Obama's speech: What was (re)said, and what's to come

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

http://blog.buzzflash.com/carpenter/489

Well, that's done, and it was done well. But except for a Republican's moronic outburst -- I guess it's true, these people really can't help themselves, like fidgety toddlers in church or incoherently yakkety old guys in nursing homes -- in general we heard nothing new; no new, major delineations, which in any event Congress can and likely will mutilate in conference.

That's what had me puzzled days before his speech to the joint session of Congress. We were told the president would swoop into chambers and for the first time get "specific" and lay down markers, since merely one of health-care reform's many immense problems was that the public knew not what the president wanted. And, it's true, he gave us plenty of what he wants. For the already insured:

Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. [I]t will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses.... And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care.

Marvelous. Yet you may recall that way back in July the president announced an equally specific eight-point plan designed to persuade the presently insured of reform's advisability. He called for outlawing the imposition of exclusionary preexisting conditions; for outlawing the dropping of the ill's coverage; for outlawing arbitrary caps on coverage; for outlawing extravagant out-of-pocket expenses; and for guaranteeing inexpensive preventive care.

Filling out his eight-plan plan were "guaranteed insurance renewal," "no gender discrimination," and "extended coverage for young adults."

OK. Again, all quite marvelous. But these are specifics the public already knew -- rather, specifics they would have known if they'd been paying attention. Will they pay any more attention this time? Will they even be permitted? Which is to say, What fresh Republican hells will the media obsessively cover as September's equivalents to August's disgraceful town halls?

The public, by and large, wants jolly-good entertainment and low drama and partisan food-fights, not dry information. And the media are nothing if not willing to please.

So next, one imagines, will come endless speculations about jackbooted government-"mandate" goons descending on rugged American individualists who only wish to be left alone with their flag, mother, and her special Sunday pie. Yet more Congressional Democrats will then run for cover, and actuarial benefits of risk-spreading and cost-containment will be apocalyptically excised.

That, anyway, is my guess. A Congressional rumble over mandated coverage could very well dwarf its internal bickering over a public option. The latter would be statutorily restricted to less than five percent of the American population, while the former would be statutorily required of virtually all the vastly more sizable balance.

And as for that public option, once again, we heard nothing new. Rather, what we heard was a reiteration of Obama's famous pragmatic progressivism, or, as some would prefer to reverse it, his notorious progressive pragmatism. Accordingly, the key passage was this:

"[The public option] should not be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles. To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it."

Those words transcended mere rhetoric; and they betrayed far more than just self-defensiveness. They were, instead, a statement of plain, simple, empirical and indisputable American historical fact.

In our roughly free-market society, universal coverage has dominated for a century as the progressive ideal. Many -- and I'm one of them -- have strongly preferred a single-payer system, but universal coverage has always loomed as the more critical objective. You can scour every progressive speech ever delivered on the subject of American health care and nine times out of 10 that's what you'll find.

So again, nothing new. (If any part of that objective, as stated last night, is to be legitmately attacked, it's the likely insufficient $900 billion price tag which Obama attached.) 

What will be new, however, what we do have to look forward to, is more ingenious right-wing and Blue Dog and New Democrat inventiveness in assaulting that monstrous socialistic wraith of egalitarianism: universal health-care coverage. My fingers tremble just typing those words: Oh, the horror of it all.

 

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THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter