Wrong Turns: How Obama's Health-Care Push Went Astray

[question everything]

(Don't know how much truth there is, even though the news part of the WSJ is quite good, compared t the editorial dept.)

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Wrong Turns: How Obama's Health-Care Push Went Astray

By JONATHAN WEISMAN, NEIL KING and JANET ADAMY
WSJ

WASHINGTON -- A group called the Herndon Alliance -- a coalition of liberal health-care groups, unions and patient-advocacy groups created in late 2005 -- was only a few months into its work planning a health-insurance overhaul by the time it asked focus groups what they thought of the idea of a government-run plan to compete with private ones. The public-option was an article of faith for many in the alliance, but the focus groups' reactions were sobering. Skepticism ran high. The chief worry: Giving access to inexpensive government insurance to America's 46 million uninsured would boost costs, or reduce care, for those who were already insured. When pollsters told the advocacy groups the public option probably wouldn't fly, they were told to paper over the problem with a better "message," according to a participant in the project.

(snip)

It was an early warning of the trouble that was to engulf President Barack Obama's most ambitious legislative effort despite years of careful groundwork laid by supporters. Two overarching problems have bedeviled the Democrats' health-care push. One is the difficulty of persuading people who already have health insurance that the plan offers something for them. Polls suggest many Americans are happy with the coverage they have. The other is the cost, estimated at $1 trillion over a decade. While Democrats say the plan will be budget-neutral, Republicans say the cost savings and tax increases being used to fund new programs would better go toward reducing the fast-growing federal budget deficit.

(snip)

A look back suggests the president and his allies may have "overlearned" the lessons of President Bill Clinton's 1993-1994 health-care defeat. They expended great effort to line up the support of health-care insurers, pharmaceutical makers and care providers, believing that by keeping them around the table, they could win over Republicans and stop the kind of industry-led attacks that helped sink the Clinton plan. But this strategy left out the wooing of public opinion, which was being affected by broader events, including the economic crisis and anger over bank bailouts. Some Democrats say the president exacerbated the message problem by being too distant from the legislative process and too vague to the public about his aims. (The White House says it was right to stay aloof from the process but is now ready to wade in.) Democrats also say that for all their preparations, they never anticipated Republicans and their allies rolling out incendiary accusations that the Obama plan would empower "death panels," help illegal immigrants and raid Medicare.

(snip)

When the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee began drafting a bill, partisanship quickly arose. This soured Republicans who served on the Finance and health panels, including Sens. Orrin Hatch, Pat Roberts and Michael Enzi. What had started as 11 negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee dropped to seven, then six. Republican leaders increasingly felt emboldened to oppose any overhaul of the health system. In June, Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee, told the negotiators they had gone through all the big issues and it was time to draft a bill. But the resistance didn't just come from Republicans. Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Jeff Bingaman said they weren't ready. A planned June bill "mark-up" slipped to July, then to September.

(snip)

But Mr. Obama was being pushed in two directions -- by liberal Democrats who wanted him to embrace the public option and by Republicans, such as Sen. Grassley, who told him they needed him to renounce it, if a bipartisan bill that emerged was to be acceptable after final negotiations. President Obama told him he couldn't give such assurances, according to a senior Republican Senate aide, leaving the Republican feeling he had no defense against leaders opposing his efforts. Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) got a call at home from Mr. Obama on a Saturday morning in late July. The two have been close since the president was a senator. "You need to take what you want to do and really spell it out," Mr. Coburn says he told the president. "You need to see if you can get some of us to come across the line, and accomplish 80% of what you want to do." "I understand what you're saying," Mr. Coburn says Mr. Obama told him, "but I don't think we're there yet."

(snip)

Many Democratic lawmakers say they remain resolved to push ahead on an overhaul, even if in a reduced form. Republicans plan to portray the overhaul as part of a Democratic agenda of heavy spending that threatens to increase the deficit.. What Democrats want now, they say, is a big assist from Mr. Obama. "There is no way we are going to get this passed without the energetic, concentrated attention of the president," said Rep. Welch. "He is going to have to weigh in on the details, and do so loudly."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125193901923781757.html (subscription)

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A4

[geek tragedy]

1. Anyone who lived through 1994 knew Obama had lost his way.

Hopefully he can regain the plot.

[FrenchieCat]

2. "A look back suggests"? An obituary by the WSJ? Well guess that's what they do, hey?

What is this past tense bullshit?

Public opinion was wooed....but the media, including WSJ worked mighty hard to influence it the other way. Are we supposed to be stupid here?

What is this crapola? Fuck this funky ass Republican Rag paper! :mad:


and BTW, that's 6 paragraphs too many that you posted.

[geek tragedy]

3. Obama was trying to bring Tom Coburn aboard.

That should tell you everything you need to know about his commitment to genuine reform. No genuine reform was going to involve Tom Coburn.

[democracy1st]

4. its been bs from the very beginning since when has bluedog democrats created liberal legislation

[CTyankee]

9. My sentiments entirely. I wouldn't line a birdcage with the WSJ.

Even tho they have had some great investigative reporters now and again, I sure don't trust any political analysis on hcr that appears in its pages.

Why can't we just keep our pants on and wait to see what our President says on Wednesday, folks...

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Great.

Another prematurely written " obituary" for HCR. :eyes: WSJ and everybody who already believes that HCR has already been defeated will look pretty silly once Obama actually signs a bill. If they only understood Obama's strategy, they would understand that this is actually the end of the beginning NOT the end itself and that it WILL end with a good bill IMHO. Obama is not doing all of this and going through all of this BS just to give us a crappy bill in the end that doesn't do anything for most people IMHO. I find the lack of " faith" among many here disturbing. Since when do we care what the WSJ says about anything related to Obama and the Democrats, now really?

[cleveramerican]

6. "let them work it out on the hill"

was a flawed strategy from the get-go.

[question everything]

7. LBJ vs. Bill and Hillary Clinton

LBJ used his literal bully pulpit to pull Medicare. He knew how to play the game, knew where all the skeletons were buried and, in those days, people could have secret and not so secret meetings to debate and to compromise without any jerk with a cell phone recording their talks and snapping pictures.

The Clintons came with their own detailed programs but were considered outsiders - even and including by the Democrats in Congress until the day they left.

So this White House decide to let Congress come with solutions and, it appears, it backfired.

Still interesting of whether, indeed, the public option was voted down in focus group.

On the other hand, one has to wonder how many of the ones who voted it down back in 2006, now lost their jobs and their employer-provided insurance and would now embrace such an option.

[cleveramerican]

8. LBJ would have gotten every democrat in a room

and locked the door until a bill was agreed upon.
town meetings would have been the last thing he'd agree to before that happened.

[suzie]

12. LBJ had a dead president to invoke.

Last I noticed, Obama is missing that key element.

[justgamma]

10. Yep. It's all Obama's fault.

Nobody told any lies or distributed any false information. I still say "concern" based on lies needs to be ignored.

Just do it.

[spanone]

11. the wall street urinal, in the hands now of rupert murdoch, has no credibility