Health Care -- Conservatives Try To Prevent Reform

May 18, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers

HEALTH CARE

Conservatives Try To Prevent Reform

Congress continues to work on a compromise health-care reform proposal, focusing on whether to offer a government-financed public health insurance plan. Last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) suggested that "Republicans were open to considering a public plan as an option...as long as it operated under the same rules as private plans." During a press conference on Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) emphasized that Democrats were open to all options -- even politically rife ones like raising taxes -- in order to achieve health care reform that would cover every American. "We're putting everything on the table," she said, though she noted that much of the financing could come through spending "more wisely, in terms of prevention, in terms of early intervention, in terms of information technology." Indeed, Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, pledged that the Obama administration's health care plan would be "self-financing and also brings down costs over time both for families and for the federal government." Yet as progressives seek to expand coverage and hold down costs, conservatives and lobbying groups are stonewalling on reform.

LUNTZ MEMO LAYS OUT THE RIGHT-WING STRATEGY: Earlier this month, right-wing pollster Frank Luntz wrote a memo to conservatives laying out the strategy to block Obama's health reform. He advised Republicans to fearmonger that "President Obama wants to put the Washington bureaucrats in charge of healthcare." He also told conservatives to raise the specter of "government rationing care" -- ignoring, of course, that insurance companies routinely ration care, even for their policy holders. Immediately, conservatives adopted Luntz's framing. "We all need to be standing up and saying no to a government takeover of our system," Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) warned last week. Within 48 hours of Luntz's advice to constantly hype the "personalized doctor-patient relationship," Reps. Phil Gingrich (R-GA), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Tom Price (R-GA), and Peter Roskam (R-IL), along with Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Grassley all publicly repeated the vapid patient-doctor talking point. Luntz made no secret that his aim is primarily to obstruct Obama's reform rather than promote a conservative alternative. His suggested wording, he explained, "plays into more favorable Republican territory by protecting individual care while downplays the need for a comprehensive national healthcare plan."

'SWIFTBOATING' HEALTH REFORM: On Saturday, former Obama campaign adviser David Plouffe sent a fundraising appeal asking supporters to help stop the "swiftboating" of health reform. "As we speak, the same people behind the notorious 'swiftboat' ads of 2004 are already pumping millions of dollars into deceptive television ads," Plouffe wrote on behalf of Organizing for America. "Their plan is simple: torpedo healthcare reform before it sees the light of day by scaring the public and distorting the President's approach." Indeed, disgraced former health insurance executive Rick Scott, through his group Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR), has released fearmongering ads that tell Americans they will "lose control of their own destiny within the medical system" if Obama's reform passes. Growing desperate to stall reform, CPR sent a fundraising letter last week claiming that it had successfully persuaded Comcast to pull ads supporting health reform, paid for by Health Care for America Now (HCAN). The claim is a lie: A HCAN representative told The Wonk Room's Igor Volsky HCAN's ad "will soon return to the airwaves."

INSURANCE COMPANIES AT THE TABLE?: Last Monday, Obama -- flanked by leaders of health insurance companies and lobbying groups -- proclaimed a "watershed" agreement from the insurance groups to "reduce the rate of projected growth in health care costs by 1.5 percentage points a year over the next decade for a total savings of $2 trillion." However, days later, the insurance companies tried to walk back their promises, saying Obama had overstated their commitments. Richard Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association, wrote to his company's state and local affiliates to "clarify" that "[t]he groups did not support reducing the rate of health spending by 1.5 percentage points annually." However, the letter to Obama signed by Umbdenstock and the other insurance leaders specifically pledged that they would "do [their] part to achieve your Administration's goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points the annual health care spending growth rate -- saving $2 trillion or more." The groups' case of cold feet notwithstanding, Obama praised the moves toward compromise during his weekly address this weekend, and touted the House leadership's goal to pass health reform by July. "That's the kind of urgency and determination we need to achieve comprehensive reform by the end of this year. And the reductions in spending the health care community has pledged will help make this reform possible." The Center for American Progress recently released a report showing that "health system modernization could increase productivity growth in health care by 1.5 to 2.0 percentage points annually starting in four to five years," changes that could save $9 trillion over 25 years.

CIVIL RIGHTS -- REPORT FINDS THAT MARRIAGE EQUALITY ADDED GROWTH, SKILLED WORKERS TO MASSACHUSETTS'S ECONOMY: Two studies released Friday by UCLA's Williams Institute show that marriage equality in Massachusetts has resulted in "clear economic gains" for the state. Since 2004, the state has seen an increase in young, highly-educated, "creative class" professionals in same-sex relationships. "Creative class individuals in same-sex couples were 2.5 times more likely to move to Massachusetts in the three years after marriage equality than in the three years before." The second study finds that same-sex marriages "have given a significant boost to the state's economy," with surveys showing that a typical gay or lesbian couple spends $7,400 on their weddings in Massachusetts -- resulting in a cumulative $111 million economic boost. The studies indicate "that other states allowing gay couples to marry -- including Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and Maine -- will see similar economic gains." Similarly, a 2008 study by the Williams Institute found that legalizing same-sex marriage in California "could create hundreds of new jobs and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into" the state's economy. The fact that states could see an economic boom from marriage equality discredits Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's recent argument that same-sex marriage would be a burden on the small businesses and the economy." "Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele said. "Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

President Obama will meet today with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The two leaders will be bringing "divergent policies on how to approach the Middle East conflict," with Netanyahu "worried by U.S. overtures to Iran and Syria and under pressure to support a Palestinian state."

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd "has admitted to using a paragraph virtually word-for-word" from TPM's Josh Marshall without attribution. Dowd claims she got the idea from "talking to a friend...but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me." The Times has issued a correction to Dowd's column.

Yesterday, Republican leaders "backed Dick Cheney's attacks on President Barack Obama." House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said of Cheney's recent media blitz, "It doesn't hurt us, it helps us," while RNC Chairman Michael Steele remarked, "There was no wincing here."

According to a recent Gallup poll, "up to 29 percent of Americans would consider traveling abroad for medical procedures" such as heart bypass surgery or hip or knee replacement, "even though all are routinely done in the United States." When the question asserted that "the quality was the same and the costs significantly cheaper," the percentage open to traveling increased by 12 percentage points.

"President Barack Obama's push for a climate-change law this year has set off a lobbying boom on Capitol Hill, where companies are registering to weigh in at a rate of about one every business day." So far this year, 82 firms, trade groups, and companies have signed up to lobby on climate change, which is four times as many as are registered to lobby on the Employee Free Choice Act.

A growing number of coal users, like Alcoa Inc, "one of the world's biggest aluminum smelters," have come to acknowledge that "with the right tweaks," President Obama's plan to address climate change "would not only help the environment but boost their profits." Climate legislation "will assist in restoring growth and provide the means for America to be the global leader in low-carbon technology," Alcoa's global issues director said last month.

With the 2010 congressional redistricting approaching, former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) appeared to suggest to Roll Call that Republicans in Congress engaged in gerrymandering during the last round of redistricting. Referring to Democrats, Davis remarked, "They were sleeping last time. They slept through this stuff. I think they've gone to school on what we did."

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair predicted some bank chief executives will be replaced in the next several months as lenders subjected to financial stress tests review their management ranks. Asked whether some bank CEOs will be fired, Bair answered, "We're requesting it as part of the capital plan and yes."

"In every major case since he became the nation's seventeenth Chief Justice, [John] Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff, " writes The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin. "Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party."

And finally: Former Alaska senator Ted Stevens was back on the "Washington party circuit" last week, at a book party for Pennsylvania radio host Michael Smerconish. When asked about how progress on his memoirs is going, Stevens replied, "It's a hell of task." However, Stevens may be open to working with a ghostwriter, telling the Washington Post, "Well, I don't know that I'm writing it."

Conservative media address Pelosi controversy by attacking her looks.

Fox Nation links to anti-Obama RNC ad, calling it "priceless."

Rep. "Smokey" Joe Barton (R-TX) bets he will have Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) "by the nuts" on climate change legislation.

Distorting public opinion on torture.

The trouble with drone strikes in Pakistan.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) embraced right-wing talking points on a possible torture truth commission.

Daniel Drezner explains why scholars and policy makers often talk past each other.

Have Americans become more opposed to abortion rights? Probably not.

"Vice President [Cheney] would not substitute his own judgment for the professional judgment of the CIA."
-- Liz Cheney, 5/17/09

VERSUS

"[W]hen [CIA Director George] Tenet insisted in his personal meetings with the president that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Cheney and Rumsfeld initiated a secret program to re-examine the evidence and marginalize the agency and Tenet."
-- PBS's Frontline, 6/20/06

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Conservatives Try To Prevent Reform

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