Friday, January 6, 2017

Reuters — President Barack Obama said on Friday that criticism from the left wing of his own Democratic Party helped feed into the unpopularity of Obamacare, his signature healthcare reform law.


Circular firing squad. The Democrats will never learn apparently.

Reuters
Obama says Sanders' supporters helped undermine Obamacare
Roberta Rampton

11 comments:

Noah Way said...

Well, it wasn't giving the drug companies a free ride, or letting lobbyists write the law to assure corporate profits, or unaffordable high-deductible policies, or narrow exclusionary networks designed to reduce or eliminate care, so yeah it was Bernie's fault.

Penguin pop said...

Maybe next time these clowns shouldn't just take some crap Heritage Foundation plan to reform healthcare then. Too late now. Thanks, Obummer.

Tom Hickey said...

There was method in the madness. First, it being a GOP plan to start with, O believed that he would get bipartisan support rather than having it be a Den only affair. Secondly, it was already tested in MA. Thirdly, the business community was OK with it or at least would not attack it the way that it had the Clinton plan.

The problem with O was that he was a terrible negotiator and put the outcome he wanted to settle for on the table first. Dumb strategy.

Noah Way said...

Method indeed. ObamaCare is the now court-tested prototype for privatizing Medicare and social security. Under Hillary it would have been called 'managed retirement'.

GLH said...

Maybe it is the fact that Obumer said at the first of his first term that he wouldn't push for Medicare for all and then lied and said that he would push for a public option when in fact he had already secretly agreed that there would be no public option. Maybe it is just that O is a lier.

Ryan Harris said...

Everyone expects health care for everyone now. ACA was a smashing political success even if poorly designed, inefficient and unproductive. It was a gimme to the coastal elite and pharma industry, but that is who $upported Barry.
The baby boomer hippie generations running government the Obama administration were not passed the knowledge from previous generations on how to govern because economic orthodoxy misguided the public and dominated universities that educated them. They had no ability to create a system like Medicare that actually works, they believed invisible hands would make it work simply because it was centered on marketplaces. Luckily, economic orthodoxy has been marginalized, and the next generations are not as ignorant about how to build effective governance. They are not blinded by the same market ideology of failed orthodox economics.

Recent polls indicate young people have far more realistic impressions of how markets function, understand their limits and value while also understanding the importance of government. It should make a big difference in quality life for Americans and finally and end to the tyranny of orthodoxy.

Matt Franko said...

"no ability to create a system like Medicare that actually works,"

idk Ryan Medicare is what the Peterson morons always point to as their future cause of US bankruptcy... its not Social Security that only pays maybe at most $20k/yr.... a single hospitalization can be accounted for at several times that in one year presently...

So does in really "work" in morondom? I dont think so...

Maybe what Trump is thinking is getting bids on healthcare per person not per procedure and maybe when the ex post accounting is done that way it ends up looking like govt spent a lot less than present Medicare/Medicaid fee for service...

That might work in morondom....

Short of the morons figuring out we're not "out of money!" you have to think about what works in their world not ours....

Noah Way said...

"baby boomer hippie generations running government the Obama administration"

The corporate-financial-military-industrial complex runs the Obama administration. Just like every other administration since Truman.

Greg said...

"Maybe what Trump is thinking is getting bids on healthcare per person not per procedure and maybe when the ex post accounting is done that way it ends up looking like govt spent a lot less than present Medicare/Medicaid fee for service..."


Which makes Moslers decade old idea about health reform a perfect solution, if only Trump would consider listening to him.;

Here it is from 2009:

Everyone gets 5,000 on January 1 each year to spend on health care.
$1,000 is for preventative care, and the other $4,000 is for all other health care needs.
If you need more than that you are covered by a form of Medicare.
At year end you get the unused portion of the 4,000 as a gift with no strings attached.
You are free to buy any private insurance or medical plan you wish.
I used those particular numbers as a reasonable starting point for discussion.

Children under 18 would be covered by Medicare and not participate in this plan. I don’t want to give parents a cash incentive to not take their children to the doctor.

This proposal is progressive because the $5,000 is worth a lot more to people with lower incomes than to people with higher incomes.

It also utilizes competitive market forces to help contain costs by maximizing personal choice and tapping into America’s unparalleled ability and enthusiasm to shop.

It doubles available doctor patient time as doctors would have to discuss costs with their patients instead of with insurance companies.

It reduces the Medicare administrative burden for current Medicare participants as they would be on their own up to their first $5,000 of expenditures.

The cash back incentive serves to minimize overuse.

It is fiscally responsible as the total medical costs to our nation will fall dramatically even as available doctor/patient time dramatically increases.

It is a populist, bottom up solution for universal health care with appropriate incentives to minimize abuse, corruption, and fraud.

Everyone is free to select their doctors.

The government is not involved in the doctor patient interaction up to the first $5,000 dollars, and all are free to not use the Medicare option if they so desire.

Tax increases are not appropriate as the spending related to this proposal will not only not be inflationary but will serve to reduce prices and costs. In fact, the deflationary and competitive aspects may even lead to a tax cut to sustain aggregate demand.

This progressive proposal is more than consistent with core Tea Party and traditional populist Democratic values:

It reduces the participation of government in the actual health care process.

It employs competitive market solutions.

It increases personal freedom.

It works from the bottom up.

Additionally, this proposal removes all of the unfair financial burdens of health care from the States, and removes health care costs as marginal costs of production from small and large businesses alike.


Matt Franko said...

Agree Greg but they'll just say that is 'free healthcare!' and 'not paid for!' even thought it would be paid for... they're idiots...

mmcosker said...

So long as we have the real resources to provide care for all, then universal care is affordable. Government, should intervene to make sure supply is there, and manage the finances. We need to stop talk that we don't have enough paper or digits to "afford" care.