Rebranding.

shell game

Proponents of Obamacare often like to point out that many of the individual pieces of Obamacare are very popular with the public according to polling data. So then, they conclude, the fact that a majority of the public doesn't like the overall proposal must therefore be merely a matter of messaging. Since the individual elements of Obamacare are popular it's really only a matter of explaining it better to get everyone on board with the entire law, they assure themselves and us.

Of course, this kind of rationale is not only highly disingenuous, it's really quite silly as I am about to demonstrate.

The parts of Obamacare that people like are the the good parts, the carrots, the giveaways. The parts people don't like are the bad parts like the mandate and fines, the sticks. Of course, in reality the carrots cannot be extricated from the sticks. They are specifically designed to work in concert, there is no getting the good without the bad.

Let's use the analogy of a cruise. Let's say the government is proposing that everyone should go on a one week cruise on a cruise ship because it would be beneficial to society at large. On this cruise there will be free food and beverage, free entertainment, and a free limo ride for everyone to the cruise terminal. However, in order to lower the costs of all of these items every American will be mandated to go on the cruise whether they want to or not and pay $2000 each.

Proponents of this cruise plan could then conclude that despite the public's apparent distaste for the entire plan surely the overall plan is great by pointing to polling data on the individual features of the plan. Not surprisingly they would find that the free food and beverage polls well, as does the free entertainment and free limo ride. They could say that yes, the part of the plan where we force everyone to take part is widely despised and it costs too much, but look at how popular the free stuff part of the plan is!

So yes, that some of the individual parts of Obamacare are popular is immaterial in an argument attempting to rationalize the entire law. That the lettuce and tomato are still good in a sandwich with rotted meat does not make the sandwich worth eating.

The endless campaign

During the 2008 campaign, President Obama promised over and over not to raise taxes on the middle class, which he defined as families making less than $250,000. It was, arguably, a centerpiece of his campaign. A cure all elixir designed to sooth away the compelling conservative argument that the election of Barack Obama would result in an increase in taxes for all Americans. "Look" his supporters said, "...he's promised not to raise taxes on those making under $250 K." That was somehow that. 

Also during the campaign, Obama vociferously attacked first Hillary Clinton and then John McCain for their proposals to tax the most expensive health insurance plans, the gold plated "Cadillac" health care plans, in order to help pay for wider health care reform. 

It seems as if many of the underpinnings of the Obama campaign are becoming well, unpinned. Not that the campaign ever ended of course. 

The monstrosity of Obamacare "legislation" that is attempting to make its way through Congress at the moment represents a massive tax increase on the middle class and it taxes the most expensive health care benefits. These facts are demonstrably true. Obama has therefor begun the process of finding a way to dissatisfy both the fiscally hawkish blue dogs and the far left bastion of the labor unions, each representing a separate wing of the Democratic party. Not that there is anything close to an actual piece of legislation to concretely object to anyway, Obamacare at present is a highly nebulous collection of theoretical rules, regulations, and mandates held together with a liberal dose of fudged numbers. The Max Baucus "bill" is a wizardly crafted collection of cost hiding measures and budget gimmickry. Again, demonstrably true. I especially admire the craftiness of talking in terms of cost over the next ten years when in reality the legislation doesn't actually start taking effect for another two years. Furthermore, the only reason the non partisan Congressional Budget Office was able to somehow, through some sort of tortured logic, predict that it wouldn't add to the deficit is because there is no actual legislative language yet. There are no real numbers behind the pie in the sky numbers. At this very moment, the "bill" is being hammered out in a secretive congressional session of horse trading and influence peddling. The Opacity of Hope at work. Interestingly, there was a time when the Obama Administration promised to showcase a bill on-line for 72 hours before letting it be voted on. That promise went out the window about the the time when the Democratically controlled congress crammed a questionably effective stimulus bill down our throat without even reading it before they voted on it. 

The rubber is finally starting to meet the road for The Bamster. All of the impossible sounding promises are, one by one, crashing to earth and reality.  Even SNL and the other normally left leaning late night comedians are not covering for their boy anymore, and actually generating some decent comedy in the process.

Yet the campaign never ends.

The Obama campaign has declared war on Fox News in an attempt to subvert any arguments it can't win on the merits and they are using tax dollars to travel primarily to the 2012 election battleground states whenever it is that Obama is doing his used car salesman/ snake oil salesman routine for health "insurance" reform.

Cash for Clunkers, it strikes me, is a great way to sum up the Obama presidency so far. He takes our cash and attempts to promulgate clunker after clunker of pieces of legislation on a largely unwilling public.

However, I don't see how he gets there from here on healthcare reform. Even proponents of Obamacare have conceded that we are months away from seeing a final bill. Months away from seeing the final product of something that was supposed to have been signed into law in August. So months from now, even after the Democrats theoretically manage to coalesce around a single piece of legislation only then does the general public get to voice their opinion on Obamacare in earnest. Assuming that is even allowed in this "transparent" era of hope and change. In any event, I see Obama being able to live up to his arbitrary promise of closing Guantanamo Bay before passing health care reform. After all, closing Gitmo doesn't involve the wrangling of untold special interest groups and the remaking 1/6 of the economy while in a recession.

So far, even the far left would concede, Obama has committed the ultimate transgression for a used car salesman to commit. He's over promised and under delivered.

At some point perhaps, the time for campaigning will end and give way to a time for governing. Until that time, the Obama presidency AKA "cash for clunkers" will remain an endless campaign. At a time when we need Ronald Reagan we're getting Billy Mays on an endless sales call.

Things fall apart

Joe Lieberman thinks that now, during a recession, is not the time for a massive overhaul of 1/6th of the economy. He has opened the door for a Democratic retreat on the issue of health care reform.

I think we all realize now that attempting vilify or otherwise dismiss the town hall protesters was a colossal miscalculation. Team Obama found, unlike when they successfully made the Clintons the enemy during the campaign, that making regular American people out to be the enemy and somehow a product of some nefarious zombie influence doesn't work well at all.

At this point many fellow liberals are losing faith in Obama. At the liberal bastion Salon.com, left-leaning pundits are hand wringing and wondering what went wrong and at The New Republic: what could have been done differently.

The Democratic leadership cannot even get their story straight when it comes to whether or not a "public option" is or is not to be included in ObamaCare.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

-William Butler Yeats

Face it, it's time to pull the plug on ObamaCare.

Comment Buster

This RFL post is going for the comment record.

Comment 90:

The Rube Goldberg approach of creating layers and layers of arbitrary regulatory nonsense and then claiming it will cut costs while at the same time covering millions of more Americans for free is not something people are buying into and therefore it will never work.

Have you dudes on the Left even figured out yet whether or not a "public option" is an essential part of reform?

Let us know when you figure that one out and then ram the legislation through already with no Republican support if its such a swell idea.

I'm happy to hang all these bad policies around Obama's neck. Let's get this era over with, The Opacity of Hope or whatever.

Funnier Than Jon Stewart