Barney being Frank

[coboardhead]

Swchandler

I believe you hit the nail on the head regarding the politics of the ACA. Even the Republican budget hawks are willing to distort the CBO reports on health care to discredit the law by applying total costs of health care increases to the law rather than the difference in costs as a result of the law. This is disingenuous.

A recent argument made has been that the CBO is, significantly, revising the estimates upward. This, also, is a distortion.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43104

[feuser]

[coboardhead]

[mrgybe]

Someone who was actually there, and can speak with authority on the topic, disagrees that it's all the Republicans fault..........

“I’ll be real frank here,” Webb said at a breakfast organized by Bloomberg News. “I think that the manner in which the health-care reform issue was put in front of the Congress, the way that the issue was dealt with by the White House, cost Obama a lot of credibility as a leader.

If you were going to do something of this magnitude, you have to do it with some clarity, with a clear set of objectives from the White House,” added Webb, who opted not to run for a second term this year. “...It should have been done with better direction from the White House.

He faulted Obama for playing too passive a role in shaping the legislation. Taking a lesson from Bill Clinton’s failed 1994 health-care overhaul effort--which was faulted for its micromanagement of the details of the bill--Obama opted to spell out a broad set of goals, and let Congress work out the details.

What happened in the end, Webb said, “was five different congressional committees voted out their version of health-care reform, and so you had 7,000 pages of contradictory information. Everybody got confused. ... From that point forward, Obama’s had a difficult time selling himself as a decisive leader.”

Webb also said that if Obama had opted for a smaller measure, he would have stood a chance of winning the support of a significant number of Republicans on Capitol Hill."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/jim-webb-health-care-law-represents-a-leadership-failure-for-obama/2012/04/18/gIQAIbKpQT_blog.html

[mac]

Obama did something different than Clinton, which allowed Congress to operate as it usually does. Then, with contradictory approaches subject to conference committee, and no Republican votes to be had for anything, he got something passed. Mrgybe, parotting the other Obama haters, defines success as failure. Leadership is getting things done, even if they aren't perfect--and seeing the path to completion.

[swchandler]

Webb was concerned that more that a dozen GOP amendents weren't being considered?

Of course, it's all Obama's fault for not stepping in and running Congress, particularly reining in those radical Democrats. One wonders whether the Republican's would have been more cooperative with Obama standing at the bully pulpit.

I think most know that Senator Webb has been a closet Republican during his tenure. He seemingly had a hard time getting along with his own party. In reality, I have to think that he didn't have the leadership qualities to convince and sell his fellow Democrats on how practical the Republicans were being. I guess he was one of those borderline "blue dog" Democrats.

[isobars]

[feuser]

[mrgybe]

[isobars]

Polls show that 70% of physicians want the ACA repealed.

Hannity [correction: Huckabee] asked 162 doctors their opinion of the ACA. 162 of them said in various ways they will not accept it ... will not take Medicare patients, will not practice under it, will retire, etc. ... because it doesn't even cover their costs and because it takes medical decisions out of their hands.

Medical professor and practicing internist Dr. Marc Siegel concurred, based on his wide exposure to physicians. He says the ACA, by forcing the entire population into one system at the same time it will drive doctors out of medicine at unprecedented rates, will completely overwhelm U.S. health care.