What a conservative blogger has to say

I found this the other day after being linked from another blog. Interesting enough this article comes from a right-wing blogger. I was interested to see how they are covering (and in another sense, recovering from) the fallout from the passage of healthcare reform in the U.S.

I expected anger, frustration, and curses of ill-will. Instead, I found (at least with this blogger) a lot of rationality, melancholy and contemplation over what went wrong. While I don't agree with many of his ideas, I appreciated the serious nature and mature discussion he brought along with them.

The blogger, named Patrick Ruffini, explains that the Republican's failure lied not their inability to prevent healthcare passage, but in failing to put forth comprehensive ideas on how to fix the broken healthcare system. He believes that the Republicans' typical hands-off approach to social/private matters prevented them from framing the debate in a way that resonated with their congressmen and the American people.

He writes:

We have tried ineffectively to stretch free market rhetoric to health care without appreciating that health care is already too far removed from a free market for the analogy to make sense. Real markets are sensitive to price. Health care isn't.

I believe this is a central component to why Republicans were unable to put forth salient ideas in the healthcare debate. Because they were inexperienced with combining their party's ideals with a social problem, they fell short of being able to solve the central issues.

He continues:

Republican inattention to health care and the failure to develop a compelling free market narrative [...] led to the place we are now. By pounding home the notion that the uninsured were the central problem with the health care system, and [...] their numbers were growing each and every year, liberals built a sense of urgency that conservatives didn't have and were able to demand action

Although I disagree that this "sense" of urgency was just that, and not an actual urgency for healthcare reform, I understand the fundamentals of his stance. The Democrats capitalized on a national crisis, and the Republican's inability to deal with the same crisis put them at a disadvantage.

Here is where he becomes a little misguided though:

A well-developed Republican health reform effort could have addressed the high cost of health care -- actually the most glaring issue in our system -- in a way that would have served as a kind of tax cut for the already insured. And in lowering costs, we could have covered the people who wanted health care but couldn't afford it -- the nub of the uninsured problem.

I don't know how tax cuts for the insured would have somehow given the federal government more money to cover the uninsured. As far as I know, tax cuts take away money from the federal government. Also, he's clearly missing the fact that the cost of health insurance was not solely the reason people were uninsured. Two words: pre-existing conditions. Dropped coverage. Many Americans could afford healthcare (or, well, sorta) but were unable to purchase insurance due to underlying health issues or scams by insurance agencies. Furthermore, even when people did have insurance, many were underinsured and did not have the full coverage that they needed. Simply making health insurance cheaper would not have solved the problem, and neither would basic tax cuts for the insured have led to coverage for all. That's just flawed logic.

What Fox News doesn't want you to know

Obama has been going cross-country, trying to convince the American people to believe in his healthcare overhaul. Recently, he was in northern Virginia with a bunch of college students to sell his plan. While every other network covered Obama's speech in its entirety, mediamatters pointed out that one cable news network decided this didn't fit into their prepackaged storyline. Instead, they cut off Obama before the end of his speech to show Rep. John Boehner's rebuttal of Obama's points.

For comparison, CNN & MSNBC (surprisingly!) showed both speeches in their entirety.
Now who's fair & balanced?

At least Fox's anchor suggested that their viewers go to the internet if they really wanted to see the rest of the speech. Because it's not like informing the citizens is their job, right?

Just pretend to be someone you're not.

Obama can't catch a break from either side. Here is Chris Matthews saying that Obama needs to pretend to move towards the center because he's become too much of a populist. He needs to be more like Bill Clinton (wait what) and act more like a centrist so that he can push through his policies.

I don't understand how lying would ever work. And as far as I can tell, Obama is already pretty middle-of-the-road, what with all that "bipartisan" jargon he keeps coming out with.

But what do I know? I'm not Chris Matthews.

SAFRA

Update: it looks like SAFRA is being tacked onto the healthcare bill so that the Democrats can pass some legislation while they pass some legislation.

Killing two birds with one stone.

Wouldn't it be great if they could've been able to just pass both bills separately and in a timely fashion? Wishful thinking on my part I guess.

I'm actually very excited for SAFRA since it directly affects my life and was another campaign promise of Obama. It's nice to see him finally coming through, and I think the youth of America (a large constituency that aided his election) will appreciate the reform of the student-loan markets as well.

The Saga Continues

Well, what a week it was. This turned into this, which ultimately turned into this!
However, the linear progression wasn't the smoothest one.

I'll start with where the latest part of this chapter began, after the big healthcare summit was broadcast on tv (just like the Democrats promised this time!) and watched by, oh, tens of people.

On the last day in February, Obama announced that he would soon be releasing an updated proposal of healthcare legislation that incorporated some Republican ideas brought forth from the healthcare summit. He projected himself as bipartisan and willing to work across the aisle to finally get this bill completed.

Sounded good.

Flash forward to Tuesday, when Obama revealed his updated plan with four specific Republican ideas incorporated. Yet, despite this, two larger messages came across:

1. While the White House was willing to use these Republican ideas, regardless if Republicans got on board, the Democrats were going to pass this bill. (Which begs the question - why even bother trying to incorporate their ideas for the sake of PR when in the end you'll just do what you want anyways?)

2. The Republicans, while "appreciating" the effort the White House was making, were still universally opposed to the healthcare bill. In fact, even the Republican senators whose ideas were incorporated into the updated proposal were against it! Again, this begs the question - so why involve their ideas at all? Unless their ideas were actually good and beneficial for the American people (a.k.a the "higher calling" argument) why water down the legislation? But I digress...

So the long & short of it wound up being: Obama's attempts were futile.
Proceed to stage 2.

On March 3 President Obama, surrounded by a bunch of doctors wearing white lab coats (so you would know it was official 'n everything) gave a speech that called for an up-or-down vote on healthcare legislation.
Well, that only took 15-months.


Obama is now coming to a city near you to campaign against Hillary stump for his healthcare initiative. He is going to areas where incumbent Democrats are facing challengers in November elections, to speak at town halls and try and garner support for his bill.

Of course, Republicans are furious that such measures are being taken against them. And they're right; it's completely unfair, damaging to the democratic process, and
oh, what's that?
It's not like the Bush administration used the up-or-down tactic to, oh, I don't know, pass anything they ever wanted.
But now it's egregious. Now it's travesty. But again, I digress.

The White House is also facing opposition from within their own party. An up-or-down vote of reconciliation requires the house to accept the senate's version of the healthcare bill point-blank. Unfortunately, some issues with the senate version include the lack of the public option and budgetary concerns, among other problems. An up-or-down vote may be harder than it seems on paper, and the Democrats are really going to need to unite to pass this legislation.

In the coming weeks it will be interesting to see how the issue plays out within the Democratic Party, seeing as the Republicans have now been deemed completely superfluous to the debate. I'm eager to see how Obama does at town hall meetings and how the Republicans will try and stop him from meeting his new deadline. I'm just interested to see how this will all end up, seeing as at this point it looks like it's heading in A direction. Whether this is the right direction, or even a progressive direction, has yet to be determined.



If only Obama just listened to Rahm Emanuel earlier...