The Fraudulent Health Reform Plan in a Nutshell

GUEST QUESTION:

Jill August 18th, 2009 1:53 pm
This article is typical of the way health care is covered. It's about the "civil war" within the D party. It's those crazy right wingers. It's about Obama's chances of reelection. You know what, I don't really care very much about any of that. I would like articles to focus on the substance of this issue.

What is Obama's pharma/insurance industry plan? What is the Republican plan? What is the left wing plan? What is the blue dog plan? Why don't we know this information after so much coverage? Let's get real information out there and see what people think once there are actual plans to talk about. The media could even talk about what many people of our country keep indicating they want--universal health care.

The following is a little oversimplified but much less so than you may think.

There are only two US proposed plans really. One plan is that the health insurance executives want you to be legally liable to pay their sky high rates. The executives will agree to discontinue a few but not all of their most outrageous actions in exchange for you being responsible to help pay their hundreds of millions of dollars of pay.

Yes there are various bells and whistles added on in various specific mark-ups, and I grant you that for a given individual a bell or a whistle could be critical.

But looking at the forest instead of the trees, legally and economically, the "mandate," which is another name for new taxation, is the core of the proposed plan.

The other plan is to get control of the situation using the unique powers of government to correct an industry that has spun out of control, is literally crushing the economy as a whole, and that has generally become an abomination.

Even though all reputable countries have permanently chosen the latter, it is not on the table in the US. So really there is only one proposed US plan.

But since the US plan is such a bad plan, there is a whopper of a dog and pony show going on to fool a whole lot of people.

A RESPONSE:

teddy August 18th, 2009 4:07 pm
correct.

y0u mentioned "new taxation" that is EXACTLY what it is.

Americans to be TAXED on BEHALF of the Corporations.

through high prices, high and ever-rising premiums, etc. etc. etc.

and CAPTIVE forever as "tax payers" TO the corporations.

I've been saying this for so many years:

Americans are misled when they think they are having "tax cuts" - but in reality - it APPEARS somewhere ELSE in far larger amounts:

high prices, high premiums, less take-home pay, "contributions" in the employment based health care, being tied to work slavishly to "keep insurance", having lower disposable income, tightening their belts , lower wages, etc...

these are all "hidden taxes".

except that they are given up TO the corporations.

in effect. by becoming convinced and intimidated into believing that "government tax" is bad - Americans have simply allowed themselves to have even LARGER taxes TRANSFERRED from their pockets to the coffers of corporations.

They've been intimidated AWAY from "the socialist programs that require taxes" by the government - and HERDED into paying TAXES to private entities - corporations in far, far larger ways and more damaging ways.

In short - it is outright theft by corporations through hidden taxation.

Exactly, and very well described. The power of taxation is being shifted from the public to the private sectors! And the stupid right wingers are of course completely oblivious to this, laugh out loud.

Bill Clinton Usually had a few Crumbs for Those who Voted for him

Either Obama is directly taking orders from health insurance executives or he simply doesn't have the "right stuff" to be President.

When Bill Clinton went against his voters and compromised with Republicans, at least he didn't always lose every last thing during the "negotiations." There were usually at least a few crumbs left for those who voted for him.

[The above is in response to this article.]

Government Pay Versus Private Sector Pay in the USA

Well obviously when the government is just a front for the executives of large corporations making most of the most important decisions, then the government will repeatedly get unfairly tagged as a failure when corporate executives prove unable to correctly manage an economy and a country.

Thus the reinforcing cycle of idiocy that has gone on in the United States in recent decades. The large corporation executives have proven to be not up to the task of competently governing, but the average fool in the US has concluded that it was the government responsible for those failures.

And unlike in the reputable countries, in some such as Japan and France more so than others, you can NOT in the US work only in Government and make as much money as you can in the private sector. So where is the incentive in the US for the best and brightest to work in government? It's largely nowhere.

Everyone needs to keep reminding themselves that a lot of "government policy" that exists right now is actually "large corporation executives" policy.

The health "reform" that Obama is threatening Americans with is of course another example of this.

[The above was in response to this article.]

A COUNTERPOINT

pjd412 August 18th, 2009 12:11 pm
Pay isn't what attracts the best and brightest. Was Einstein in it for money? How about Mozart? Martin Luther King? Even a number of 19th-20th century inventors were clearly after something other than getting rich. The idea that talent and motivation arises from a desire to get rich is a dreadful myth of the corporate capitalists to justify absurd levels of compensation to people who are basically uneducated, and who's only qualification is ruthlessness.

I am a federal employee, and most federal scientific and engineering jobs in science and engineering are pay-and benefit competitive with the private sector - but in cases where they are lower, many scientists and engineers prefer government work because they can pursue advancement of knowledge (where I work, mine safety and health) without the constant pressure of having to show one's worth in a profit making system. Increasingly even academia is subjected to these pressures.

And I can assure you, from the designs I review from private sector engineers every day, our engineers here more current and competent than any of those in the private sector - even when the millionaire principal and owner of the firm did the designing!

Of course there are exceptions, but in economics you first look at tendencies, patterns, majorities, causes, and effects; you don't look at the exceptions unless you are spending a lot of time on the subject.

The top tiers of the US private sector are grossly over payed and the US federal government does not even pretend to be able to be competitive with those pay packages anymore. In the US and throughout the world, in some places more so than in other places, pay is often what attracts the best and the brightest. Not always, but often enough so that if government pay is uncompetitive, you have a real problem, which the US clearly does.

Oh, and don't get confused...

At the middle class level, you will actually probably make more over a lifetime working for the government compared to working in the private sector. The reason is that for pay grades below a quarter of a million dollars a year, government pay is still competitive with private pay, and on average you will be layed off much less of the time while working for the government compared with working in the private sector.

My original comment referred to the very highest amounts of pay in the economy.

A COUNTERPOINT:

pjd412 August 18th, 2009 2:24 pm
Please provide me with evidence that remuneration - particularly at these upper levels, correlates with talent and intelligence. I don't think you will find any. The only thing these upper-level corporate positions reward is a ruthless desire to get rich, combined with certain social skills to get there.

And I was _not_ pointing out exceptions, i was pointing out examples. I can think of NO particularly intelligent individual past or present - from Newton and Liebnitz to Bohr, Einstein, Feinman, Hawking, Higgs, Penrose, who were remunerated at anything like a corporate CEO, and conversely, I know of no corporate CEO's or billionaire, past or present, who have ever been regarded as particularly intelligent by the usual definition. None!

There is no correlation between ascendancy in a hierarchical organization and high levels of remuneration, and being the best and brightest. None!

You seem to be clinging to one of the usual unquestioned, empirically unproven assumptions that undergirds capitalism.

Well, since at least the 1960's, comparative political scientists (the ones who compare political systems internationally) have noted that government agencies in countries where government pay is fully competitive with the private sector, either across the board or at least, and more commonly, at the very highest levels of pay, are generally more efficient and more productive than are the equivalent agencies in countries where private pay exceeds public pay at the highest pay levels. In other words, only in countries where the pay at the highest levels is equal between public and private is where you find that the public agencies are not constrained, limited, or subject to being captured by the private sector, the way public agencies chronically are in the US.

I remember that clearly from my comparative politics class in University. Since I was an economics major, I never forgot that; I thought it was nice that the political science experts could "do the economics" on ocassion, especially since economists are notoriously bad at politics, laugh out loud.

Many European countries strongly believe in this theory, and in fact this is one of the biggest reasons why the near billion dollar pay packages given to some US executives are unheard of in Europe. Europeans have long since decided to effectively prevent obscene pay packages from appearing by having punitive tax rates on salaries above roughly 3 million dollars a year.

Most Western and Northern European countries do not want to end up with a government work force, at any level including the very highest, which may be inferior in any way, shape, or form to the work force of the private sector. The US clearly does not agree that this is a high priority.

I didn't mean to imply that there is a strong correlation between intelligence and pay anywhere, in France, the US, or anywhere else. There is clearly some correlation, but I most definitely agree with you that the correlation is not all that strong at the higher pay levels.

Aside from the wrong impression that was created, my wording was a little too storng for the point I was actually trying to make, which can happen sometimes. I'll change my wording:

Original, too strong and with the wrong impression: "So where is the incentive in the US for the best and brightest to work in government? It's largely nowhere."

Correction: "So where is the incentive in the US for the best and brightest to work in government? It's there to some degree, but it could be a bigger and more reliable incentive if obscene private sector pay packages were phased out.

We inadvertently stumbled upon something very interesting.

While economists and smart people in general are often aware that there is surprisingly low correlation between pay and intelligence, the average young person who is choosing a profession often assumes a much stronger correlation than what exists. There is some propaganda involved there. And there is also the ever present connection in the minds of young people between the need to be smart to get a college degree, and the higher pay that supposedly results from getting a college degree.

Therefore, it is important that obscene private sector pay packages be prevented from appearing in an economy, because if they do, too many people, especially young people, and including intelligent young people, will be fooled into thinking that "less intelligent people" go into Government, which obviously will lead eventually to the Government agencies being, to one extent or another, limited, compromised, and captured by the private sector.

Keep in mind that how "strong" government agencies are is not merely an academic topic. It can be a very crucial factor indeed. For example, almost everyone agrees that the US government regulators of the US financial system were compromised or captured outright by the huge banks and investment companies, and that this was one of the big reasons for the economics emergency and the subsequent and ongoing economics collapse.

A RESPONSE:

pjd412 August 18th, 2009 5:43 pm
Thanks for your clarification. I agree that in the US, government service must constantly deal with torrents of negative propaganda from the corporate community, and this is reflected in the difficulty finding talent. We have trouble finding competent experienced engineers in my agency, and have wondered how much it is due to the overall shortage of civil engineers in the US, the mistaken perception that government pay will be lower, or mistaken, negative attitudes about federal government work.

The shortage of civil engineers is itself due to it being viewed as being "unfashionable" compared to IT, law, medicine or finance, particularly among the increasingly affluent student populations that dominate even state U's. Might it be due to the perception that civil engineering is associated with public "socialistic" infrastructure?

So, I can see where getting talent in the SEC or other financial regulators is probably far more difficult.

The Public Option Scam

A GUEST ARTICLE:

weacguy August 17th, 2009 9:19 am
Even a robust public option is just corporate welfare:

Top Ten Reasons the Public Plan is a Bait and Switch
1. It leaves in place the deficient employer based model. As the National Organization for Women noted in their single payer endorsement (July 7, 2009) of the only viable reform model, single payer, many Americans are tied to jobs they don’t like because of the antiquated employer based insurance model. For those switching from one job to another, those wanting to go on strike, those wanting to quit a job, etc. it prevents the ability to move freely as a laborer.

2. It leaves private insurance, a major contributor to administrative inefficiency and bloated bureaucracy, in charge of health care decisions.

3. It only results in about 10% of the savings that would accrue were single payer to be enacted. That’s assuming 50% of Americans can enroll---an optimistic figure (Jacob Hacker’s assumption that Congress has drastically scaled back to a tiny plan). Since hospitals and doctors will still have to deal with 1300 insurance companies little savings will result by adding a public option, reports Dr. Don McCanne of the Physicians for a National Health Plan, March 26, 2009, www.pnhp.org. 24% of hospital budgets go to billings (only 12% in Canada) and this wouldn’t change under any version of the public option. As Drs. Steffie Woolhander and David Himmelstein note, the bureaucratic savings of the public plan option “would be miniscule”. (The New York Times, Room For Debate, June 18, 2009).

4. It does not pay for itself, unlike single payer, requiring a huge tax increase. As the State Legislators for Single Payer Healthcare (including initiating sponsor WI State Sen. Mark Miller) note there is “no increase in total health care spending” with single payer. Instead of everybody in, nobody out, an inclusive approach based on solidarity, public option pits the wealthy against poor, taxing the rich to provide subsidies to help poor people buy overpriced, insufficient private health insurance. In the mainstream media this is being framed as the liberals taxing the rich for their liberal plan to force everyone into big government care, when In reality, the tax proposal would be used to shore up the private insurance system, giving them more customers and higher profits. In her June 24 Congressional testimony, Dr. Woolhander estimated that it will cost 200 billion annually to pay for health insurance costs for those who cannot afford it. That’s a much larger tax increase on the wealthy.

5. It becomes part of the same failed private model: co pays, deductibles, denials of some necessary procedures, services and medications. Coverage and benefits will be similar to the private plans due to inability to control costs. (see no. 3) “The ‘Public Plan Option’: Myths and Facts available at www.pnhp.org and see the excellent analysis, “Health Care Reform 2009: A Train Wreck in Slow Motion by Dr. John Geyman, July 21, 2009 available at www.pnhp.org/blog.

6. It leaves millions uninsured. Mandates have already failed in states where it has been tried, mostly recently in Massachusetts. And, the model for a health insurance exchange, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program, leaves hundreds of thousands of federal workers uninsured, and does not control costs (Nicholas Skala, Congressional Progressive Caucus testimony, June 4, 2009).

7. It segregates patients into two groups: healthy patients who will be aggressively pursued by insurance companies and sicker/older patients who will end up in the public plan. The public plan will not make private insurers honest. Private insurers compete by denying (necessary) coverage. The public plan will either emulate this model, or quickly go under as it becomes overburdened by the sicker, older patients, reports Dr. Woolhander (June 24 House Subcommittee on House Energy and Commerce).

8. Projected savings claimed by Wisconsin Citizen Action (based on a Lewin group study of Hacker’s original PO proposal) are not based on historical trends with public option plans that have already failed in every state where they have been tried. (see Wisconsin Cost Savings under National Health Care Reform by Dr. Robert Kraig available at citizenactionwi.org) The HMO-Medicare history shows that public plans do not keep private insurers “honest”. “A quarter century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field.” The Public Option Con, www.pnhp.org

9. Private insurers will still continue to deny claims and as a result, a major issue, bankruptcy due to health costs will remain unaddressed. In their June 2008 endorsement of single payer, the U.S. Conference of Mayors noted that “millions with insurance have coverage so inadequate that a major illness would lead to financial ruin.” www.usmayors.org/resolutions/76th_conference/chhs_03.asp

10. The public option will not allow for choice of provider unlike single payer since the public option will need to appeal to a provide network to obtain services for its subscribers. “Patients will still have a limited choice of provider restricted by networks” as a Physicians for a National Health Program fact sheet states.
“The ‘Public Plan Option’: Myths and Facts available at www.pnhp.org

UNITY-PROGRESS COMMENT
All true about the "public option".

This is both bad news and good news actually.

On the one hand, the political implication of no public option is that we are a lot closer to full third world status than most would have believed.

On the other hand, true, pure, real progressives will be happy about the demise of the public option, because it hastens the day where the whole system collapses once and for all, and/or it increases the odds that single payer can come into existence one state at a time, with the states most resistant to descending into third world status first in line to enact it. (Vermont, Hawaii, and possibly Minnesota come to mind.)

[The above was in response to this article.]

On Health Care at Least, the USA is About to Become Backwards Even by the Standards of Backward

Yes, this is a fiasco and cements the US as a nation outside of the mainstream and moving resolutely to full third world status. Obama definitely does not deserve reelection, and most likely will not get it, because either this will never be enacted, or will be proved to be a failure before the 2012 election.

It is proving to be the case that almost everything Obama says is a lie.

What Obama is now ready to sign is pretty much the opposite of what he has stated he wants. What it really is, when all false rhetoric is stripped away, is a massive, heavily regressive tax.

For anyone who does not know: a regressive tax is one where people with lower incomes pay a greater percentage of their income in tax than do people with higher incomes. A massively regressive tax is one where people with lower incomes not only pay a greater percentage, but they pay a greater actual tax, than do people with higher incomes.

What is being threatened is a massively regressive tax, pure and simple. Not only is it grossly unjust and doomed to failure (as hordes of people simply refuse to comply or are unable to comply) but, worse still actually, it is certain, to one degree or another, to dig the economy into an even bigger hole than it already is in. (And you thought the economy could not get worse, laugh out loud.)

Moreover, this whole thing is unprecedented; never before in world history has a government collected money for a specific private industry in what is supposed to be a free economy and society. Even talking about this, let alone enacting it, proves that the US is not a true free country and does not have a true free economy.

A tax (a mandate, if you insist) resembling this one would be anathema not only in the numerous countries that have faced the music and have gotten health costs and health injustice under control, but it would even be anathema in many of the backward countries that do not have decent health care systems.

The US is becoming backward even by the standards of the backward. I mean, if this goes through, from an economics and especially from an economics fairness perspective, now there will be obscure, poor countries with better health systems than the US.

But since Obama needs to cover up his lie that "he would not raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000, it can not be called a tax, so this tax is with rhetorically perverted to be a "mandate". Folks, "mandate" is simply another word for a tax, and/or it is a specialized tax.

Obama is proving to be a dangerous, narcissistic liar.

The Swiss Health Care System

Anybody who claims that what is being proposed resembles the Swiss system is either a liar or is incompetent to make the comparison.

It is true that the Swiss system was designed to continue in existence the private health insurance companies that existed before they reformed their system. But from an economics perspective, this is nothing more than a legal technicality.

The Swiss health insurers were (and are) forbidden to charge people for profits and for excesses such as executive pay packages in the tens of millions of dollars. They are only allowed to charge for costs certified as necessary and reasonable by the Swiss Government. And the Swiss Government can and does take many different actions to directly keep costs under control. For example, the Swiss government has the power to and will from time to time subsidize the training of doctors who would not have come into being otherwise.

Another huge difference between the Swiss system and the disastrous one proposed by Obama and the health insurance executives in the US is that in the Swiss system, 100% of the cost of health insurance premiums are provided to low income people by the Swiss Government, so that low income people in Switzerland end up with the same exact health care that more fortunate people get, at no cost to them. Whereas in the US, it is proposed that very low income people get put on Medicaid, which is well known to be a substandard health care system.

The Swiss economy in general is a more progressive, fairer system, and so the large scale poverty you see in the US is not seen in Switzerland. As a result, you can bet the ranch that the health insurance subsidies paid by the Swiss government to individuals across the board, at all of the lower income deciles, are going to be much more progressive, realistic, and workable than any "subsidies" coming in the US.

You can bet the ranch that subsidies for those earning between roughly $15,000 and $30,000 in the US are going to be ridiculously small compared with what the Swiss subsidies at that level would be. The US could not afford health insurance subsidies as generous as the Swiss ones if it wanted to pay them (which it doesn’t) because (a) health insurance is far more expensive in the US than it is in Switzerland and (b) there are grossly more low income people in the US than there are in Switzerland, both in absolute numbers and in percentage terms.

Overall, the Swiss system is economically comparable to systems where the health insurance companies actually go out of existence, replaced by government sponsored or government run entities. Specifically for example, the Swiss system is much more similar to the German system than to what is proposed by Obama and the US health insurance executives.

The Swiss system is not comparable to the one being proposed by Obama and the health insurance executives, except in the one, economically meaningless technicality discussed earlier. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or does not know what they are talking about.

Now I have some more details I discovered while doing additional research on the Swiss system. This extends my earlier review of the Swiss system. That system, although not as progressive as one I would choose, would be a massive improvement over the US system, were it actually possible to have it in the US. But even the Swiss system is out of reach for the US due to heavy corporate executive control of the US economy.

Swiss health insurance premiums average roughly $250 per month for an individual, which is roughly half what the same thing costs in the US. This is a little more than I thought they were, but is still obviously far less than in the US.

The Swiss have all kinds of "public options," which in the Swiss system are insurance companies that are completely public. In these companies, certain costs that are still allowed the private health insurance companies even under the heavy regulation do not exist.

In Switzerland, you don't have to be insured by a private health insurance company at all (if you choose a public one). So obviously you are not forced to pay for any profits or for any excessive salaries at all, let alone forced to pay for billions of dollars for shareholder profits and obscene executive pay packages.

Clearly, if someone opts to be insured by a public health insurance company (where by law they end up with the exact same care) their premium is going to be lower than the Swiss average. I would wager that you can buy Swiss health insurance for $200 a month if not even a little less than that.

Try getting that in the US, laugh out loud. A company offering insurance for $200 a month in the US would be a scam to one extent or another, and/or the deductible would be so huge that the policy would be worthless.

In Switzerland you can have a deductible of up to about $2,400. If you choose that highest deductible and also choose a public insurance company, I would estimate that your monthly premium would be roughly $150 a month. This is roughly 75% less than health insurance can easily cost an individual in the US!

Don't forget that unlike in the US, the care itself is the same for everyone in Switzerland; the care does not differ depending on how you get the health insurance.

And again, lower income individuals are going to be far more heavily subsidized than could or will ever be the case in the US.

The bottom line is that although the Swiss system may not be the best or most fair in the world, it is a slur on the Swiss system to say that what the US executives are proposing is similar to the Swiss system. In fact, the US could not have the Swiss system if it wanted to, due to both political and economic factors.

The Two Biggest Parts of the Health Reform Drama not yet Resolved

Almost everything Obama has said about what he wants will not be in the actual final law, which you can bet comes from the executive offices and boardrooms of the biggest health insurance companies. I mean, in the primaries, Obama said he wasn't even in favor of the mandate, which however, has been the only thing that has seemed to be a 100% certainty from the start of "negotiations".

In other words, the resulting law will be in most respects essentially completely the opposite of what Obama has claimed to want. Even by political standards, this is an especially rank and disgusting betrayal of voters and others who hoped Obama might actually mean what he says on occasion.

But now we know: Obama never means what he says. (Or almost never, maybe if he says he's going to the White House kitchen to grab a snack, he might mean that, laugh out loud.)

As for the "reform" most everyone here knows it is not really reform and that there is a 100% chance that it will fail. So there is no sense me wasting any time going through those aspects again.

The two biggest parts of this drama not resolved yet are:

(a) can the house and senate progressives (along with some right wingers) defeat this worse than nothing law?

(b) How many years will it take for the economy in general, and for jobs creation in particular, to be completely crushed by out of control health care costs?

[The above is in response to this article.]

You Can't be Anti-Progressive and Solve Health Care

Americans voted the Democrats in but thanks to Obama, Republicans are still making the laws. Now the Democrats will be blamed for bad Republican laws, laugh out loud.

The bottom line is that both of the parties are too far to the right to pass a reasonable health care law or even to fully understand the issues and requirements involved. You can get away with it on some things, but you can't be anti-progressive and solve health care. It appears to be that simple.

Obama, as Nader describes here, seems even more incapable to do anything that will work for more than a few short years than do the two parties as a whole. Moreover, Obama is so lame that he does not even seem qualified to be President. If Obama was a prime minister in a parliamentary democracy, there would already be some talk about a future vote of no confidence which could end his tenure and trigger a new election.

Although there are many other issues that both parties are too far to the right to successfully deal with, the health care issue is special. Most of the other issues requiring progressive input apparently don't have the kind of relatively near term "economy wrecking power" that the failed US health care system seems to pack.

"Long term" means about 50 years or many multiples of that whereas "near term" could be a few short decades. Even right wingers sit up and take notice when something threatens the economy in the near term, thus all the discussion about health care this year.

It appears that health care may be the thing which is first in line to bring down the hard right US system once and for all.

Consider this summary of the grim logic and plausible chain of events involved here. The political system can't fix the health care system. And the health care system is bringing down the economy as a whole. If the economy is destroyed, the political system would no doubt go with it.

Barrack Obama Versus Bill Clinton

A GUEST COMMENT:

Perry logan August 15th, 2009 4:18 pm
As we expected, Obama has learned from the mistakes the Clintons made in trying to get healthcare reform.

What we didn't expect was that Obama would make far worse mistakes.

Laugh out loud, even though it's not really funny.

Bill Clinton Versus Barrack Obama

GUEST POINT:

Perry logan August 16th, 2009 1:27 pm
"At worst he is another Clintonite Repug."

I take issue with that.

Bill Clinton is a real Democrat. He's nothing like the screw-up Obama has proven to be.

Clinton lowered the poverty rate, expanded college benefits for veterans, etc., etc. Not bad for a moderate Democrat.

Clinton even raised taxes on the rich (which the Bamanator would never do). This is not Republican stuff.

More importantly, Clinton did not pump trillions of dollars into the financial sector, allow countless war crimes to fester, or expanded blatantly fascist policies. These are all uniquely Obamian accomplishments.

Bait & Switch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDq2yBgzels

So true, and laugh out loud, but it's not really funny of course.

Clinton was a right winger who obviously helped set the stage for today's failed economy.

But with respect to the basics of the political process, unlike Obama, at least Clinton sometimes knew what "take your best shot" means, and why you always have to do that in politics. And so, at least Clinton often got something rather than essentially nothing in negotiations with Congress, even when it was a Republican congress. In other words, Clinton was at least slightly more effective with a Republican congress than Obama seems to be on health care with a Democratic congress.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Obama's health care reform bill will be less valuable than Clinton's was, even though Clinton didn't get anything at all through, laugh out loud (again).

What part of "When you are in the hole and can't get out, at least don't dig the hole deeper while you await assistance" does Obama not understand?

[The above exchange was in response to this article.]

Abraham Lincoln Versus Barrack Obama

Suggesting that Obama might be comparable to Lincoln was amusing, hypothetical though it may have been.

For the record, Lincoln was mostly a progressive; Obama is a reactionary on way too many issues, and not a very good one, I might add.

Lincoln's slavery issue was a 19th century equivalent of the failed health insurance system issue of today. With slavery, Lincoln's choice was to adopt the progressive agenda of freeing the slaves or to do almost nothing and allow the Union to be split and to allow the US to become in the long term a pariah state.

Fast forward to now, where Obama's choice is to adopt the progressive agenda of a fair and affordable health care system, or to do almost nothing (and literally nothing good) and allow hundreds of thousands to keep dying early and allow millions of foreclosures, bankruptcies, and homelessness incidents due to unpaid health care and health insurance bills to continue and to leave the economy unprotected from being crushed by health care costs.

Regardless of any rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic, all of those bad things are going to continue under anything that Obama is thinking about signing.

Lincoln chose correctly, Obama is choosing incorrectly, although arguably it doesn't matter what he chooses. Because Obama is not even really President the way Lincoln was, because unlike in Lincoln's day, these days legislation is largely coming from the executive offices and boardrooms of corporations, not from Congress and the President.

Thank goodness we don't have slaves depending on Obama to get them freed, because it doesn't seem that he could possibly do it.

A RESPONSE:

Kay Johnson August 16th, 2009 1:20 pm
Didn't Obama, himself, offer the illusion, from the beginning of his campaign, that he was another Lincoln? He kicked off his campaign at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, IL.

Back in May 2008 at Boca Raton, Florida, Barack Obama made this statement:

“I can tell you this. My goal is to have the best possible government. And that means me winning. So, I’m very practical in my thinking. I’m a practical guy. One of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln. Awhile back, there was a wonderful book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin called ‘Team of Rivals,’ in which she talked about how Lincoln basically pulled all the people he’d been running against into his Cabinet. Because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was, ‘How can we get the country through this time of crisis?’ I think that has to be the approach one takes to the vice president and the Cabinet.”

From the beginning, Obama hasn't been honest. "Team of Rivals?" All you have to do is look at his cabinet choices, and where are the real progressives? Timothy Geithner? Larry Summers? Several Republicans -- well, I could go on, but I won't.

As of now it's safe to assume that "Land of Lincoln" will most likely not ever be changing to "Land of Obama" on Illinois license plates.

Lincoln understood politics (as it was in his day) better than Obama understands politics as it is in his day.

But again, this doesn't matter anywhere near as much as the average Joe might think, because unlike back then, most of the actual governing and legislating today is coming out of the executive and boardroom offices of large corporations.