reach the same goal. Republicans have come to the conclusion that government just cannot afford to guarantee coverage for everyone who is uninsured, so their plan makes no attempt to do this. Obama promised during the 2008 campaign that universal coverage would be one of his priorities. It makes no sense to complain that he is not adopting Republican ideas if their ideas are not designed to reach the goal he promised.
If what you want is nothing, then your strategy is fine. Republicans want to say they’re doing something pro-business, but their policies won’t help, and Democrats want to cover everyone today and put off the cost-cutting til tomorrow. Tort reform will do too little. Allowing competition accross state lines will either do nothing (because provider networks aren’t nationwide for the most part) or have the effect of deregulation (South Dakota has the smallest number of regulations, for example, so all the companies will move there), and undercutting innovative state models. Extending Medicare is not a bad idea, but there aren’t enought medicare providers now, because their reimbusement is low–so that will hurt the existing medicare members and/or increase costs unless more comprehensive reform is brought about. If the Democrats delay and go back to the drawing board to bring about this non-existent coalition, they’ll lose their majorities, and the Republicans will come in and do, precisely, nothing that will address any of the core issues, as they did during the Bush administration (they just made the problem worse by adding the drug benefit without allowing competition). Remember, though, that doing nothing will not maintain the system we have–our system is not sustainable. People with health insurance are subsidizing the uninsured and the under insured because healthcare providers distribute the costs.
Lynn’s is a good summary of the situation. Dems have sacrificed any real cost-cutting measures in their bills in order to get the support of interest groups (like physicians) that would oppose the bills otherwise. Reps offer nothing that will increase coverage or decrease costs. “Tort reform” is already the law in states like Florida and California, and it hasn’t made health care costs there go down. “Insurance across state lines” is pointless. Plenty of insurance companies, like Aetna, Cygna, United Health and Humana, sell health insurance in multiple states right now. There is no reason why more companies can’t do it if they want to, and there is no reason to think this will lower premiums by much since a policy covering the same people for the same risks will have the same costs.
To me the biggest reason not to take Reps seriously is that they had eight years to do something about these problems and did nothing, except add an expensive new drug entitlement for seniors without adding revenue to pay for it.
To the writer of this blog:Mr Robert…
I know you not a teacher but something got to be done in our school system. When I, as an under-educated Black woman from the crumbling democrat stronghold of De-Troilet, read what the 4 Econ 101 illiterates have to say, it’s depressing…
No mention of economic forces that are always at work, like the effect of 3rd party payers, personal responsibility for routine procedures, and purchasing an insurance plan that covers the catastrophic situations. This is not “brain surgury,” people…
I hear from them, that only the government can provide health care for all. That is patently FALSE..
These 4 are so cheap, lazy and irresponsible, it’s surprising they’re not asking the government to pay for their food, clothing and shelter.
This has nothing to do with Left/Right…It has to do with CommonSense, something the 4 of them lack……
You can belittle everything I say, I don’t care. I only want what best for this country and govt run ObamaCare is not only unaffordable, but unworkable…
These 4 ignorrant “Intellectuals” don’t like their insurance, they can get on Medicad….I’m sure not one of them is smart enought to have a job that pays anything…They ( the “men”) sound like gay beauticians and the girl “Lynn” sounds like a DMV clerk…
Appears to me like we got a bunch of ‘Bitter Clingers” on our hands……In this case, clinging on to old pre-concieved mis -conceptions to the bitter end..And Obama blows…
Shinequa
Well said .Brilliant even..For “a poor under educated Black woman from Detroit” .
We know Obama blows, but I’m thinkin’Paul blows Henry blows Hesh blows Cryogenix blows…Lynn.. she just sucks…at reasoning.
I also noticed, not one of the Fab 4 replied to your last post…Would you really consider having coffee with one of them? You really do have a big heart…
Like you say …4 wannabe freeloaders at our public trough…
So I suck at reasoning? Please, help me out. How do you disagree? How will these proposals work better than I think they will? My guess is that none of the talking heads over at Fox News will address the information I use, so you’re speechless. Just keep insulting me….
Lynn you said:
“Repubs offer nothing the would increase coverage or lower costs”..
If you read Shinequa’s post, you would learn some of the SIMPLE things that can be done NOW to achieve the things you suggest the Repub plan would not do…
This is why you suck at reasoning and reading comprehension…not to mention a freeloading socialist..
Be responsible and pay your own way…Along with your “3 dumb brothers”.. Likely, one hairdresser…
I try not to read those posts because they’re repugnant. But preventive care lowers costs, so making people pay their own way for that could increase payouts for catastrophic events. Just think about the uninsured. They get their care at ERs when there’s an emergency and get no preventive care–that’s about the most expensive thing you could do. As for personal responsibility, I agree that having people pay for their own insurance could help with costs, since the costs are not as hidden, but the Republicans actually aren’t proposing that–Newt Gingrich is saying keep Medicare and preserve the tax break for employers (doesn’t sound very conservative to me–he’ll probably flip-flop later). Personal responsibility is fine as long as we’re OK with letting people, including children, with treatable or preventable diseases die–I personally see that as a waste. Certainly it’s more a risk to our population, in terms of numbers, than terrorism, and we don’t have much trouble making the case for invading countries to prevent that.
Lynn, please..
You really know how muddle, distort, and veer off topic.Please DO NOT reproduce…You children will thank you for it….
@Rafi: once again, insult me rather than providing any kind of rebuttal–because you have none.
David Brooks is right on: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/opinion/12brooks.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Obama needs to take smaller steps, embody bipartisanship, and let the people interested in polarizing politics–on both sides of the aisle–be seen for who they are. I think a great start would be to let the Republicans filibuster on the Fiscal Commission–something they proposed. That would make great footage for campaign commercials.
I loves all you “Intellectuals” postin’ here…You’all remind me of Obama, big on talk but real short on reall listenin’.. thinkin’ ony inside the lib playbook…
Now, I gots to work this weekend, so I can’t be interactin’ wit you brainacs ’till Monday…OK?
I know you’ll gonna think ’bout what I be sayin’.
All o’ you fools be dumb, lazy, good fo notin’ freeloaders, suckin’ off the nipple of the Federal gov’t, causin’ everybodys taxes to go up…
Now think ’bout being responsible, an payin yo’ own way, for a change…
If a poor Black woman from Detroit can do it, you white metro fairy hairdressers can too….Dig???
All the comments here, by the right wingers, sounds like a bunch of Obama hateing republican racists.
They despise any democrat that just wants to help the people, like Obama. I love Obama. But Mr Jimmy Carter was the kind of president that I think Obama is trying to be like..
Helpful to the peoples that cannot seem to make it in a white world. Sorry, but the roots of slavery goes real deep in the attitudes of the present day Negroes.
I only hope Obama has enough money in his stash to help his peoples in LA, who voted for him and need healthcare bad. We are really hurtin here. Stab wounds , gongarhea, herpez, and gunshot are very common.
Nobody has a job that amounts to much.
So we are forced to sell everything from drugs to our asses in order to make it. Even with the help of Obama, the democratlike governor and the democrat mayor. It’s hard. You’d think with so many carin’ democrats in charge, all us black folk would be rich by now…
Tyessha
You listen girl, I don’t want to be smackin you ’round too…
F**kin Obama IS Jimmah Carter only stupider. Both be “impractical intellectuals”, neither done nothing ‘cept work fo’ the gov’ment. Carter was at least in the Navy. We give him that.
But s**t girl, you can’t be serious ’bout these Dimocrats, they offer notin’ but new slavery for us.
They only want yo’ money when you young and die when you get sick or old…This is NO secret.. This is how they think..
Check out the history of Margret Sanger of Planned Parenthood fame…
She be one of the biggest racists ever, only open abortion clinics in the ‘hood..So there be less Black babies….She was a big Socialist Dimocrat supporter..
I hope you wake TF up…