The Bubble lives

February 22, 2007

I read the transcript of the president’s “roundtable on health care initiatives” held at the Chattanooga Convention Center yesterday, and was amazed at how well the participants stayed on message. There was the uninsured father of two who really loved the idea of the president’s idea of changing the tax code to help the uninsured. There was the uninsured office manager with a pre-existing condition who thinks Bush’s policies would address all of her problems. There was the uninsured lamp salesperson who can’t afford her deductibles and believes the president’s idea would get her exactly what she needs.

In each instance, Bush seemed to know quite a bit about these people before they even shared their personal stories. It was almost as if the president had been … I don’t know … briefed somehow on what these people were going to say.

I think there are three angles to consider here. The first, of course, is the substance of Bush’s standard-deduction proposal itself.

Many health economists say they think Bush is overstating the impact of the tax code changes, but they say he might have a bigger bang if he were to give low-income people tax credits to buy insurance, an idea the White House considered and rejected. A study released this week by the Community Research Council of Chattanooga concluded that very few of the uninsured in Hamilton County, which includes Chattanooga and its suburbs, make enough money to benefit under the current Bush plan.

In an interview, Bredesen said he is glad that Bush is starting to tackle health care more seriously but voiced doubts about the tax elements. “I get less excited about the tax deduction stuff because there are a lot of people . . . for whom that’s not going to make a difference,” he said. […]

The president’s plan is for “every individual on their own,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “He does nothing to control costs and he does nothing to expand the number of insured. Other than that, it is incredibly helpful.”

The second was how yesterday’s event was put together.

The participants had been carefully selected, the tone was confessional, and the president, describing himself as the “educator in chief,” sounded more like talk-show host in chief.

It’s obviously expected at this point, but there’s going to come a time, hopefully in 2009, when a president will be willing to interact with regular Americans to discuss a policy matter with people who haven’t been “carefully selected.” We’ll have grown so accustomed to Bush, chances are, we’ll find this odd, instead of routine.

And third, is it me, or is it rather startling to think the White House would try to pivot away from discussing foreign policy and towards health care?

Considering the president’s public standing, Bush is in quite a bind — he has a choice of addressing a series of issues on which he’s either unpopular or incredibly unpopular.

Everything that’s wrong with modern America can be summed up by the idea of George W. F*ckin’ Bush as “educator-in-chief.”

  • T Paine goes too far (by about 4 words). Even more accurate to simply say “Everything that’s wrong with modern America can be summed up by the idea of George W. F*ckin’ Bush”

  • There will never be true health care reform until the private insurance companies are removed from the picture. Their loyalties are to their shareholders, for whom they must maximize profits. They do so by either refusing to insure people who are ill, or offering to insure them for a premium that is so high that few can afford it. And let us not forget all the large salaries and bonuses earned by insurance company executives, which are paid by premium dollars. We can’t expect Bush or his Republican cronies to acknowledge that the root of the health insurance crisis is the presence of the health insurance companies; all we can expect to hear from them is their universal solution to any problem: TAX CUTS.

  • Not just insurance companies, drug companies and doctors are also getting rich from the current system. Not to mention lawyers because lawsuits are the only way to redress problems. The problem with the current system is greed, all the people and corporations currently getting rich are willing to let the whole country collapse economically as long as they get to keep an obscenely large share of the corpse.

  • “In each instance, Bush seemed to know quite a bit about these people before they even shared their personal stories. It was almost as if the president had been … I don’t know … briefed somehow on what these people were going to say.”

    Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Bush brought the Reagans’ old astrologer back to the White House, and she was talking to him through that microphone-thingy he wore during the 2004 debates.

  • “Bubble” is too nice of a term for these people. Think of bubles: kid’s fu, clear floating, you know, nice images.
    As it was mentioned in comments few days ago, I think the term “nutshell” is far more appropriate. Opaque, hard to crack, and includes the word nut, describing for what Little Georgie really is.

  • Hard to believe that even now the Bush mob thinks that these phony events will change anyone’s mind.

    Note to the White House: We know these things are fake. We know the participants are either reading from a script or are so totally braindead that they’ll parrot anything you tell them to. The country is not fooled. Stop wasting our time.

  • What is interesting about these healthcare tax initiatives is that they are consistent with other Republican tax-based “solutions”. They merely reward the current conduct of higher-income taxpayers. Perhaps instead of tax-deductions they should be considered non-means tested government benefits.

    Making healthcare insurance premiums tax deductible for people that do not obtain work-based benefits offers a tax deduction for people that are currently paying their premiums with after-tax dollars. Similarly, so-called Medical Savings Accounts merely allow individuals to create tax-free savings accounts and pay with after-tax dollars medical expenses that they had formerly paid with pre-tax dollars.

    This is analagous to allowing tax deductions for for private school tutition to taxpayers. These taxpayers have already made the choice to pay privately. They do not need, or should they get, IMO, incentives. These deductions are merely a reward to the consitutency,

  • …the uninsured father…the uninsured office manager…the uninsured lamp salesperson—it’s literally Orwellian; three “ducks” giving testimony to the glorious Napoleon, the Dear Leader of “Animal Farm.”

    This was just so-ooo staged….

  • “This is analagous to allowing tax deductions for for private school tutition to taxpayers. These taxpayers have already made the choice to pay privately.” — Quantum11

    Looking at this as a simple matter of “choice” ignores the effect of private schools on public education funding. Families paying private tuition still contribute to public schools through taxes but do not use the service to which they are entitled, thus reducing public schooling costs. In effect, private school families are subsidizing everyone else’s taxes.

    (As an aside, private tuition represents a substantial sacrifice for many families who are not particularly well-off, but for one reason or another, have determined that the local public school is not a viable option for their children).

    The redistribution of costs, inherent unfairness and complexity of what we mistakenly call our healthcare “system” vastly exceeds anything that goes on in education.

    Certainly, GOP ideology that favors more for those who have in a survival of the richest will not lead to an answer. But neither will the status quo, which is what you seem to be advocating, unless you truly feel that healtcare coverage is a “choice.”

    • Comments are closed.