At yesterday’s press conference, after answering a question from NPR‘s Tamara Keith, the president paused and then added:
“I’m sorry, I’m going to say one last thing about this, just because this does frustrate me: States that have chosen not to expand Medicaid for no other reason than political spite. You’ve got 5 million people who could be having health insurance right now at no cost to these states — zero cost to these states — other than ideological reasons. They have chosen not to provide health insurance for their citizens. That’s wrong. It should stop. Those folks should be able to get health insurance like everybody else.”
Of course, we have Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts to thank for those five million uninsured. Some of them have already died as a result, but I doubt that Justice Roberts lost any sleep over those needless deaths.
Like Brian Beutler, I was less than happy with how the president chose to frame the debate about ObamaCare. I understood his overall point that Democrats shouldn’t spend all their time re-litigating the past, but I want to go over to a complete offensive on health care.
We shouldn’t wait for the polls to shift over in our favor. We should go on offense now.
Adding, going on offense could help change public opinion. (See, for example, TV ads running in Alaska and Kentucky senate races.)
Exactly. The GOP pushes its policy themes whether or not they’re popular. I think voters respect that.
I’d say that the GOP pushes the cover story for their themes pretty consistently – but I’ve yet to hear them be anything like honest on, for example, the real purpose and intended effect of the various Paul Ryan Budget Carnival Barkings For Make Glorious Impoverishment Of Americanistanis.
I agree, even to the point that I no longer think saying this was a “Republican idea” that Democrats took and enacted (quibble all you want about that before, but it was a conservative idea with a progressive Medicaid expansion). No, saying that is no longer helpful, and is actively harmful to making the system work better and be transformed into something universal.
The public must never, ever, forget that the Republicans attempted to take away health insurance protections that were enacted on a strictly party-line basis.
I guess, like Sisyphus, I am condemned to point out that John Chafee’s alternative bill to HillaryCare was insincere for all eternity.
“This is the Left, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Indeed.
People should read up and learn something.
I’m fully aware of that letter. I wrote my own damn letter in April 2009:
I know it was said that “both sides of the aisle” are power tripping, that Obama would change these things, but get real. The Republicans and corporate Democrats aren’t interested in reform. Once they have declared the public option defeated, they will move on to Conrad’s insurance-giveaway co-ops, and then they’ll move on to regulating the insurance companies themselves. They’ve opposed every single measure to reform the system, whether it is Medicare, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or Senator Kyl now saying he opposes insurance companies taking people with pre-existing conditions.
I’ve seen this dance before, and I don’t plan on being the partner in a tango this time around. There’s a reason the “centrist” Democrats and the Republican Party want to delay the bill and “slow it down,” and it’s the exact advice Bill Kristol gave in 1994 and is currently giving now: to “drive a stake through its heart, and kill it.”
Full letter here for anyone interested:
Link
Or this from The American Prospect:
No, Obamacare Wasn’t a “Republican” Proposal
http://prospect.org/article/no-obamacare-wasnt-republican-proposal
Doesn’t matter. It’s a conservative idea based upon conservative principles. Whether they’re sincere or not is irrelevant.
The point is that they never would have offered it if they thought it might pass. It was completely, totally, and entirely an exercise in covering their ass.
There should be a weekly Medicaid Expansion Refusal Memorial listing in each state: deaths and health care un-provided or paid for by the hospital indigent funds.
I think it’s a great idea – but I’d explicitly make it the Victims Of The Republican Extremist Refusal To Expand Medicaid Memorial.
Cool idea, and say it is fully paid for by taxes on rich wall-street speculators (which I think is the case). Pictures of people who died for Republican ideology would be the shock and awe version.
The republicans are making a big show about how they’re going to make this election all about the ACA. Despite losing the last one. But I think what’s really going on is that, because it’s a mid-term, they expect to do well regardless, but making it about the ACA allows them to say, after their presumed victory, that they won because of the ACA.
It’s PAST Time To Go On Offense on Health Care.
Fixed that for you.
.
Eh. Th majority of people in the country don’t pay much attention to these things until election time.
Money spent six months ago to go on offense would’ve been less effective than money spent six weeks from now with exactly the same message.
I agree. The timing is strategic, with regard to the elections.
Also, with every day that goes by, the pro-ACA position will get stronger (and with more documented evidence, both statistical and anecdotal) and the anti- will get weaker.
Most Republicans probably think they are winning the argument. Let them think that.
Well, I hope the coming “offensive” starts explaining some things that I have serious doubts are very widely known—like exactly what is the common denominator of “states … have chosen not to expand Medicaid for no other reason than political spite”. Great quote, except there’s no villain identified there. Was there a state without a Repub controlled legislature that failed to expand Medicaid? Who’s to blame here? Anyone?
Of course, the monster C.J. Roberts played an excellent game coercing the “lib’rul” justices to Play Along With John and create a new state right to refuse the Medicaid expansion in order to uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare–which (Repub controlled) states promptly utilized as expected. That is blame so deep in the weeds that it can never be explained to the voters…
Amen.
I’d find working poor dead people stories that would have been helped with Medicaid expansion.
And, I’d put those on tv 24/7/365
We must wait for public opinion to get out in front so that we can be sure it’s safe to be seen leading the parade. Move too soon, and the Republicans will say mean things. Why, they might even exaggerate or indulge in, in, in, hyperbole, which is worse than kryptonite squared.
The best defense is a strong offense, Politics ain’t beanbag. And being nice to your opponents is for losers.