Posted on 12/03/2014 1:02:56 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Was heathcare reform a fatal political blunder by the Democratic Party? That thesis of Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, received a respectful airing this week from the veteran political journalist and New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall.
Schumer's position--that the Democrats should have delayed healthcare reform at the start of Obama's first term and focused instead on policies to help the middle class--goes to the heart of what it means to govern. It's proper to give it a closer look.
It's even more important to examine the misconceptions about Obamacare that lie at the heart of Schumer's analysis. The fundamental flaw in that analysis is a misunderstanding of Obamacare, as some of Edsall's own data reveal. The lesson, as I've written before, is that the Democrats' blunder was not in passing the bill, but in running away from it once it became law and abandoning it to be defined--misdefined--by their Republican opponents.
"We must convince the middle class that the only way out of their morass is by a stronger and effective government, not by demeaning or running away from it," Schumer told his audience. But by trampling over the Affordable Care Act, he became part of the problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
"It didn't help that, according to the New York Times, he had previously been caught reading colleagues' email without their permission." -- Washington Examiner
In FR we are all ideologues, just like the leftist ideologues...just a different ideology. Of course, we claim to be right and they wrong, which in economics, destruction of the traditional family and other issues seems to be supported by the evidence.
But we need to be careful that we don’t make the same political blunder, especially on immigration. The reality is that our basic position is pro-family and “let the free market decide”. Immigration rhetoric and action contrary to those basic positions makes us look like hypocrites.
The evidence is that free market in immigration and trade is good for the country. The Guttmacher-Malthusians on immigration are likely to cripple the Conservative movement in the same way Obamacare has crippled the left.
Of course, Murder, rape, DUI, welfare parasites are not “free market”. We need to focus on deporting and keeping out those specific types of immigrants (both legals and illegals). No immigrant, legal or illegal should come here to collect welfare.
It is the DEMOCRAT party.
Not the Democratic party.
Uh, speak for yourself, please.
“This is a serious flaw, because other surveys, notably by the Kaiser Family Foundation, have shown repeatedly that voters strongly favor almost all of the actual features of Obamacare, including the end of insurance denials and jacked-up premiums for pre-existing medical conditions, lower drug prices for Medicare enrollees, the right to keep children on employer health plans to age 26, tax credits for small businesses to buy insurance, and the expansion of Medicaid.”
If, and only if, these benefits don’t cost them any money. If they do, then its a different matter entirely, isn’t it? The one thing the poll never asks his how much are you willing to pay for the feature.
No. Any other questions?
Regardless of any loss of elections Obamacare is so invasive and cancerous it will never be cut out of the system now. now, with millions of illegals that will soon be able to vote, rats will stay in power.
I read that 82% of exchange enrolees are on subsidy.
Of course they’re happy for the taxpayer contribution.
It surely bitch slapped it up side the head. . . .
Yup. People are NOT willing to pay more themselves for new benefits - or if they are, the cost has to be in proportion to the benefits provided.
If the costs are burdensome, people don’t see them as worth having. I’m surprised Michael Hitzik missed this and the greatest criticism of Obamacare is that it saddles people with expensive new costs and questionable health coverage.
That’s why its badly flawed. No one denies our health care system could work better but the Democrats’ approach was the wrong fix to its ills.
Hiltsik suggests Dems shouldn’t have run away from the great and wonderous Obamacare. The problem was regular mopes just didn’t understand it.
Hope they run on that theme in 2016
If Obamacare was so great, the Democrats should have touted it every chance they got.
Mary Landrieu is not even mentioning it in her re-election bid. There goes Hiltzik’s thesis.
They aren’t destroyed. Not by a long shot.
What the hell are you talking about?
The GOP just won a landslide election, an election where Obama hid his intentions on immigration until after the election to protect democrats.
The GOP isn’t going to be mired like the Dems with Obamacare if we don’t double arm embrace illegal aliens. No.
Just the opposite,
If the GOP doesn’t stand up for the rule of law, it’s the GOP that will go the way of the Whigs.
The GOPe’s position, just like the Dems, on immigration isn’t pro-immmigrant. The GOPe’s money holders want to abuse illegal aliens for cheap labor.
If the GOP wants to care about Latinos as a future voting block, the only way to do so is to close the damn border and once closed, then deal with the fallout of who’s here and who we want to come here legally down the road.
I’m sick of the establishment telling me that I’M nativist because I don’t support their paynmaster’s plan to yoke cheap labor. That’s a damn lie, and the liars need to stop pointing fingers or their’s gonna be a fight on our own playground.
One could hope ... but, no.
Nothing can destroy the Democrats: their adherents will always be loyal to “the democracy”.
. . . at least until SCOTUS rules that the law - which says that subsidies come to people only thru state-run exchanges - actually means that people in the states that don’t run exchanges - which is over thirty states - can’t be subsidized.
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