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FoxNews...
ObamaCare vs. the GOP
-- Score One for the White House
By Juan Williams
Published March 23, 2011
When it comes to health care reform it is amazing how times change –
how polls change – how politics stays the same.
A year ago today , when President Obama signed his national health care
plan into law the polls showed most American opposed to it. The
bitterness born of phony charges of “death panels,” angry seniors
complaining about possible cuts in Medicare benefits and Tea Party
marchers screaming at members of Congress had much of the nation in a
tizzy.
Now public opinion on the bill has taken on a sunny outlook. More
Americans have a favorable view of the bill than have an unfavorable
view. According to a Gallup poll earlier this month, 46% of Americans
think it was a “good thing” while 40% think it was a “bad thing” with
10% undecided.
But as I mentioned, while the polling on Obama’s health care reform may
have changed in the last year, the politics have not changed.
The lack of credible Republican alternatives for fixing a broken health
care system that was driving big business and families into financial
trouble has not changed. When asked what they do would instead, the GOP
responds with the same tired, discredited talking points they used one
year ago.
They still talk about the need for tort reform even though medical
malpractice insurance premiums account for less than one percent of all
health care costs. They still talk about the need for competition
across state lines even though this would create a veritable race to
the bottom as insurance companies are sure to move to the states with
the least regulation so they can provide the lowest quality of coverage
at the cheapest price.
The GOP has also derided the law as unconstitutional because it
effectively forces people to buy health insurance ignoring the fact
that government makes everyone pay taxes, issues everyone a Social
Security card, and has been forcing people to buy auto insurance for
decades. Republican state Attornies General have their knickers in a
knot over this and their lawsuits will likely end up in the Supreme
Court. The only way the court rules against the new health care plan is
if the vote is along purely partisan lines and that will be a bigger
tragedy for the court than for the rest of the nation.
The bigger issue on the table at the moment is that House Republicans
have not passed a single alternative health care reform bill since they
have been in charge but they have passed bills to repeal and defund the
law. All of these bills, however, are dead on arrival in the Senate
making the whole exercise futile and symbolic.
At a meeting of the nation’s governors last month, President Obama
called the GOP’s bluff on health care. He challenged GOP governors --
like South Carolina’s Nikki Haley and New Jersey’s Chris Christie who
have echoed party line complaints against what they call “ObamaCare” --
to come up with their own health care plans that meet the goals of the
Affordable Care Act.
He challenged the governors, saying, “I am not open to re-fighting the
battles of the last two years, or undoing the progress that we’ve made.
But I am willing to work with anyone — anybody in this room, Democrat
or Republican, governors or member of Congress — to make this law even
better; to make care even better; to make it more affordable and fix
what needs fixing.”
That includes not driving up the deficit. So the president opened the
door to the states, as what he called the laboratories of democracy,
putting their own ideas on the table for reducing costs, increasing
access and improving quality.
Since then, the silence has been deafening and the American people are
beginning to see that the GOP really doesn’t have any alternative ideas
on health care that fit the bill.
Keep in mind that many of the most consequential parts of the Obama
health law will not take effect until 2012, 2013 and 2014. Keep in mind
that several companies have had to request waivers to continue coverage
for low-income workers. The health care bill is still a work in
progress. The jury will be out until at least 2014 on the public
reaction to the full implementation of the law. But a year ago the
critics predicted the sky was about to fall and lack of public support
for health care reform would doom President Obama. It didn’t. Obama’s
latest approval numbers are about 50 percent and health care is nowhere
near a dominant, doom issue.
For the sake of the Republican presidential nominee who will have to
debate Obama on health care during the 2012 campaign next year, they
had better come up with some. Oh, wait, Mitt Romney did just that when
he was governor of Massachusetts. And now he is having to distance
himself from his signature accomplishment because the official
Republican stance remains to use that issue as a political truncheon to
beat up the President.
Well, maybe now Obama can get some medical help.
Read it at Foxnews
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