Fouad Ajami has an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the fading of the Obama “magic” that I’m still trying to get my mind around. I never really “got” the president’s charisma. It may be that I’m tone-deaf but I think it was never the singer. It was always the song. The idea of Obama and the things he spoke about rather than Obama himself. A lot of Americans really liked the idea of a black president. They liked the idea of “post-partisanship”. They liked that he wasn’t George W. Bush.
I largely agree with this snippet:
A leader who set out to remake the health-care system in the country, a sixth of the national economy, on a razor-thin majority with no support whatsoever from the opposition party, misunderstood the nature of democratic politics. An election victory is the beginning of things, not the culmination. With Air Force One and the other prerogatives of office come the need for compromise, and for the disputations of democracy. A president who sought consensus would have never left his agenda on Capitol Hill in the hands of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
That is, after all, what I’ve been complaining about around here for the last five years.
I think this is overstated:
Valerie Jarrett, the president’s most trusted, probably most powerful, aide, once said in admiration that Mr. Obama has been bored his whole life. The implication was that he is above things, a man alone, and anointed. Perhaps this moment—a presidency coming apart, the incompetent social engineering of an entire health-care system—will now claim Mr. Obama’s attention.
I’m interested in hearing your opinions.
“I never really “got†the president’s charisma. It may be that I’m tone-deaf but I think it was never the singer. It was always the song.”
Damn you. Now I’m going to have to be serious for a minute. And this isn’t just snark or sniping. Its absolutely what I think.
I told anyone who would listen (no one) before he was even elected he had no managerial or executive experience of substance. He wasn’t half as smart as advertised. No leadership instincts. He was of suspect moral character. (Emil Jones) I meant it when I said I’d have thrown his resume in the trash if he was trying to become a CEO of one of our companies. There is no “there,” there. A media and pop culture creature. A Pet Rock.
But we are talking politics, not a corporation. Not the first bizarre candidate. But shall we continue? Even as a pol, he was a no count state Senator. No count. Emil Jones’ bag man. No record of substance. (A certain politico associate told me back then – “nothing behind the curtain.”) A weird divorce drama and suddenly he’s the Senator from the State of Illinois. A no count national Senator, and then running for President. Smooth tongue with a working teleprompter. Nice words. Empty suit. Even the Clinton’s, not Tea Party nuts, lamented “this guy should be carrying our bags.”
Sycophants relied on “he ran a great campaign.” No. Dave is right. It was the song. The charm. The embarrassingly lightweight rhetoric made you want to avert your eyes. The first black president. An affirmative action hire.
And then reality. A complete zero.
The country deserves better. I don’t give a rats ass if we want for whatever reason to have the first gay/woman/black/Jewish/Mormon/ex-rock’n’roller/animal………president. Just give me a competent person. We had the trifecta for awhile – the three stooges: Obama, Pelosi, Reid. Its scary if you really contemplate it for a minute. The incompetence. The arrogance. And on and on.
The country is resilient and this too shall pass. But, oh the damage done in the interim. May the time pass quickly…….
My opinion is that this was entirely predictable.
I want to know what comes next. Clearly some on the left are now disillusioned enough to admit the failure but is there even an avenue toward saving this adminstration or do we just endure for three more years? I really feel that things are bad enough on all fronts that it is time for right, left, and center to look for real solutions instead of scapegoats. I have no patience for gloating from the right.
That’s pretty much why I’m drifting into Steve Verdon’s position: there is no soft landing possible for the U. S. healthcare system.
I was referring to the nation as a whole (how do we function when all three branches have lost the trust of the people?) but I do think you are right about the healthcare system.
@Dave Schuler
I have not seen anything from @Steve Verdon. Is he alright?
Haven’t heard from him. Was thinking of emailing him to ask just that question. My guess is that he’s busy at work and doesn’t much care for the scrum over at OTB.
Aside from Jarrett’s placement of Obama in a Byronic stance, I do wonder what interests Obama.
Law: He appears to have decided quite early he wasn’t interested in law. In his interview for his first and only full-time job, he said he was interested in joining in the firm to learn about Chicago politics than to practice law, and the number of hours he billed indicates that he wsa not interested in making partner.
Lecturer: Interested enough in equal rights issues to be a lecturer, not interested in a career in academia, though.
State Legislature: Had to have found this job less interesting that he imagined. No legislative accomplishments to speak of in a system that is highly majority leadership controlled. Mostly a backbench legislator for the minority party. It stands out that he rashly challenged a sitting Democrat, Bobby Rush, to go to Congress at this time. Not interested in becoming a statehouse leader, wants to go to D.C. Not even concerned about burning bridges within his party.
So, when he was a third chair associate at a trial, he was not interesting in taking the first chair. When he was a state legislator, he didn’t want to become Emil Jones (majority leader). When he got to D.C., he didn’t want to become the black sidekick to legislation crafted by old white men for the next several years.
I personally don’t think Obama believed he could become President when he ran, but that he was trying to establish his own national identity that was not controlled by Party or Leadership. Perhaps become Vice-President. What is he interested in?
I said it long ago: Consultant-in-Chief. He wants his opinion to be heard and acted upon without question.
The great thing about Obamacare, as I see it, is that there’s no way to make our system more stupid. (Note that my rates will probably go up calendar year 2014, although weirdly, they have just plummeted, thanks to my agency being bought and merged with another agency, one that apparently knew how to negotiate directly for better plans at a lesser rate.) It’s like squaring the hapless banality of someone like Fouad Ajami longing for Henry Kissinger to talk some sense into Obama–you are still left with, evidence says, Fouad Ajami phoning it in from some collections center in Palo Alto.
(I voted for Obama, btw, and this is pretty much what I thought I was voting for–an establishment candidate who would do his best to save the status quo at the lowest cost possible to the status quo.)
What’s really fascinating about the Obamacare failure is that the most gleeful critics should actually be worried about what it means that people don’t want to buy the new dismal insurance. Because these are the same people who find it self-evident that the worst jobs, minus all regulation and compensation and humanity, are godsends to citizens. Personally I think refusing both–crap jobs and crap insurance–is admirable, but I also have no great theory about how America works together to churn out profit for everybody.
It’s hard to respect a President who not only can’t do STEM or economics, but who also speaks lousy English and no foreign language.
PD Shaw,
I’m guessing Obama sees no continuity in America. Burning bridges or the parties or the long process is of no interest to him. I don’t think he’s much different than any smart person from the 80s or beyond. You can’t have the national view that America was filled with pensioned leaches and freeloaders and deadweight who need some tough love, and then expect that it stops with corporate take-overs. It doesn’t.
Obama Co bought out GOP Co, and that’s the way the world works.
Would a consultant normally propose a policy and then consult with those affected? Or would he normally consult with them first, sagely stroke is chin, and announce a policy as a result of those consultations?
(I’m not getting the call to Insurance Company CEOs to come to Washington now)
I voted for Obama in the Clinton/Obama primaries. He fascinated me — probably for all the wrong reasons. However, as I’ve always viewed Hillary as the bastion of deceitful, cold-hearted ambition, Obama appeared like a reasonable, new era kind of choice. You know, that hoping-for-positive-change wishful kind of thinking.
After the primaries, I finally did my homework, reading up on his life and resume of accomplishments. Like Drew, I was struck by his artificially choreographed rise in the Illinois state legislature — something that seemed contrived, and eventually became off-putting to me. Emil Jones certainly took on the role of political Godfather to Obama, literally handing over other people’s legislative work, he would then call his own. Consequently, much of Obama’s career has appeared like a back-stage performance, in which he went through the actions, while someone else wrote his lines.
As for Valerie Jarrett’s influence — there have been lots of staff issues and rumors swirling around her powerful position in DC, over the years. She has been granted an over-abundance of presidential access and perks, including security similar to that of Obama’s, that people cannot seem to fathom. But, because of her enormous presence in the WH, they just simmer without openly confronting or questioning her actual job qualifications or judgment calls. Maybe she’s Obama’s Karl Rove.
Nonetheless, how I view Obama today, is similar to what I saw in him at the beginning of his presidency — an empty suit with a light bulb that blinded people. He has proven to have little but a robotic vision of what he wants to achieve. And, his distance from Congressional foes, as well as allies, keeps him isolated from a healthy engagement of diverse or collaborative brain-storming. Instead, he mainly surrounds himself with his own thoughts, ideas, and ideological agenda that, in turn, is augmented by like-minded people in the inner circle he holds council with.
It’s a very closed loop Obama is encased in, and I have no idea how that’s going to play out in the upcoming long three years, remaining in his presidency.
I told anyone who would listen (no one) before he was even elected he had no managerial or executive experience of substance.
Yes, Red, absolutely no one in the country beside you thought he had no managerial or executive experience of substance. Not one single one of us.
I want to know what comes next.
CStanley, if what I’m hearing from the Republicans I know is correct, we may well get four more years of complete executive incompetence after Obama if they get there way. I keep hearing the names of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio (less so now, but he does keep coming up) keep getting mentioned as various people’s dream candidates for President. All snark aside, Drew’s criticisms of Obama executive and managerial experience apply equally to those three as they did to Obama in 2008. The same would largely be true of Paul Ryan, though with his extra years of experience in DC he might be able to put together a team that could do a better job. I doubt that though. The person at the top of the org chart DOES matter.
The natural candidates for the Republicans from the perspective of actually governing once elected would be Christie, Daniels and Scott Walker. Christie is anathema to large chunks of the base (and is a large chunk himself, with lots of baggage besides), but the other two seem to have the charisma of forgotten and forgettable 19th Century Presidents.
And the likely Democratic nominees of the moment are no better, with Hillary, Warren, Biden and ???? in the race. (Hillary has executive experience at this point, but doesn’t exactly seem to have distinguished herself thereby.)
So my prediction for what next is another failed Presidency after this one. What comes after that? Who knows? I know that Turchin fellow is predicting a civilization-shaking crisis by 2020, but his work, while intriguing, is still in the early stages as an academic exercise, and I have doubts that it can ever truly be predictive.
Personally I think refusing both–crap jobs and crap insurance–is admirable, but I also have no great theory about how America works together to churn out profit for everybody.
For one thing, the elites would have to be willing to make some concessions to everyone else, and that ain’t happening. In fact, the elites are eager to show how much they want to hammer everyone else down by their commitment to (one-way) free trade and the importation of millions and millions of low wage workers to keep wages suppressed for the majority. This into an economy that has been suffering wage suppression for decades now, and has seen millions of full time jobs evaporate in the last half-decade.
But the Great Compression is over, and the elites of both parties are celebrating the fact that they’re beating the hell out of the rest of the country. You seen examples of it from both sides in the comments of this blog every week.
And hey, let’s not forget that in the middle of this crisis of Obama’s manufacture, in which it appears that HIS government is completely incapable of finding its own ass with both hands if you give them a two hand head start, we have another debt ceiling crisis looming in less than three months! Hot fucking damn! I’m telling my wife to forget everything else, and just buy popcorn for Christmas. Early 2014 is going to be the best disaster movie ever!
. . .,
One bright spot for the Republicans is that Romney was able to get his people into leadership positions to organize the primary system this time around. They’ve already made some changes to make it more difficult for people like Ron Paul to abuse the primaries for his own purposes. They are apparently trying to make the Midwest more prominent, which is supposed to help the Governors you mention, including Kasich.
Thanks for reminding me, icepick, that things are unlikely to improve after 2016 either. Sigh.
Icepick,
I think there is ever- increasing talk about looking to Governors for the next line-up of presidential candidates. I like your choice of Christie — he’s now half way to his weight loss — why not aim for the presidency! Daniels was who I supported in the last election, hoping he would throw his hat into the ring. His wife problems, though, proved to be an anchor he couldn’t untie. As for Walker, that would be a firecracker type of candidate. His candor, undermining political correctness, would surely bring out the democratic and union pitch forks.
PD, that’s good to hear about changes to the system. And yes, I forgot about Kasich completely. The Republicans actually do have a good bench, they’re just a bunch of boring white guys, and I don’t think that will sell these days.
And what a surprise that Romney was actually able to accomplish something, even if it was merely a primary system change. It’s almost as if he knows how to get things done.
Thanks for reminding me, icepick, that things are unlikely to improve after 2016 either. Sigh.
I am here to help.
But don’t worry, if the next debt ceiling negotiations go as well as the ObamaCare roll out we won’t make it to 2016.
The President’s behavior is textbook for a sociopathic narcissist: disinterested in details and unwilling to listen to opinions conflicting with his own, protracted refusal to accept responsibility for his actions, an apparent lack of concern for those his policies will harm, disdain for preparatory work (I’ve lost track of how many times his communication to the public left me with the sense of a man asleep at the wheel) and high-handed, frequently duplicitous and outright contemptuous behavior toward the people who elected him (is there a campaign promise which he did not do the exact opposite of once elected?)
Bush in my opinion did damage to the country of greater magnitude, but his screwup were many years in the making. Obama on the other hand has unraveled faster than I’ve ever seen in a President, going from comfortable re-election to lame duck for his own party in only eight months.
jan, I do NOT like Christie. But he at least has a record of what appears at a distance to be accomplishment.
Actually, I don’t like any of them that much. We need a revolutionary type figure. I’d like someone that was about half TR, half Reagan (before the assassination attempt) and half MacArthur (as supreme pooh-bah of Japan). Yeah, that adds up to three halves, but that’s probably what it will take. So maybe Christie needs to keep the weight on.
What I’d like is someone that doesn’t think the disappearance of the American middle class is inevitable. Opposition to idiotic one-way free trade and immigration would be huge pluses, but as best I can tell there is NO ONE that would fit that bill. Most fit comfortably into the Tom Friedman “let them hack cabs and rent out their spare rooms” conception of the inevitable death of the middle class. And they’re all pretty happy with it, as they all expect to be in the new/old ruling class, and actually anticipate enjoying kicking the peasants around. You see that here, there and everywhere on the net.
The most amazing thing to me is Nancy Pelosi running around spouting numbers that the Administration says are wrong, and insisting that all is well. Give her the Kevin Bacon Award for Most Oblivious.
Ben and Jan,
I don’t think there’s evidence that Obama is more of a sociopath, a puppet, or a narcissist than any other president this country has had. To me, Obama has the attitude of a lot well-educated private school guys who want to be both smart and popular. This is pretty ordinary and hardly worth freaking-out about, unless you want to freak out about privilege.
I don’t think there’s evidence that Obama is more of a sociopath, a puppet, or a narcissist than any other president this country has had.
Low bar.
Oh my God, the sky is falling, we’re all gonna be killed!
People. A little perspective, huh? Are we losing 700,000 jobs a month? Are major financial institutions crashing? Is anyone flying planes into the World Trade Center? Has the president been caught getting b.j.’s from interns? Has the President been caught giving arms to Iranians in exchange for money to death squads? Are the Soviets putting ICBMs in Cuba? Is Pearl Harbor being attacked? Is Hitler on the march? Has the South seceded? Are the British burning Washington?
Here’s what you do: you loosen your belts, stick your hands down the backs of your trousers, take a firm hold on the waistbands of your panties, and pull gently until they become untwisted.
Good grief.
The reason to vote for was that the other options were worse. GOP foreign and domestic policy in the 2000s was awful. McCain would have continued them. Choosing Palin was the coup de grace. Romney chose the same stable of foreign policy experts. He then ran against Medicare cuts.
Steve
Here’s what you do: you loosen your belts, stick your hands down the backs of your trousers, take a firm hold on the waistbands of your panties, and pull gently until they become untwisted.
That’s just not the way it works. Anything reeking of the left and solidarity has had to perform a million times better than the forces of war and profit. This is why Larry Summers and Alan Greenspan and Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger are routinely dragged out from their crypts to enlighten the rubes but someone like Doug Henwood is basically a kidnap victim.
So basically, Obama blew it with the website. If the website was running, they could have politely told the whole individual insurance dropped coverage idiocy to fuck off and quit complaining, and that would have been that. But instead, people who live their lives to feign sentiments they don’t have have been given a way in to the debate. This usually ends badly.
Would be interesting to compare this. with writings when Iraq was at its worst. This seems at least as hysterical, and we are mostly talking about a website that doesn’t work.
Steve
Dave Schuler: The Magic Fades
The magic, if there ever was any, has been gone a long time.
CStanley: Clearly some on the left are now disillusioned enough to admit the failure
…: So my prediction for what next is another failed Presidency after this one.
Modulo Myself: What’s really fascinating about the Obamacare failure
Failure? Is ObamaCare being repealed? If not, the system will adjust to the new system, and it will become part of the fabric, like Social Security or Medicare.
@Red,
“I don’t give a rats ass if we want for whatever reason to have the first gay/woman/black/Jewish/Mormon/ex-rock’n’roller/animal………president. Just give me a competent person. ”
Riiiiight. Why should we believe that you — a paid-up-in-full, card-carrying member of the oligarchy — would favor anyone who wouldn’t competently bust his or her gay/woman/black/Jewish/Mormon/ex-rock’n’roller/animal hump to keep you guys in charge? Same as always.
Failure? Is ObamaCare being repealed? If not, the system will adjust to the new system, and it will become part of the fabric, like Social Security or Medicare.
Look, even from the states with working exchanges, the numbers are pretty low. Maybe they’re going to improve, but I would say, right now, excluding whatever fixes occur for those who can’t get insured in time because of the federal website, that there’s going to be really low enrollment overall.
But that’s not really that important. The system that somehow provided some sort of sovereignty for middle-class people is going down and in five to ten years, there’s going to be enormous changes in places that are basically incapable of adapting to change. And so scapegoats and villains will be needed. Instead of blaming years of endless reactionary and patronizing common-sense, Obamacare is going to end up being just like welfare is for the urban riots and chaos of the late sixties, or feminism or African-Americans are for regressive phobics who enjoy being ‘politically-incorrect.’
I don’t think there was much Obama could have done–he’s basically, as I said upthread, the candidate of the status quo and the white backlash against everything has been extraordinarily good for this country as a whole. Consider it warm-up for the witch-hunt on scientists that oil company agitprop will suggest is proper when climate change turns out to be worse than expected.
If any of the idiots here are alive, the cry for blood will be based on how uncompliant scientists were to those who lie 24/7: “They should have worked harder to convince David Koch, the bastards!”
If not, the system will adjust to the new system, and it will become part of the fabric, like Social Security or Medicare.
….along with the same kind of unsustainable, threadbare ‘fabric’ that SS and Medicare are weakly stitched to. For example, look how the workers supporting SS benefits has dwindled from it’s inception phase.
However, when Paul Ryan wanted to reform medicare with a benign tweaking — leaving it alone for those 55 and older, while offering a voucher choice for younger people, his plan was depicted in an election ad as a look alike throwing granny over the cliff. Of course ‘granny’ wasn’t in any jeopardy, as the cut-off was 55. and the voucher option was not a mandate, like what is in the PPACA. But, who cares about details, as the graphic of tossing the elderly off their medicare was just too good of a negative ad to waste.
However, now when it comes to Obamacare, where people of all ages are immediately being tossed off their HC plans — plans that were freely chosen by them and far from sub-standard for their needs — the dems are dismissing the dismay and anger from those affected by these PPACA perpetrated lies, as being some kind of unwarranted hype???
It’s just another demonstration of social progressive political hypocrisy.
Jan- Some of us read Ryan’s plan. The details matter. Presently, Medicare pays about 70% of medical costs. The patient pays about 30%. With his plan that ratio would have been reversed. Criticism of Ryan’s plan was not hysteria but pointing out the true cost shift.
At this point most of the prominent/important writers on the left have acknowledged that these really losing insurance (a much smaller number than usually claimed) are being hurt. They would like to address that because they know how important it is to have insurance. Let me invite you to express even a tiny percentage of that sympathy you express for those losing insurance for the much, much larger group who could not obtain insurance to begin with.
Steve
My view of Ryan’s plan, expressed in posts here at the time, was that it made bad assumptions. Among them were that healthcare consumers will economize without deferring necessary care. Since it did nothing (other than encourage economization) to control costs, it would inevitably lead to an abolition of Medicare.
There are no challenges other than political and moral ones to abandoning all forms of federal healthcare subsidies. The difficulty is in coming up with a plan for reducing spending while maintaining a reasonable level of public health. If not annoying anyone is also a prerequisite, designing a viable reform plan becomes impossible.
What I’ve advocated is a bipartisan plan to annoy everybody all at the same time. For some reason that idea doesn’t seem to catch on.
Medicare pays about 70% of medical costs. The patient pays about 30%. With his plan that ratio would have been reversed.
Steve, Yes, details matter a lot. However, I’ve never seen this ratio in Ryan’s plan.
My view of Ryan’s plan, expressed in posts here at the time, was that it made bad assumptions. Among them were that healthcare consumers will economize without deferring necessary care.
Dave, Ryan based his assumptions on free-market expectations. However, he did mitigate some of the cost fears in later modifications to his Premium Support Proposal.
The premise of Ryan’s Premium Support medicare proposal, however, was giving more consumer control to people as they got older, by introducing more options in their HC coverage This was to be accomplished by having them competitively research and choose HC plans fitting their own needs and circumstances that were to be funded by both government vouchers, and their own monies making up any difference in insurance premiums.
It was basically a free market experience, giving seniors an opportunity to think for themselves, and pay their doctor’s directly — meaning no more annual “doc fix” Congressional fiascos.
Skeptics called his medicare ideas “faith based”, because of the assumptions made regarding people’s ability to make good decisions for themselves, as well as the possibility of costs growing too much for some to afford. However, Ryan’s proposal changed from when it was first introduced in 2008, evolving to meet some of these criticisms. One addition was to allow for increases in the premium support amount that would track increases in total premium costs, decreasing the chances that cost gaps in policies would widen too much for lower-income seniors to afford. It also later brought in the ability to opt out and simply go with the original fee-for-service plan that continues to pay directly for care.
IMO, had the proposal made it to a written bill stage, it would have even changed further to ameliorate the continuing concerns about medical access for seniors, while still pressing for free market conditions that would increase competitive HC policy choices, give incentives to consumers who participated in preventive care, incentives to providers who improved efficiency and quality in their HC, and tort reform and fraud reduction — something regularly overlooked in any HC reform measure.
Jan- Virtually no one on the right ran the numbers. Those who did, like Roy and Goodman, didn’t publicize them. I am not surprised that you did not see them. It is why Romney ran away from the plan, as did the GOP leadership.
Steve
There is no free market in health care and no one wants one. What they do is define the parts they like and call that free.
A free market in healthcare would have no licensing, patents, royalties, restrictions on the prescription of medications, barriers to entry, etc. We had that. We eliminated it.
jan: ….along with the same kind of unsustainable, threadbare ‘fabric’ that SS and Medicare are weakly stitched to.
So Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable …
jan: For example, look how the workers supporting SS benefits has dwindled from it’s inception phase.
The demographic shift was planned for in advance. Increased income inequality was not expected, and that has led to lower revenues than expected.
jan: However, when Paul Ryan wanted to reform medicare with a benign tweaking —
So it’s sustainable with some “benign tweaking”.
Dave Schuler: There is no free market in health care and no one wants one.
And that’s at the root of the problem of controlling costs.
So Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable …
Yup.
The demographic shift was planned for in advance. Increased income inequality was not expected, and that has led to lower revenues than expected.
That’s not what the original projections forecast.
And that’s at the root of the problem of controlling costs.
This is one of the number of ways where Dave and I part company, as I would much rather deal with free market solutions than try to wade through the bureaucracy of centralized government for a remedy.
So it’s sustainable with some “benign tweakingâ€.
No, I never said that Ryan’s plan was sustainable. It was simply a plan to address a different approach to medicare — one where the costs would bend downward. However, much like Obamacare, the CBO came out with different projections.
Steve, I’m going to post the following as well:
This one dealing with John Goodman’s assessment of the Ryan’s Premium Support:
RAND: Premium Support Best Way To Reform Medicare
This second link, from Forbes, I have a excerpted, in a lengthy fashion, in response to your often posed question of what have the Republicans done to instigate or promote HC reform:
Seriously? The Republicans Have No Health Plan
OK, some of the pushback here has struck a chord with me.
So I’m reflecting on whether or not my attitude is overwrought. I do think that generally a focus on the negative often leads to faulty conclusions, although it can also sometimes create the conditions for the fulfillment of the doomsday predictions.
Still, I can’t see things through the lens that people like Michael are using. So we’re no longer losing 700,000 jobs per month…but we’re damn sure not creating enough to replace them either. And the president’s not getting BJ’s from interns? Never thought I’d say it, but if only this were the extent of the scandal and rot that we were dealing with. Not dealing arms secretly with Iran? No, instead we’ve decided to arm Mexican drug lords, the Muslim Brotherhood, and inadvertently some al Qaeda affiliates.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. So, I’m unpersuaded from my pessimism by comparisons to past tribulations. If you can point to evidence that we’re reversing the downward spiral, I’m open to being persuaded to a more optimistic view.
jan: Yup.
Then what was the point of bringing up Ryan’s “benign tweaking”?
jan: That’s not what the original projections forecast.
The demographic shift was planned for in advance. Increased income inequality was not expected, and that has led to lower revenues than expected.
jan: This is one of the number of ways where Dave and I part company, as I would much rather deal with free market solutions than try to wade through the bureaucracy of centralized government for a remedy.
In a free market, people without sufficient funds will often die of treatable conditions. If someone stumbles into a hospital lobby, wounded or suffering some sort of attack, should the hospital provide treatment?
CStanley: If you can point to evidence that we’re reversing the downward spiral, I’m open to being persuaded to a more optimistic view.
Actually, you seemed to be pointing to marginal improvement, not a downward spiral. As for having nothing to complain about, that will never happen.
FDR never had to worry about a broken website.
Then what was the point of bringing up Ryan’s “benign tweaking�
SS and Medicare are unsustainable without reform. Ryan’s plan was to ease the financial liability of Medicare, by giving people greater HC choices in their older years, as well as offering consumer incentives attracting lower premium prices. This works in the auto insurance market. Why wouldn’t it be worth giving a try in the HC insurance market?
…that has led to lower revenues than expected.
Revenues are projected to be $3 trillion dollars, the highest in history.
In a free market, people without sufficient funds will often die of treatable conditions. If someone stumbles into a hospital lobby, wounded or suffering some sort of attack, should the hospital provide treatment?
I don’t think everything in life is guaranteed. That being said, taking your example into account, a hospital is bound to treat people today, despite their economic circumstances. That’s why ERs are crowded, and will continue to be so, despite government insurance, because people trust this reliable route for access to treatment.
CStanley,
I don’t think we are in a fast death spiral, but a slow one — one that people like Michael are unaware of, much like a diver doesn’t realize he is running out of oxygen because he doesn’t look at his meter registering how much air he has left.
When you gauge the health of our economy by the shrinking employment participation rates, giving a rosier UE number than what people are experiencing in reality; when you look at the climbing poverty rate, especially among AAs; when food stamps and disability payments are steeply rising; when you see household incomes eroding, college educated millennials having to take ‘substandard’ jobs to exist, while being saddled with higher HC costs; when so many people are living from paycheck to paycheck, with little to no savings — all wrapped up in a growing $17 trillion dollar debt hovering over everyone’s head — it’s just a matter of time where the rubber of reality hits the road of even harder times.
Social Security isn’t much of a problem—what fixing that needs doing is pretty minor. It’s as sustainable as it has ever been.
Medicare is the big problem. Its cost is increasing at a multiple of other costs, incomes, and revenues. Any notion that it can be made sustainable using market forces without adversely affecting public health is fatuous. First, you’d need to establish a market. That would mean reducing the barriers to entry, advertising prices, competition, and a host of other factors that the AMA (just to name one) would fight to the bitter end.
Zachriel,
I don’t see how you infer marginal improvement from what I wrote, but a downward spiral by definition requires massive improvements to correct, not marginal ones. If a patient’s systems are failing it really doesn’t make sense to find marginal improvements in chemistries or BP and claim he’s recovering. Even less sense if the numbers themselves are being fudged.
jan: SS and Medicare are unsustainable without reform.
Social Security can be fixed with modest changes. Medicare’s problem are primarily due to rapidly rising medical costs.
jan: Revenues are projected to be $3 trillion dollars, the highest in history.
Payroll taxes are below the original projections due to rising inequality.
(Total federal receipts in 2012 were about 16%, which is below the historical average.)
jan: That being said, taking your example into account, a hospital is bound to treat people today, despite their economic circumstances.
Right. The question is whether you think they should be bound.
CStanley: I don’t see how you infer marginal improvement from what I wrote, but a downward spiral by definition requires massive improvements to correct, not marginal ones.
For instance, you pointed to the fact that job growth was -700k per month, and now are +200k per month. That’s not a downward spiral.
CStanley: If a patient’s systems are failing it really doesn’t make sense to find marginal improvements in chemistries or BP and claim he’s recovering.
Using the medical analogy, which seems a propos, the patient had a heart attack. Dr. Bush gave the patient a shot of adrenaline, which got the heart going again. Dr. Obama then provided a transfusion. Now the patient is up and around, but not yet returned to full health.
jan- On which of those plans was the GOP willing to spend any political capital? None. As I said above, you only get plans from the GOP when there is no danger they might have to pass one. Look at the dates on all of the plans from your Goodman article. I guess I could also nitpick and note that if you read those 5 plans they are mostly pretty vague.
On the footnotes I would agree that there are right of center economists and policy people who have ideas. Indeed, the individual mandate probably came from Mark Pauly, a highly respected writer from the right. Some of them actually have some good ideas. Value based insurance and reference pricing have strong support from some on the right. But then I doubt that you know that many writers from the left are supportive of market based reforms. Still, what matters is what a party is willing to put forward and risk votes on. Every plan will alienate someone. The GOP only postures knowing that commitment to a plan will mean losing some votes.
Steve
@Zachriel
I’m guessing you’re not a doctor. Dr. Bush and Dr Obama would both have killed the patient.
I’m being flip but my point was to compare our conditions to a patient who may already in a death spiral, when vital organs are shutting down because the system is failing. Treating it like an acute event and expecting the body won’t work this time, in part because we never made the long term commitment to health after all of those previous acute events.
CStanley: I’m guessing you’re not a doctor. Dr. Bush and Dr Obama would both have killed the patient.
The patient clearly has a pulse. If you mean there are long term threats, well, sure. There’s always threats.
Well if my analogy was a patient he’d be dead now too so let’s toe tag him and send him to the morgue.
Here’s a very passionate article describing how Obamacare is putting the final nail into the middle class.
It’s wrecking havoc in forcing cancellations of HC policies, and transforming the labor market into part time workers. How this can be construed by it’s backers as good policy-making is beyond me.
In fact, an interesting anecdote is the fan letter Obama read at a recent public event, by a woman thanking him for Obamacare. She described herself as a single Mom with an ADHD child, spending a good sum of money on medications every month, and unable to afford medical insurance until the passage of the PPACA. Unfortunately, the state of Washington put out wrong premium numbers for 3 plus weeks, and she soon got a letter saying she didn’t qualify for a subsidy, and the least expensive Obamacare plan had a premium she couldn’t afford. So, she’s right back at being uninsured. I wonder how many other people are going to be mislead in similar ways?