Barack Obama continues to be a lot smarter than the GOP and the media, especially when he appears to be caving to the GOP. There was much hand-wringing and liberal gnashing of teeth over Obama's supposed health care "sell-out" back in February that continues to brew today. Bloggers and 20th century "journalists" alike were taking pot-shots at the Prez for telling the Governor's Association that he would let them come up with their own healthcare plans even earlier than 2017, if they like. Not only did he call the bluff of blowhards like Haley Barbour of Mississippi and the anti-HCR forces of the GOP spin machine, but he opened the door to (shhhhh....) Single Payer because his hidden card was Vermont.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
"If your state can create a plan that covers as many people as affordably and comprehensively as the Affordable Care Act does, without increasing the deficit, you can implement that plan," the president told governors gathered at the White House. "And we'll work with you to do it."
What seems like capitulation is primarily an answer to Haley Barbour to put up or shut up. Obama has dropped this right into the governor's time window for election. You had 18 months to develop a plan that meets the goals that we all can agree on, Mr. Barbour. What have you done?
Barbour and Pawlenty are the most politically viable candidates to rise through the sewage of semi-literate dogmatic zealots that are tossing their hats into the ring. Both have been more vocal critics of the national health plan, or "Obamacare" for those whose lips move when they read.
Mitt Romney, another ex-governor and critic, is already sandbagged because he will have to work both of his two faces vigorously to try and explain how "Obamacare" and "Romneycare" are vastly different. His two paragraph political ad passing as an Op-Ed in the National Review stated:
"As I have stated time and again, a one-size-fits-all national plan that raises taxes is simply not the answer. Under our federalist system, the states are “laboratories of democracy.” They should be free to experiment. By the way, what works in one state may not be the answer for another. Of course, the ultimate goal is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with free-market reforms that promote competition and lower health-care costs. "
As the Galen Institute, a tax and health care policy think tank with right-wing leanings, pointed out in their rebuttal:
"Governor Romney’s post shows he is still trying to defend his indefensible position that RomneyCare was right for Massachusetts but that he wouldn’t impose it on the rest of the country. RomneyCare gave President Obama the model for the Obamacare monstrosity, a fact which is clear and where the president has shown a rare willingness to share credit."
Message: Righties aren't buying, Mitt, from either face.
Obama is beginning to sow the seeds of a campaign to put to rest a lot of the hype and hysteria that the Right has used to scare voters into submission on health care reform.
Obama's invitation has one very important taker, though: The one state that just passed Single-Payer in its House of Representatives, Vermont.
Of course the only state to take up Obama's challenge fully has a Democratic majority and a Democratic governor. Surprise.
The Bennington Banner reports:
"'This bill takes our state one step closer to a system that ensures that all Vermonters have access to the care they deserve and contains costs,' House Speaker Shap Smith said shortly after the House passed the bill 92-49.
The measure now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass, but with some possible changes."
Obama has publicly supported single-payer since 2003. Should Vermont succeed, and the evidence in that most mavericky of all States seems to point to the fact that it will, there will be proof that the end of days will not come through a single-payer program.
It will open the door for other states, many of which will tack back from their neoconservative revolutions with a vengeance in 2012, to begin laying out plans for single-payer systems.
Republicans have tried to make the case that single payer will remove choice, cost more, and make grandma shovel-ready.
While there is a constituency of people who hate their mother-in-laws who might find the latter notion appealing, all of it keeps being proven as nonsense.
The Government Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report that projected the government would save more than $800 million by implementing the health care reforms signed into law by the Obama Administration.
People trapped with particular doctors on their private insurance plan now would be free to seek out any doctor whom they liked under single-payer. Right now, I can see a doctor outside of my "network" at Blue Cross, but the cost will be so high that I really can't afford to do so. Choice increases, not decreases.
The problem is that facts never got in the way of a good rant at Fox News, or in putting gasoline on the fears of people who don't read, research, or think for themselves a whole bunch.
Proof is the best way to show them that the dire consequences foretold by the sages of Republican mythology are overstated. Vermont will be that proof.
Mr. Obama knows that the time-frame of the game in pushing the ball forward for health care reform is long, and not likely to go along a straight line when you are extinguishing the multi-billion dollar health-care insurance industry. It will be longer than his Administration, one term or two. Even if he is not holding the royal flush, he knows that the hand of the Republican elite is much sketchier.
Democratic efforts are trying to react to the unsustainable curve in health care costs that the Baby Boomers will wreak upon the system. Republicans are trying to prop up the status quo by denial. Climate change, and our aging population are all "manageable" even though all experts in both provide reams of fact to the contrary.
Health care reform established the platform for change. Now the next best route to increasing care and reducing costs seems to lie on the road to Montpelier.
GOP: Call.
My shiny two.