Waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the Affordable Care Act has stalled meaningful discussion by the candidates about healthcare because the President considers healthcare done and Mitt Romney has promised to repeal Obamacare.
The void has been filled with schoolyard bickering that leaves me thinking, “BAM!” when a candidate takes a particularly good verbal shot at the other candidate. But is “BAM!” a basis for voting?
It’s time to regroup, for both sides. President Obama has veered onto a particularly chaotic course that is eroding both his “likability” and the smarts that came across when he campaigned for President the first time.
Here are some new and losing Obama approaches.
Losing Obama stance, the HE’S-RICHER-THAN-I-AM APPROACH: It’s curious that the President keeps arguing that Mitt Romney’s a rich guy in direct conflict to his man of the people persona. Mitt Romney is not less of a man of the people because he’s rich. After all, President Obama is also richer, a lot richer than most Americans.
It’s Mitt Romney’s statements that show a lack of awareness of how most people live where he’s vulnerable rather than his wealth.
Losing Obama stance, THE-MIDDLE-CLASS-IS-DOING-FINE APPROACH: When the President informed us that the middle class is doing fine it wasn’t simply a misspoken sentence as his fans claimed. In context when the President repeated this sentiment he connected those words to his push for jobs for civil servants. He even has an ad promoting the same and his weekly address pushed for the same.
President Obama is redefining the middle class as civil servants alienating the vast majority of Americans who are not civil servants. By redefining the middle class, his efforts are focused on this newly defined class of civil servants rather than the American middle class.
The reason for this push by the President is likely that the Federal government can impact government better than a loosely defined middle class of Americans by providing money to government for government which is what the jobs bill does, it provides money to state governments to build up their civil service middle class.
Unfortunately, most people don’t want more state-level civil servants any more than increased numbers of Federal civil servants.
In an America where the new mean-ing of being American means adjusting to scarcity, more civil servants is not a populist idea since our tax dollars pay for much of civil service salaries and because civil servants frequently fare better in terms of salary, job security and benefits than their tax-paying middle class counterparts and in many instances, better-educated peers who are unemployed or underemployed.
Losing Obama stance, the HE-OUTSOURCED-JOBS APPROACH: Bain Capital was a leader in outsourcing. OK. Is outsourcing worse than creating a whole new illegal class of employees competing with Americans who are out of work? That’s what the President has done with his Executive Order. He doesn’t need to legally outsource when he can with a sweep of the pen take away American jobs right here at home.
Losing Obama stance, the United States-Should-Not-Enforce-Its-Immigration-Laws-Using-Available-Tools-Such-As-E-Verify Approach. E-verify is around 94 percent effective. It is free for employers. Address a real part of the issue: It costs the United States money to deport people, estimated at around $9,000 per person deported by some estimates.
This makes the act of deporting an expense for government. By strengthening penalties against employers who hire illegal immigrants AND who did not use E-Verify with penalties that include that they pay the expense for deporting such individuals, the system stops losing money on deportation.
Why healthcare is different. The Affordable Care Act remains a great change in the laws regarding healthcare that attempts to address the real-world issues that have culminated in millions of uninsured as well as those who go bankrupt in spite of having insurance. While the healthcare law is flawed in serious ways, laws can legitimately be amended and portions of laws repealed legitimately, just take a look at the tax code.
The healthcare law is a legitimately passed law. Whether portions of it are stricken down is immaterial to its value as a change to a system that was not working. It’s OK to let Republicans argue that the old system was working or that the changes they would make to healthcare laws would be better, it makes them appear more out of touch than any single statement about Cadillacs ever could.
Let Republicans try to dupe Americans into believing that they want less government as they put forth how they will change laws of the land and then throw in the words “free market” like a magic amulet. There is no genuine free market in the US. We have an enormous Federal government and it doesn’t shrink regardless of who’s in the White House.
Let citizens who argue that they don’t want any part of the government continue to lobby and manipulate, fund-raise and use money to influence candidates desperate for their support in the hopes of getting laws passed that favor them continue to claim they’re pro “free market.” It’s this kind of irrational and hypocritical reasoning that helped the President get into the White House.
Healthcare reform may be subject to modification but President Obama has gotten the ball rolling in a way that promises to advance US standing in terms of life-expectancy (we’re currently 52nd in the world) by not bankrupting sick individuals. (Many of the countries ahead of the US in life expectancy have socialized medicine.)
Let Mitt Romney argue that tort reform (New laws? How’s that for free market?) will solve the problem even as factually malpractice insurance costs for physicians has dropped every year for six years and physician income still rises.
There are some questionable provisions in the Affordable Care that likely will be amended or repealed. It remains a stunning effort of how government can work in passing legislation that directly addresses an ongoing problem caused by runaway greed and legislation favoring industry over people.
Let Mitt Romney argue that corporations are people. If corporations are people then they have personal responsibility for hiring US citizens or face prosecution and fines or imprisonment. If corporations are people they should pay individual tax rates rather than seek tax breaks. The American landscape would vastly change if we treated corporations as people.
President Obama should regroup and replay his original campaign speeches and note his original campaign promises that sought to unite US citizens rather than divide them based on selective criteria.
