Obama Maintains Health Care Will Be Budget Neutral
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Health Care, Money, Obama
We all know that universal health care has been incredibly hard to achieve, but budget neutral universal health care? Well, that seems nearly impossible. Well, nearly impossibly politically. So if Obama can pull it off it’ll be a feat indeed.
Here’s what he said recently at the G8 Summit, from CQ Politics:
Obama indicated he would continue to put cost on an equal footing with expanded coverage, by emphasizing that any health plan be budget neutral.“Whatever bill is produced has to be paid for, and that creates some difficulties because people would like to get the good stuff without paying for it,” Obama said.
Not only that, he’ll be linking the passage of health care to the economic recovery, which may be strategically risky…
Aides believe focusing on the dollars-and-cents aspect expands the health care debate beyond the approximately 48 million uninsured Americans, to those who have health coverage but are concerned about losing benefits during the economic downturn. The administration is wagering that economically stressed workers will appreciate a bottom-line approach that squeezes new efficiencies out of the health delivery system and doesn’t reek of expensive social engineering.Obama also hinted that he and top officials will continue to make campaign-style appearances around the country, linking any sustained economic recovery with a restructuring of health care.
“What I’m trying to keep focused on are the people out in states all across the country that are getting hammered by rising premiums,” the president said. “They’re losing their jobs and suddenly losing their health care. They are going into debt. Some are going into bankruptcy — small businesses and large businesses that are feeling enormous pressure.”
Why strategically risky?
Well, even though health care reform is THE key issue to sustained economic prosperity, I think people will be focusing on the the stimulus and the unemployment numbers.
Basically, if Obama doesn’t get this passed, I don’t think he can’t effectively make the case that the economy didn’t recover because health care wasn’t reformed.
This entry was posted on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 and is filed under Barack, Health Care, Money, Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
“Budget neutral” is double-speak that means that the gov’t raises taxes enough to pay for it, regardless of how high that would send taxation.
Well, even though health care reform is THE key issue to sustained economic prosperity
FIRST, define “health care reform.” If by “health care reform” you mean the types of “reforms” so far proposed in Congress and coming out of the White House, I would challenge you to even attempt to empirically prove that assertion. It’s simply not so. Indeed, I can think of many ways in which the exact opposite is true, where “reform” could destroy economic prosperity.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Budget neutrality is very possible. Wyden’s plan is just one example. Get rid of the employer tax exemption, fire MediCare advantage, encourage doctors to try cost-effective procedures first, etc. When you’re spending double what the Brits do on health care, and not getting significantly better health outcomes finding cash is not hard.
The trick is getting 60 votes for any method of increasing revenue. McCain’s support for dumping the employer tax exemption is one reason he got his ass kicked last November, MediCare Advantage wouldn’t exist if lots of Senators didn’t have an ideological attachment to private for-profit insurance, and “encouraging Doctors to try low-cost procedures” has historically been spun into “forcing Doctors to give you inferior medical care.”
To top it off the GOP is in full opposition mode. Obama’s ideas will be bitterly opposed by the minority no matter what. I’d hope McCain would still support ending the Employer tax exemption, but in this political environment that may not happen.
BTW, keep in mind that Obama does have the option of using reconciliation to force his program through. Reconciliation is the best option for the Senate’s GOP leadership, but it’s not great for any of the other players in this game. It’s a very blunt instrument. He could expand MediCare. Arguably that would be good for patients, but it’s 100% clear that doing so would screw insurers (fewer customers) and providers (MediCare doesn’t pay very well).
He probably won’t be able to convince 218 reps and 50 sens to go along with truly universal MediCare, but even Medicare at 55 would greatly reduce the amount hospitals and doctors receive from private insurance.
Which means that as October approaches the health lobby will be a lot more amenable to any deals Obama offers.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
It’s potentially budget-neutral for the government, it’s not budget-neutral for someone who works and has employment insurance right now. Budget-neutral is just OHT (Obama Happy Talk) that is mildly persuasive for people who don’t want to look at the issue more deeply.
Speaking of looking at the issue more deeply, what think you about Readthebill.org?