July 23rd, 2009

President Obama’s healthcare reform plan, still majorly in the works, is drawing comments from the R’s and D’s as much as ever.  Here’s the latest from both sides:

The PA GOP put out a press release yesterday saying that reform is being rushed, and the federal government doesn’t even know how it will pay for it.  They write:

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“President Obama’s socialized health care plan will ration medical care, destroy the doctor-patient relationship and force the government to impose major tax increases in order to cover the plan’s $1 trillion price tag,” Gleason said. “No one is denying that our health care system can improve, but the President and his Democrat colleagues need to realize that over half the country believes that the government should not be part of the solution. We must instead look at market-based solutions that will help make health care more accessible and affordable for hardworking American families.”

Even many Democrats in Washington, D.C. are unsure about the President’s socialized health care proposal and are questioning why he is rushing to get it passed before most lawmakers have even had the opportunity to properly review the bill. According to a CNN.com article, one senior Democratic congressional source said, “We appreciate the rhetoric and his willingness to ratchet up the pressure but what most Democrats on the Hill are looking for is for the president to weigh in and make decisions on outstanding issues. Instead of sending out his people and saying the president isn’t ruling anything out, members would like a little bit of clarity on what he would support – especially on how to pay for his health reform bill.” (Bash, Dana, “Senator: Democrats ‘baffled’ by president’s health care stance,” http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/21/senator-democrats-baffled-by-presidents-health-care-stance/

Read the rest of their release here.

Meaningwhile, the Philadelphia Daily News is wondering today whether healthcare is “going to be President Obama’s 21st Century reincarnation of the New Deal, or will it be – in the words of a GOP opponent – the new president’s “Waterloo”?”

After touching on the President’s speech last night, the PDN provides its own Q&A on Obama’s plan for healthcare reform.  Here are some selections:

Q. Isn’t health-care reform unpopular with the public? Not as a general principle – before you get into the partisan politics of it all. For example, polls thoughout this year have shown that more than 70 percent of voters support the so-called “public option” – that is, a government health plan that would compete with private insurers to provide coverage to the millions of uncovered Americans.

A.

On the other hand, recent polls have shown that – in a more general sense – public support for Obama on health care had dipped below 50 percent.

Q. Haven’t other presidents tried to get a national health system and failed? You bet. In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt believed that such a program, to be administered by the states, would be the capper to his New Deal reforms, but the American Medical Association and other interest groups succeeded in crushing that. Harry Truman’s late 1940s plan met the same fate.

A.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton thought his plan, devised with the involvement of his wife, Hillary, was a sure thing. But the complexity of that proposal and aggressive lobbying by insurance companies killed that plan and any serious talk of reform for 15 years.

Q. So what’s different now? For one thing, Obama has had better success than those predecessors in getting some of the major interest groups – including hospitals and drug companies – behind the program.

A.

He’s also trying to get Congress much more involved than Clinton did in drafting the specifics of a program, but that has proved to be a double-edged sword, as a flow of news stories about what the legislation will or will not include has been confusing to many voters.

Q. But if polls show that most Americans want reform, why is it so hard to get done? For one thing, it’s just a complicated issue – in part because most experts say that the only kind of overhaul that makes sense is one that both seeks to lower health costs for all and also provides coverage to the vast majority of the 46 million Americans who don’t have it now. And the details of doing those two things are highly involved – it’s just not an easy “yes” or “no” issue like, say, smoking cigarettes in public places.

A.

Read the rest of the PDN’s article here.