ObamaCare Struggles as Americans Catch On

The CBO has said that ObamaCare will not reduce the deficit, and now the Lewin Group, who reported earlier on the massive crowd out of the private insurance market that would occur if a public option were created, has analyzed the House healthcare bill. The diagnosis? People will lose their insurance by the tens of millions and be filtered into the public plan. Americans seem to be catching on.

Gallup now shows that more Americans disapprove than approve of Obama’s approach on healthcare, including more than 55% of independents (On a side note, it’s interesting that the only issues where Obama is polling favorably are the wars and issues of foreign affairs). Karl Rove looks at the numbers and shows that ObamaCare is in trouble.

While Victor Davis Hanson questions whether big government solutions are the answers to our problems, Gallup also shows the concern about growing government. Again, see the numbers among independents.

More evidence suggests that government healthcare reform proposals are on the ropes. The President had a meeting with moderate Democrats at the White House, and then hosted a press conference last night to discuss his plan. The press conference offered little assurance for the plan, as the President dug in his heels and further risked his credibility on the promise that his healthcare plan wouldn’t raise the deficit.

The President also said that reform would be done this year, instead of the earlier plan of having a bill before the August recess. The Senate is now saying the August deadline won’t happen, and House Democrats are still split on multiple issues. On top of the struggles in Congress, state governors are concerned about Medicaid requirements.

What will happen if President Obama fails to obtain government healthcare reform and cap and trade? Going a step further, what happens if we are running high deficits and have stagflation two years from now on top of those failures? Food for thought.

While you’re thinking about those scenarios, read Governor Jindal’s proposals for bipartisan healthcare reform, Mitt Romney’s comments on Obama’s push for reform, and Dr. David Gratzer’s analysis of too much regulation being the real problem.

Also, sign this petition to help defeat the wrong type of reform (H/T Hugh Hewitt). Once the bad ideas are defeated and the right people are on board, we can begin to seriously address the problems we face in healthcare and our economy.

UPDATE: Read Keith Hennessey’s analysis of the mistakes made by Team Obama, and of the current landscape.

New California Budget Deal

It looks like California has a budget deal for the $26 billion deficit the state has. The agreement has no tax increases, a win for the state which voted overwhelmingly in May against them.

The budget will have significant cuts, including tough ones for education and local governments. It also appears that some long term problems will not be solved with this deal, but it is a start. See more analysis at FlashReport here and here.

A floor vote is expected later this week.

UPDATE: Some details on the deal.

A Closer Look at Obama’s Words and the House Health Bill

President Obama’s health care address this weekend provides a good way to analyze current legislation. We can compare what he said to facts.

First, the same folks who controlled the White House and Congress for the past eight years as we ran up record deficits will argue – believe it or not – that health reform will lead to record deficits. That’s simply not true. Our proposals cut hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary spending and unwarranted giveaways to insurance companies in Medicare and Medicaid. They change incentives so providers will give patients the best care, not just the most expensive care, which will mean big savings over time. And we have urged Congress to include a proposal for a standing commission of doctors and medical experts to oversee cost-saving measures.

While many are worried about deficits, as the majority of Americans seem to be more concerned with health care costs than universal coverage, Obama is trying to somehow pin the deficit argument on the Bush administration when it’s the CBO that is hurting him with the truth.

The public option, in combination with individual and employer mandates with tax penalties, will move people into the public option where the government will attempt to control spending with rationing. Creating new federal bureaucracies, as the House bill does, will mean rationing based on politics and not on market prices. Remember what politics did for the mortgage industry?

Preliminary Remarks on House Healthcare Bill

While I am still reading the bill, I can say from the 500 pages and some of the summaries I’ve read that this is bad legislation for either side of healthcare reform. The main achievement of the House bill would be a massive expansion of government bureaucracy, and it would severely damage the economy. It would not result in more access to better healthcare.

The plan, as you will see in the details outlined below, is so liberal that it’s difficult to believe it would pass in this form and make it through the Senate. Moderates would be jeopardizing their careers by voting for this legislation that has all the contentious liberal components.

The CBO report has a good basic summary, and Keith Hennessey has a good analysis of how millions of uninsured would be taxed under the House plan (H/T Tevi Troy at the NRO Corner).

Some of the main features include:

• Individual and employer mandates
• Pay or play scheme with taxes levied
• Insurance exchange with public option
• Subsidies for people up to 400% of the poverty line
• Establishment of new committees to oversee the exchange and to set minimum benefits
• Cost sharing limits and restrictions on premium increases
• Income taxes on individuals

And this doesn’t include Medicare and Medicaid reforms.

With consumers being armed with more tools to find and obtain the best care for their needs, this bill would move our healthcare market in the wrong direction by decreasing consumer choice. It would be a disaster, and I will analyze some specifics in coming days to explain why.

Deals For Detainees

It wasn’t surprising when the Supreme Court delayed a ruling on the remaining Uighur detainees at the end of this last term. The Pacific island Palau had already agreed to take the Uighurs, and Congress recently passed a law restricting the President’s ability to release Guantanamo detainees into the U.S.

Andy McCarthy criticizes President Obama’s recent release of five Iranian Quds Force commanders who were planning attacks that have killed hundreds of American soldiers and Marines in Iraq. Michael Ledeen, as McCarthy notes, is reporting that the release of the “Irbil Five” was part of the price demanded by Iran for the release of journalist Roxana Saberi. McCarthy writes:

President Obama’s release of the Quds terrorists is a natural continuation of his administration’s stunningly irresponsible policy of bartering terrorist prisoners for hostages. As I detailed here on June 24, Obama has already released a leader of the Iran-backed Asaib al-Haq terror network in Iraq, a jihadist who is among those responsible for the 2007 murders of five American troops in Karbala. While the release was ludicrously portrayed as an effort to further “Iraqi reconciliation” (as if that would be a valid reason to spring a terrorist who had killed Americans), it was in actuality a naïve attempt to secure the reciprocal release of five British hostages — and a predictably disastrous one: The terror network released only the corpses of two of the hostages, threatening to kill the remaining three (and who knows whether they still are alive?) unless other terror leaders were released.

The President’s handling of these situations is concerning, and McCarthy has been a harsh critic. North Korea is now demanding a show of remorse for the “hostile acts” of two American journalists being held there. What will President Obama do in this case, where North Korea continues its defiant nuclear proliferation?

UPDATE: With the news that AG Eric Holder is considering an investigation of Bush-era interrogation policies, Andy McCarthy lays out the recent scorecard of Obama/Holder justice, which the President needs to explain.

Liberal Reforms Seem Less Certain

While liberals are trying to take advantage of a perceived economic crisis, their opportunity for passing sweeping reforms is decreasing. Government healthcare and cap and trade are on the ropes. Public support for another stimulus is small. Rasmussen shows that voters now trust the Republican party over the Democrats on 8 of 10 issues, including the economy. This spells trouble for Democrats.

Reports this week showed that Democrats are still divided over healthcare reform. The co-op option seems to be getting some attention, but one should question whether the federal government needs to pay for such a plan. The current proposals seem less and less likely, especially as Peter Orszag says that they won’t solve our budget problems. This fact blows up the argument for government healthcare reform.

Cap and trade passed narrowly in the House, but its future is uncertain in the Senate. Based on the numbers in Congress and what polls say about the popularity of the idea, the outlook isn’t great for cap and trade.

Rahm Emanuel said we shouldn’t let a good crisis go to waste. This attitude allowed the stimulus to pass Congress and cap and trade to pass the House without anyone likely having read the bills in their entirety. House majority leader Steny Hoyer offered a moment of liberal honesty this week when he joked about actually reading the healthcare bill. Hoyer and the Democrats have recently gotten away with such reckless behavior, but the window for exploiting the crisis while hiding liberal intentions seems to be shrinking.

What Palin Means to Politics

I’ve read and listened to plenty of commentary about Sarah Palin’s resignation. It seems everyone has a theory. Despite some of her own comments that suggest she’s not finished with politics, I won’t venture to guess. It’s possible that she hasn’t yet decided what she’s going to do, particularly about 2012.

While we endlessly debate what her resignation means for her future, the question we should be asking isn’t whether or not Sarah Palin will run for president. What is more important in the bigger picture is to examine the reaction to Sarah Palin’s emergence into the political mainstream and what that reaction says about American politics. Why many have treated her with such disrespect and disdain is a more important question than whether or not she’ll be President one day.

The initial reaction to John McCain’s nomination of Palin was mixed. Conservatives mostly loved the move, and she energized the base. Many independents or others who might not have voted for McCain were inspired and enthused by Governor Palin’s story and career, and they supported the ticket. While I’ve heard many arguments that Palin’s nomination hurt the McCain campaign and his chances at the Presidency, I would argue the opposite, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Many independents and liberals reacted negatively, to say the least. The Beltway, New York, and Hollywood elites seem to despise Sarah Palin and what she represents. The real question is why, and the answer is one we need to understand about our political culture. Sarah Palin’s rise has shaken that culture, perhaps even more than Barack Obama’s has.

While Obama campaigned on hope and change, on bringing a new era of politics to Washington, we’ve been seeing how empty those promises were. Sarah Palin represents real change, and that is central to the reason she has been treated so horribly that she can be placed in a category that includes the likes of Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, and George W. Bush. That kind of treatment is an embarrassment to this country, and we should be ashamed of it in all instances.

Sarah Palin is a Washington outsider. The very people who promote Barack Obama’s change slogan criticize Palin for being too folksy, too outside the mainstream, and not educated or experienced enough. Those people are hypocrites, and the dirty secret is that the self-appointed elites don’t actually want someone who doesn’t play by their rules. Sarah Palin challenges the establishment and their way of doing things, particularly the model for what women should be.

There is no reason yet to compare Sarah Palin to Nixon, Reagan, or Goldwater. She may never run again for public office, and while that would be disappointing, it would be respectable considering what she has dealt with. The elites wanted to run her out of politics and hope that they did, because if Palin were ever elected to a high office like the Presidency, her presence would shatter much of the establishment. In fact, one could argue that she has already inflicted significant damage on that establishment.

Many will continue to criticize and mock Sarah Palin, but make no mistake about it: What Sarah Palin represents is a threat to the liberal mold supported by media and political elites. Her success, much like that of Ronald Reagan’s, means massive defeat for liberalism and the political elites.

Hugh Hewitt: Intelligent Discussion About Healthcare Reform

Hugh Hewitt is covering healthcare this week, and had a series of interviews Monday. The interviewees were Dr. Robert Moffit of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Health Policy Studies; Professor Clayton Christensen, co-author of The Innovator’s Prescription (which I’ve added to my long reading list); and Dr. Irwin Redlener, the co-founder of the Children’s Health Fund, director of the National Center of Disaster Preparedness, and clinical professor of pediatrics at Columbia University. The audio and transcripts are there.

Listen to or read the interviews for some good discussion. I’ve been busy moving the past few days and haven’t had much time to write, but Hugh Hewitt’s interviews should keep you busy until I post more.

Supreme Court Overturns Ricci Case

The Supreme Court’s ruling Monday overturned the Ricci ruling that Sonia Sotomayor had supported. The opinion is here. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority.

The case is another in a long series of debates over the role of race in selection processes. The Court ruled on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but avoided the question of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Justice Sclalia, in a separate concurring opinion, wrote:

I join the Court’s opinion in full, but write separately to observe that its resolution of this dispute merely postpones the evil day on which the Court will have to confront the question: Whether, or to what extent, are the disparate-impact provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection?

[...]

To be sure, the disparate-impact laws do not mandate imposition of quotas, but it is not clear why that should provide a safe harbor. Would a private employer not be guilty of unlawful discrimination if he refrained from establishing a racial hiring quota but intentionally designed his hiring practices to achieve the same end? Surely he would. Intentional discrimination is still occurring, just one step up the chain. Government compulsion of such design would therefore seemingly violate equal protection principles.

[...]

The Court’s resolution of these cases makes it unnecessary to resolve these matters today. But the war between disparate impact and equal protection will be waged sooner or later, and it behooves us to begin thinking about how—and on what terms—to make peace between them.

Lyle Denniston’s analysis of the decision at SCOTUSblog is here, and George Will’s commentary is here. Both are worth reading. The White House is trying to say that the ruling shows that Sotomayor is an originalist, while Stuart Taylor explains that all the judges rejected Sotomayor’s position on the case (H/T Ed Morrissey).

That the Court overturned the decision as previously supported by Sotomayor should make her confirmation hearings even more interesting. Republicans can and should use those hearings as an opportunity to clearly distinguish between judicial originalism and activism.

Much of the controversy surrounding Sotomayor revolves around her racial comments and her record in cases involving racial discrimination. Her philosophy deserves attention and should be used as a teaching opportunity.