TNR’s new editorial – which I did not write but do generally agree with – bemoans the deep factionalism that Republican opposition to health care reform has exposed. National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru objects, "The New Republic's commitment to the idea that minority parties should try to meet majorities halfway is not deep."
In fact, the editorial didn’t say that the GOP has an obligation to meet Democrats halfway. The point was that the Republican Party showed a total inability to bargain in good faith on an issue of massive national concern.
Republicans have overwhelmingly emphasized two objections to Democratic proposals: they would increase the budget deficit, and they would allow a public plan to compete with private insurance. In response to these objections, Max Baucus produced a plan that reduces the budget deficit by significant and growing amounts over time, and includes no public plan whatsoever. You wouldn’t expect every single Republican to come on board. But the fact that zero Republicans endorsed his bill even after their putative objections were completely satisfied is significant and disturbing.
Ponnuru points out that TNR did not urge Democrats to meet George W. Bush halfway on his goal of privatizing Social Security in 2005. That's correct -- they openly opposed the goal. Republicans, though, do not openly oppose the goals of covering the uninsured or containing health care cost growth. They claim to agree with both. They simply won't or cannot negotiate seriously.
COMMENTS (1)
Republicans embrace insuring the uninsured because it will be a boondoggle for the insurance conmpanies writing the policies. Just as the Baucus plan will be. No mention from Chait though about their ties TO the insurance industry. Damn, when will those pesky folks from K Street come up with a way to keep this all hidden so Chait and The Editors at TNR can project as gentlemen scholars from the DLC without the risk of being exposed as in on the con?
And the Republicans and Baucus also support reducing health care cost.
Here it's time to bring in Kate Randall and the pesky socialists from the World Socialist Web Site:
Obama told his University of Maryland audience that his plan “will slow the ... view full comment
Republicans embrace insuring the uninsured because it will be a boondoggle for the insurance conmpanies writing the policies. Just as the Baucus plan will be. No mention from Chait though about their ties TO the insurance industry. Damn, when will those pesky folks from K Street come up with a way to keep this all hidden so Chait and The Editors at TNR can project as gentlemen scholars from the DLC without the risk of being exposed as in on the con?
And the Republicans and Baucus also support reducing health care cost.
Here it's time to bring in Kate Randall and the pesky socialists from the World Socialist Web Site:
Obama told his University of Maryland audience that his plan “will slow the growth of health care costs for our families and our businesses and our government.” But there are no mechanisms to regulate what the insurance companies can charge, and the bulk of the touted savings in the different drafts of legislation will come from drastic cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, in the form of cost-cutting “efficiencies.”
According to the CBO, Baucus’s proposal would reduce direct spending for Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) and other federal programs by $409 billion over the 2010-2019 period. These cuts would be achieved through numerous changes to payment rates and payment rules, which will ultimately result in reductions in care for the poor, elderly and the disabled.
Baucus’s bill would establish several bodies to implement these cuts: an Innovation Center within the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) to test health-care models, a Medicare Commission to slow cost-growth, and a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to utilize comparative effectiveness research (CER) to cut costs.
The Baucus plan has dropped the so-called public option in an attempt to court Senate Republicans, who have yet to support any version of health care legislation. Health care cooperatives, or co-ops, are included instead.
Senator Jay Rockefeller (Democrat of West Virginia), pointed out that these co-ops would do little to bring down premiums. “The best health care co-op exists in the state of Washington,” he said, “and both of Washington’s senators are adamantly for a public option. That ought to tell you something.”
In his speech Thursday, Obama said he felt the public option should be included in the insurance exchange, but emphasized, “Let me be clear. It would only be an option.” He assured Congress in his speech last week that, if included, it would cover only about 5 percent of the population and indicated that he was prepared to drop it altogether.
snip
Democrats and Republicans are in agreement on the main components of any health care bill that stands a chance of emerging from Congress. Such legislation must be “deficit neutral,” include drastic cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, protect the profits of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and establish a system where the vast majority of the population is relegated to cut-rate, inferior medical care.
george:
Aren't Chait and The Editors at TNR really lucky they can pump up the Max Baucus "compromise" knowing their analysis will almost never ever have to compete with the sort of arguments above?
Love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal!!
An inflection point liberal to be exact.
george walton
d/a