We have been seeing leading Democrats going public recently with their views that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or “Obamacare” was a political blunder or a simply poorly drafted mistake. This included the third-highest ranked Democrat, Chuck Schumer, who said that it was a mistake to even try to pass the legislation in the first term when most Americans did not place health care as a priority for action. Now the highest ranked Democrat, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, is saying that the Obama Administration may have doomed Democrats in Congress with its poor management and blunders in the rollout of the program.
Reid told the New York Times: “We never recovered from the rollout because the election became one that was directed toward the president. We couldn’t overcome that.”
What is curious is that at the time many Democrats adopted largely a denial approach that borders on delusion. There were no widespread calls from Democrats for Sebelius to be fired, the subject of a past column. The rollout failure was one of the most costly in the history of his country and there were ample indicators of the coming failure. I still remain unsure why the Democrats were not more open about such views at the time. As they plunged in the polls, there continued to be a circling of the wagons around the Administration on what was a legitimate criticism of its management.
In the end, I am not sure whether it was the rollout alone that doomed the Democrats given other issues like immigration. With the defeat of Landrieu, there is not a single national-level Democrat in any office in the Deep South. The Democrats are now at their lowest level of representation since World War II in Congress. That seems more than just the rollout. Schumer blames the ACA itself, but there still appears division among the Democrats as to the cause.
BTW, “Medicare” isn’t a government agency. HHS is the agency in charge–you know, the people who brought you the ACA rollout fiasco.
All those docs in Europe are big dummies according to Pogo. LOL!
Yes, Inga, the fed. gov. is pretty good at writing checks.
Not so good at running things.
MEDICARE, Jettexas. That was easy.
Pogo, speaking of delusional, if you think liberals and Democrats prefer the ACA above a form of National healthcare you are truly out in right field. Obama lost a great deal of his base because of it. Remember slightly more than half of voters in national elections voted for a Democrat the last two elections and you would be wise to believe WE would’ve been elated with National healthcare.
@Chip S ~ Can anyone name one government run agency that’s run efficiently or well? That’s why no one wanted the government to run our healthcare.
I bet the review data that they report much dissatisfaction with the health care system and with private health insurance, would be much different now. I thank God that I still have my old fashion $50 deductible Healthcare Insurance. 😉
Since you are reliably erroneous in most things outside of nursing, Inga, I am unconcerned you feel that way.
“since I prefer the Canadian style system and the New England Journal of Medicine is in favor of that as well. ”
JAMA, too.
So what?
Doctors are too often utter morons when it comes to poltical problems.
They think that because they can look up your butt with a scope and advise you on a diet, they can plan your life for you.
Socialist doctors are idiots, because they don’t get how little they know beyond their specialty. Their opinion on health systems is no more important than their opinions on baseball.
Pogo, it’s very difficult to take anything you have to say as being factual, because you appear to be the most blatantly partisan ideologue here on Turley, IMO. That’s not meant to be insulting, it’s meant to understand how you think, especially as a physician.
Inga – I am hurt. I thought I was the most “blatantly partisan ideologue here on Turley.” Actually, I thought it was a contest between me and you.
We don’t have to speculate about public opinion on this subject, Inga. There’s actual evidence: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/20/2/33.long
A review of data from more than 100 public opinion surveys conducted over a fifty-year period finds that the American public has conflicting views about the nation’s health policy. They report much dissatisfaction with the health care system and with private health insurance and managed care companies, and they indicate general support of a national health plan. However, most Americans remain satisfied with their current medical arrangements, do not trust the federal government to do what is right, and do not favor a single-payer type of national health plan.
“…voters nation wide would’ve been elated…”
The Haldol dose is clearly insufficient; the delusions persist.
The point is Obama still had Super-majority, even if it was for 133 days. They passed the ACA and could have passed Immigration too, but they didn’t.
I think that voters nation wide would’ve been elated to have had National healthcare and it would’ve shown at the polls. They didn’t have the votes in the Congress because of the Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance lobby, which is a damn shame. The endless supply of money in which to buy Congressional votes is obscene.
lee, surely you remember why the Dems lost their supermajority? Scott Brown ran on the explicit promise to be the “41st vote against Obamacare.” And a solid-blue state replaced Ted Kennedy w/ a Republican.
But anyway, as I said earlier, the Dems have been able to confirm any judicial nominees they want since Nov. 2013. They haven’t bothered to pass a budget, so what’s the reason for their indolence?
Quite right, Chip.
Step 1 was to kill off the health insurors, then Step 2 was single payer.
And Inga (again) learns nothing at all from the latest socialist screw-up.
“They should’ve skipped step 1 and went directly to a form of National healthcare.”
So the problem was not enough socialism!!!
And yes it is Soviet:
The Fatal Conceit of Jonathan Gruber
“As a scholar of Soviet planning, I was struck by its parallels with ObamaCare.
..I might note that the Soviets used the term “science” for their own “scientific” planning commission. I drew little comfort from Professor Gruber’s scientific-planning credentials, especially when I learned “he’s the only person you can go to for that kind of thing.” Gruber, aided by his brilliant MIT graduate student assistants, is a one-man Gosplan, the name given to the Soviet Union’s state planning committee. That is not much of a recommendation. Science is better served by competing ideas not by a one-person monopoly.
Both Gruber and the USSR’s Gosplan planners believe their planning is “scientific” and executed by “the best of the best.” Both types of planning commissars suffer from F. A. Hayek’s “fatal conceit”—the belief that we can plan incredibly complex economic systems. As Hayek pointed out in his writings, such “scientific” plans inevitably fall apart under the weight of unintended consequences.
Scientific-planner Gruber, however, must write software codes for an entire healthcare ecosystem of hundreds of millions of patients, millions of health-care providers, thousands of insurance companies, and hundreds of state and local governments. Unlike space scientists, ObamaCare planners must predict how patients, physicians, businesses, nurses, insurers, state officials, and other actors will react to thousands of rules, instructions, mandates, incentives, and penalties in a newly-minted health system.
Professor Gruber must use “behavioral assumptions” to guesstimate, among thousands of other things, how many young people will ignore the mandate, how many employers will drop coverage, and how providers will react to new incentives and compensation schemes.”
Wrong again, Inga.
Horribly terrifyingly wrong.
Inga, so your white son in law supports the Democrat Party that hates white men. He’s like the battered woman who refuses to leave an abusive relationship. My condolences.
they didn’t have the testicles to do so.
They didn’t have the voter support to do so.
Heck, there wasn’t even adequate voter support for the ACA, o/w the Dems wouldn’t have had to gruber. Just check out the ongoing lousy poll numbers for it.
Chip I am going offline so will respond to only one thing right now. He had a “supermajority for 133 days. Not 2 years as the GOP lie continues to fester.
Here is a photo explanation https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=476367429051611&set=a.332046340150388.78049.311128928908796&type=1&theater
They should’ve skipped step 1 and went directly to a form of National healthcare. What is unforgivable is that they didn’t have the testicles to do so.
I’m pretty sure that Pogo is anticipating the next step, after the ACA’s deep flaws have played out fully.
It’s not far-fetched to see the ACA as a stalking horse for single-payer, esp. since a few Dem politicians are on video record saying exactly that.