Behind Obama’s lie, our own immaturity
Ron Edmonds/APUnderstand why he wasn't straight with us.
In selling the health-care plan that bears his name, President Obama has, according to the fact-checking website Politifact, said at least 34 times that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” That statement was not completely true, and it’s a lie that is today causing the President no end of political headaches.
Still, before we fully castigate the President for his rhetorical flights of fancy, it’s important to keep in mind that Obama was — to a large degree — telling Americans what they wanted to hear. In fact, he was giving them the type of comforting assurances they insist upon getting before backing any major policy change from Washington.
Americans regularly express dissatisfaction with the status quo and demand political change. But at the same time, they recoil at any reform that affects them directly.
Ron Edmonds/APUnderstand why he wasn't straight with us.
In selling the health-care plan that bears his name, President Obama has, according to the fact-checking website Politifact, said at least 34 times that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” That statement was not completely true, and it’s a lie that is today causing the President no end of political headaches.
Still, before we fully castigate the President for his rhetorical flights of fancy, it’s important to keep in mind that Obama was — to a large degree — telling Americans what they wanted to hear. In fact, he was giving them the type of comforting assurances they insist upon getting before backing any major policy change from Washington.
Americans regularly express dissatisfaction with the status quo and demand political change. But at the same time, they recoil at any reform that affects them directly.
This gets to one of the many ironies of Obamacare. It is the most far-reaching piece of social policy since the Great Society, and yet, most Americans are largely unaffected by it.
This was not accidental. As Princeton political scientist Paul Starr relates in “Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle Over Health Care Reform,” the catch-word of health-care reformers was “minimally invasive.” In other words, politicians knew Americans would never go along with reform if they saw it as something that would disrupt their own lives.
The legislation, then, was constructed not to reach the most optimal or efficient policy solution, but to leave as many members of the public and key stakeholders, like insurance companies, as unaffected as possible.
Thus, for millions of Americans who get their health insurance from their employer, Obamacare might as well be happening on another planet. For them, “keeping your health care plan” was always part of the plan.
For those who buy insurance on the individual market, the story is quite different. With high premiums, higher deductibles and poor benefit options, these plans often could barely be considered insurance — and weren’t available to those with preexisting conditions. That these Americans would not be able to keep their plans was not a bug of Obamacare; it was the point.
But, of course, this means that some Americans would not only lose their plans and access to their doctor, but in the case of particularly healthy individuals, reform could yield higher premiums. Beyond that, reforming such a huge chunk of the U.S. economy necessarily leads to often unanticipated changes for millions of Americans.
Acknowledging that reality would have been the honest thing to do. So would asking healthier and wealthier Americans to sacrifice for the greater good of ensuring every American have health-care coverage.
But doing so would have opened Obama and his democratic allies up to the charge that Obamacare would lead to widespread dislocations — and made the path to reform that much politically harder to traverse.
Indeed, this is precisely the argument that was made by Republicans who regularly — and untruthfully — charged Obama with seeking a government takeover of health care, among other ills.
This is America’s schizophrenia. On the one hand the ingrained belief that centralized government power is an unqualified danger coupled with a deep fear that any new initiative will bring unacceptable disruption. On the other, a hunger, even demand, for change.
These competing impulses breed the pervasive dysfunction in American politics today. Democrats play down the negative effects of government actions; Republicans describe them in the worst possible terms. Voters want progress without sacrifice or inconvenience. Seemingly the only path to change is telling voters what they want to hear.
So accuse Obama of lying about health-care reform — but understand the simple underlying reality: we can’t handle the truth.
Cohen is a fellow at the Century Foundation.
No comments:
Post a Comment