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Obama isn't serious about bipartisanship
September 11, 2009
BY STEVE HUNTLEY
Give President Obama his due for ordering "demonstration projects" in several states to address frivolous malpractice lawsuits driving up medical costs. And give him credit for adopting John McCain's idea to create a short-term program of providing insurance to Americans with pre-existing medical conditions.
Yet these concessions to Republicans are basically at the margins of the great debate on health-care reform. Despite his assertion that he wants to seek common ground with Republicans, his speech adhered to the liberal Democratic agenda and ruled out the kind of fundamental reforms conservatives back.
A pilot program to transfer malpractice suits from the courts to expert panels and arbitrators should be welcomed. The understandable fear of frivolous lawsuits and jackpot jury judgments pushes doctors to practice defensive medicine by ordering extra tests and treatments. Tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses drive up insurance costs.
Obama proposed the pilot project as a "test" of the effectiveness of tort reform. But some states already have overhauled malpractice with beneficial results. Since approving tort reform in 2003, Texas has seen the number of doctors applying to practice there jump 57 percent. And many are going to previously underserved areas, Gov. Rick Perry reports.
It's also worth noting that the pilot project is being done by Obama as an executive initiative. It requires nothing from Democrats in Congress. It's not permanent, and there's no guarantee of anything beyond a demonstration project. So this comes across more as a gesture of embracing a GOP concept than substantive inclusion of conservative ideas.
The same is true in his adoption of McCain's idea for insurance pools to cover high-risk individuals. This GOP concept would work for four years until a more ambitious Democrat-envisioned and Washington-controlled insurance exchange was up and running.
Conservatives share Obama's goals of tearing down obstacles to insuring Americans with pre-existing conditions, banishing the practice of canceling or revising policies when someone gets sick, and expanding coverage. Doing all that will require some sort of individual mandate and subsidies for the poor that bring the country close to universal coverage. And Obama is right that competition is key to achieving those objectives.
But the agenda Obama backs provides more competition only if it comes from the government. No opening was offered for lowering the barriers to interstate insurance sales that are why 75 percent of the markets in 34 states are controlled by five or fewer firms.
Nor did he seem welcoming to the conservative idea of tax code changes to give individuals the option to seek insurance on their own, rather than being tied to coverage provided by employers.
In fact, the powerful undercurrent of his speech was not conciliation. The message is that he is ready to push his agenda through Congress without Republican support. As he typically does, he set up straw men. He attacked GOP opposition when he has major problems from conservative and moderate Democrats. He accorded the opponents of any reform a much bigger voice than the minimal faction they constitute. He decried "scare tactics" against reform while saying the failure of his plan would mean more deaths.
A powerfully delivered speech may give Obama a bump in the polls. But the underlying problems for overarching health-care reform remain. Americans are more worried about the economy. They have a hard time swallowing claims a 1,000-page bill won't increase the deficit or degrade their coverage. If cutting $600 billion from Medicare through reducing "waste and fraud" is so simple, why hasn't it been done? His call for a trigger to reduce growth in Medicare spending if reform doesn't contain costs must unsettle seniors. And despite his talk of common ground, Obama has done nothing significant to bring bipartisanship to this emotional issue.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/1764452,CST-EDT-hunt11.article
September 11, 2009
BY STEVE HUNTLEY
Give President Obama his due for ordering "demonstration projects" in several states to address frivolous malpractice lawsuits driving up medical costs. And give him credit for adopting John McCain's idea to create a short-term program of providing insurance to Americans with pre-existing medical conditions.
Yet these concessions to Republicans are basically at the margins of the great debate on health-care reform. Despite his assertion that he wants to seek common ground with Republicans, his speech adhered to the liberal Democratic agenda and ruled out the kind of fundamental reforms conservatives back.
A pilot program to transfer malpractice suits from the courts to expert panels and arbitrators should be welcomed. The understandable fear of frivolous lawsuits and jackpot jury judgments pushes doctors to practice defensive medicine by ordering extra tests and treatments. Tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses drive up insurance costs.
Obama proposed the pilot project as a "test" of the effectiveness of tort reform. But some states already have overhauled malpractice with beneficial results. Since approving tort reform in 2003, Texas has seen the number of doctors applying to practice there jump 57 percent. And many are going to previously underserved areas, Gov. Rick Perry reports.
It's also worth noting that the pilot project is being done by Obama as an executive initiative. It requires nothing from Democrats in Congress. It's not permanent, and there's no guarantee of anything beyond a demonstration project. So this comes across more as a gesture of embracing a GOP concept than substantive inclusion of conservative ideas.
The same is true in his adoption of McCain's idea for insurance pools to cover high-risk individuals. This GOP concept would work for four years until a more ambitious Democrat-envisioned and Washington-controlled insurance exchange was up and running.
Conservatives share Obama's goals of tearing down obstacles to insuring Americans with pre-existing conditions, banishing the practice of canceling or revising policies when someone gets sick, and expanding coverage. Doing all that will require some sort of individual mandate and subsidies for the poor that bring the country close to universal coverage. And Obama is right that competition is key to achieving those objectives.
But the agenda Obama backs provides more competition only if it comes from the government. No opening was offered for lowering the barriers to interstate insurance sales that are why 75 percent of the markets in 34 states are controlled by five or fewer firms.
Nor did he seem welcoming to the conservative idea of tax code changes to give individuals the option to seek insurance on their own, rather than being tied to coverage provided by employers.
In fact, the powerful undercurrent of his speech was not conciliation. The message is that he is ready to push his agenda through Congress without Republican support. As he typically does, he set up straw men. He attacked GOP opposition when he has major problems from conservative and moderate Democrats. He accorded the opponents of any reform a much bigger voice than the minimal faction they constitute. He decried "scare tactics" against reform while saying the failure of his plan would mean more deaths.
A powerfully delivered speech may give Obama a bump in the polls. But the underlying problems for overarching health-care reform remain. Americans are more worried about the economy. They have a hard time swallowing claims a 1,000-page bill won't increase the deficit or degrade their coverage. If cutting $600 billion from Medicare through reducing "waste and fraud" is so simple, why hasn't it been done? His call for a trigger to reduce growth in Medicare spending if reform doesn't contain costs must unsettle seniors. And despite his talk of common ground, Obama has done nothing significant to bring bipartisanship to this emotional issue.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/1764452,CST-EDT-hunt11.article