Bring on the health care debate

January 19, 2006

I really didn’t think Dems were this lucky.

President Bush’s State of the Union address will attempt to shift focus from the polarizing war in Iraq to a more popular domestic priority: taming health care costs.

Facing congressional elections in November that could end Republican control on Capitol Hill, Bush is hoping his agenda will help his party at the ballot box.

Democrats say the president is undertaking a campaign to transfer much of the cost of health care to the consumer, which discourages people particularly the poor from seeking care they need.

Health insurance premiums are rising faster than inflation. The number of employers offering health coverage is dropping. The ranks of the uninsured are growing. These developments explain why health care is near the top of many Americans’ list of worries.

“The American people are very, very frustrated with the health care system, for good reason,” Al Hubbard, chairman of Bush’s National Economic Council, said Wednesday.

Let me get this straight — Bush wants to push health care to the top of the domestic agenda? In an election year? To borrow a phrase, bring it on.

We can talk about his HSA plan; implementation of his Medicare expansion; the deep cuts in health care spending for the poor; and the escalating number of uninsured that has gone up every year Bush has been in office.

Yes, by all means, let’s talk about health care.

This could be better than Social Security. Dems didn’t have to present an alternative plan, but with health care we’d want to.

  • The standard Rove tactic – attack your opponent’s strengths, rather than his weaknesses. This works in modern American politics because when the opponent rushes to defend his strengths, the media classify the whole thing as a “controversy”.

    So, when Democrats raise all the points CB lists – and accurately, Republicans will raise bogus counterarguments. And the media will call it the “health care controversy”. And voters, however mad they are about actual healthcare issues, will get confused, yawn, and either not vote, or vote for the incumbents.

    Democrats will keep falling into this trap as long as they respond with arguments. Arguments don’t work anymore. What’s needed are slogans, soundbites, and smear tactics. But Democrats don’t like getting their hands dirty with this stuff.

  • He can talk ’till his face turns blue, but he isn’t actually do anything about it. Of course this is a good thing because he and his administration are so monumentally incompetent that it would likely end up FUBAR.

  • It’s the republican version of a single-payer plan…..the single payer is YOU!.

    FEMAtized health care–it’s not just for poor black folks anymore.

  • “The American people are very, very frustrated with the health care system, for good reason,” Al Hubbard, chairman of Bush’s National Economic Council, said Wednesday.

    As one of those 40+ million Americans who doesn’t have health care, yeah I’m frustrated. It’s like not having eaten for a week and watching a buffet through the window.

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