The Politics of ObamaCare
At this point, the average member of Congress has far more to gain by voting against Obamacare, than by voting for it.
Imagine you’re a Congressman or senator. If you vote for Obamacare, you look like a corrupt establishment hack.
But if you vote against Obamacare, you can pick a principled reason which will help you in your re-election efforts. Depending on your party and constituency, you could claim that you voted against Obamacare because:
You oppose government control of healthcare.
You insisted on a public option.
You oppose massive budget deficits.
You oppose massive tax hikes.
You don’t want federal funds to enable abortions.
You don’t want illegal aliens to benefit.
You don’t want to see Medicare cut.
And so on.
If you were a member of Congress, would you want to potentially sacrifice your political future to support Obamacare? Or would you want to gain by opposing it?
Subscribe to blog feed.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
PoliPundit,
Great insight and I agree with you. I think that a large number of Congressmen and Senators will make the same calculation. Actually, what do you think of the possibility that Obamacare will never come up for a vote?
(Much like cap and trade in the Senate won’t see the light of day, IMHO.)
Marv
September 16th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
ObamaCare is dead, obviously.
But, there has to be some kind of a vote, and some kind of a bill, otherwise the Left is COMPLETELY doomed come the 2010 election.
If they allow insurance competition across state lines, and couple it with some tort reform, they’ll draw some bipartisan support, I predict. The hardcore Left will scream bloody murder, but that screaming will only suffice to provide cover for the bipartisan supporters, who will use it to point out that they blocked ObamaCare.
The trojan horse would be these “co-ops” that some lefties are talking about. All such government expansions must be defeated, as true insurance competition across state lines will provide all the choices we need, much like auto insurance.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
The bill is DOA. The Dems were so sure they wouldn’t make the mistakes Clinton did. AND in actuality, they didn’t. The truth is, you can put lipstick on a pig, but in a center right country, govt run health care is still a PIG.
What’s so funny is Obama and his party will have no real legislation other than the stimulus package going into the mid-terms next year. As Americans endure another year of high unemployment and job loss, the package will be toxic this time next year. The Afghan war isn’t going well. Gitmo is still open. AND health care will go nowhere. Should be fun to watch.
September 16th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
- “You oppose government control of healthcare.” – “Government Control” being stopping insuranace companies from dropping people because they get sick and stopping insurance companies from refusing coverage to people with preconditions. And giving people an option of signing up for a policy that doesn’t depend on them having a job.
- “You insisted on a public option.” – Because requiring people to have insurance but only allowing them to get it from the very insurance companies that are ripping them off is a stupid idea.
- “You oppose massive tax hikes.” – That aren’t really massive and only impact folks making over $280K/yr.
- “You don’t want federal funds to enable abortions.” – Which is a perfectly legal medical procedure
- “You don’t want illegal aliens to benefit.” – Which they don’t. But allowing them to buy into the program would actually be smart since this is cheaper than letting them get their health care thru the emergency room, which is much more expensive, and we pay for anyway. But let’s cut off our noses to spite our faces.
- “You don’t want to see Medicare cut.” – Yes, we want to keep wasting money with Medicare by subsidizing private insurance companies to keep them competitive with the public options in Medicare Advantage. And we don’t want to fix Medicare Part D, the abomination that the republicans dumped on us as a payoff for big pharma.
But more than anything we want to keep paying twice as much as the rest of the world for mediocre healthcare. We want to keep people between us and our doctors who have a monetary interest in denying us care. We want to pay more for drugs, and we want to keep paying more and more for insurance while getting less and less. Because the real goal is defeating Obama and democrats – who actually gives a crap about affordable healthcare? We got ours, right?
- “You oppose massive budget deficits.” – Even though you won’t get them with this bill because unlike everything the republicans have pushed on us from the previous administration, the builders of this bill are trying to actually pay for it.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
- “Imagine you’re a Congressman or senator. If you vote for Obamacare, you look like a corrupt establishment hack.” – Who’s pocket are you in – the insurnace companies? No. You got it backwards. The senators/congressmen that vote against this are the ones actually doing the bidding of their corporate masters.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:22 am
MikeyW:
“The senators/congressmen that vote against this are the ones actually doing the bidding of their corporate masters.”
Uh…. you may have missed the march on Washington last weekend. That’s OK. Keep the blinders on, Sherlock.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
- “Uh…. you may have missed the march on Washington last weekend. That’s OK. Keep the blinders on, Sherlock.” – Oh, all 2M – oops, I mean 70K of them. That’s the best you could do with months of promotion from the crazies at Fox News. Get a clue – they are the minority. Most Americans (certainly more than 70K) want health care reform, and most (again, more than 70K) want a public option. This, like all the other Tea Bagger parties was a fail – this one more massive than the others. So bad you had to lie about the headcount. And you got busted. For a graphic description, see below:
http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=18770
Keep trying – it’s certainly fun to watch…