More Obama ugliness on health care

You have said so many things that are unfair to Barack Obama it’s hard to keep up.

First of all, you asserted there is “no evidence” he will be more electable or bring more independents and Republicans out for him.

Why do you think so many Democrats in red states are endorsing him (see Politico article)? Why do you think Obama has managed to tap so many more small donors, or raise so much more money of late (see January). Why do you think people are attending his rallies by the tens of thousands? Why do you think he has been able to turn such insurmountable leads as of two weeks ago into a narrow contest today? Because he has a broad appeal, while Hillary’s numbers remain fairly static. Her name ID is so high she is not changing minds at this point. He is.

If you feel it is your duty to illuminate their policy differences, I respect that. But your outright refusal to talk reasonably about the advantages Obama brings to the ticket make your reporting seem totally lopsided, and I have always held your writing in the highest esteem.

My own opinion (and I apologize, as I’m sure you get psychoanalyzed enough for any 200 people) is that you tipped your hand when you questioned whether Obama’s following was a “cult of personality”.

You believe, as I do, that to enact a broad progressive agenda, you need a fighter. But what Obama has done is, instead of taking his argument to pundits and opinion makers, he is taking his argument to the people by inspiring them.

He has even said, almost verbatim, while many Republican operatives may not like what I have to say, I believe many Republican voters will.

We are at a unique moment in history, in which a great slice of the electorate is totally disenchanted with George Bush. We can bring many of them into our fight, because as you know, raising the minimum wage, enacting universal health care, creating programs of public works, all of these will have broad support amongst the electorate.

Dr Krugman, mandates appear to be an invitation to the insurance industry to charge what they want. See what happened in California in its attempt this year.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/0 2/05/EDFOURVUR.DTL

— Posted by Keir
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2.
February 5th,
2008
1:15 pm

Re: “Clinton, Obama, Insurance”, by Paul Krugman, (column February 4):

Paul:

Your column yesterday lacks credibility due to your failure to address two key issues in your comments on this key policy difference:
An explanation for the surprisingly low incremental cost of providing coverage to almost twice as many of the currently under insured is conspicuous by its absence.
Arguing for government mandates is incomplete without full details of how they would be enforced to ensure closer to universal coverage.

More Obama ugliness on health care
I really, really wish he would stop this:

Obama likened Clinton’s health care mandate proposal to eliminating homelessness by requiring everyone buy a house.

The Clinton plan does every bit as much to ensure affordability as the Obama plan. This is just grotesque.

Add: There are no excuses this time. You can’t say that it’s the work of some staffer. This is unscrupulous demagoguery from the candidate himself.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Map, News) - Just hours after Hillary Clinton adopted a respectful, almost friendly tone with Barack Obama in a Democratic debate, her campaign orchestrated a conference call in which a health-care specialist referred to a Nazi march in denouncing an Obama flyer.
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Len Nichols of the New American Foundation, which is based in Washington, called the photo a "Harry and Louise evocation," a reference to TV ads against Clinton's failed universal health care plan in 1994.

"I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing," Nichols told reporters on the conference call. "I just find it disgusting that this kind of imagery is being used to attack the only way to get to universal coverage."

He added: "It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois."

It was a reference to a Nazi splinter group, the National Socialist Party of America, that won a court case 30 years ago allowing them to march through a Chicago suburb with a sizeable Jewish population.

The reference set off strong denunciations by Obama supporters, who accused the Clinton campaign of going way beyond the bounds of acceptable political discourse

The way Hillary Clinton's health care plan covers everyone is to have the government force uninsured people to buy insurance, even if they can't afford it.
"....forcing those who cannot afford health insurance to buy it through mandates..punishing those who don't fall in line with fines."
-The Daily Iowan December 21, 2007

Punishing families who can't afford health care to begin with just doesn't make sense.

Barack Obama believes that it's not that people don't want health care, it's that they can't afford it. That's why the Obama plan covers every American by reducing costs more than Hillary Clinton's, saving the typical family up to $2,500 per year.
Bill Clinton's own Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, wrote, "I've compared the two plans in detail...But my view Obama's would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC's."-Robert Reich, December 3, 2007

The Obama Health Care Plan:

-offers health care coverage for all Americans similar to that of members of Congress, and subsidies to help those who cannot afford it.
-Reduces insurance costs more than Hillary's plan, including capping insurance company profits in places where they take advantage of people.
-Saves the typical family up to $2,500 per year.
Read the entire plan at BarackObama.com

Her health care plan will cost $110-billion in the first year, which can be paid for with savings.

Hillary Clinton on Monday, September 17th, 2007 in a speech in Des Moines, Iowa.
Optimistic math
Half-True

The health care plan proposed by Clinton doesn't offer lots of details, but in one spot the figure is in black and white: first-year cost, $110-billion. The proposal goes on to show how that cost would be paid for with savings from other changes to the health care system.

There's no way to verify the $110-billion figure, but those off-setting savings? They're pretty optimistic, which is why we rate this claim as half-true.

Much of the savings would come from "discontinuing" the 2001 tax cuts to households with incomes over $250,000 per year, which are scheduled to expire in 2010. Clinton, like most Democrats, has proposed letting those high-income tax cuts expire, which the Congressional Budget Office says would generate $52-billion in tax revenues.

Over half of the $110-billion would come from such things as saving $10-billion by phasing out excessive Medicare payments to HMOs and other managed care plans.

While it is true that the $10-billion in overpayments to Medicare HMOs exists in the system, so far the Senate has not agreed to such cuts. Whether Congress under a Clinton presidency would agree to slash reimbursements to a powerful private insurance lobby is yet to be seen.

The plan also estimates that $35-billion could be saved by "modernizing the health system" by encouraging health care providers to adopt cost-saving information technology programs and better management of chronic diseases such as diabetes.

Clinton's policy expert said the figure is a very conservative estimate and multiple studies suggest the actual figure will be much higher. The Clinton campaign cited a 2005 Rand Corp. study that put the potential savings at $77-billion per year.

But that study is not without critics.

Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, practicing physicians as well as professors at Harvard Medical School, criticized the Rand study, noting that it was funded by a technology company. At the time, the two physicians wrote in Health Affairs, "For decades, vendors have capitalized on this enthusiasm. But hospitals and clinics have ended up with little to show for their large outlays."

Himmelstein said Tuesday that promises of big savings through information technology is "pure vaporware."

"And though there's some evidence that disease management improves care, there's no evidence it saves money," he said. "People getting in to see their doctors means more cost, not less."

So that 2005 energy bill was a big step backwards on the path to clean, renewable energy. That's why I voted against it."

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 in debate in Las Vegas
No, it was a boon to renewable fuel industry
False

Hillary Clinton may want some of the comments she made in Vegas to stay in Vegas.

During a televised MSNBC debate, the New York senator, who voted against the Energy Policy Act of 2005, called the law a “Dick Cheney lobbyist energy bill” that gave enormous tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. As president, Clinton said she would invest $50-billion in clean, renewable energy.

“So that 2005 energy bill was a big step backwards on the path to clean, renewable energy,” said Clinton. “That’s why I voted against it. That’s why I’m standing for the proposition — let’s take away the giveaways that were given to gas and oil, put them to work on solar and wind and geothermal and biofuels and all of the rest that we need for a new energy future.”

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who voted for the bill in 2005, had a different view.

“Well, the reason I voted for it was because it was the single largest investment in clean energy — solar, wind, biodiesel — that we had ever seen,” Obama said.
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“It obviously wasn’t (a step backward),” said Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association. “It created a meaningful market for renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel.”

Clinton’s comments are particularly interesting given that she returned to Washington from the campaign trail last month to vote for the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act. The 2007 energy law raises fuel economy standards for the first time in 32 years and requires production of billions of gallons more ethanol and biofuel.

But Senate Democrats, facing a veto threat from the White House and opposition from oil-state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, did not succeed in rolling back oil and gas industry tax breaks to pay for $21.5-billion in incentives for alternative energies such as solar and wind. Obama voted for the bill, too.

Rolling back tax breaks for the oil and gas industry in this Congress, and with this administration, is as likely as winning big in Vegas. Clinton’s best chance will come if and when she moves into the Oval Office. And despite being right when it comes to the 2005 Energy Policy Act’s treatment of the oil and gas industry, we find her assessment of its impact on renewable energy False