The ObamaCare Copperheads : If the Law is Now Such a Success, Why are Senate Democrats Still Fleeing?
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304886904579473532432749404?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno64-wsj
Suddenly ObamaCare is a roaring success, happy days are here again and liberals are euphoric, or claim to be. There are more than a few reasons to doubt this new fairy tale, not least the behavior of Senate Democrats running for re-election this year.
In the Rose Garden Tuesday, President Obama reported that 7.1 million people had signed up so far, confirming a Monday night White House news leak. “That doesn’t mean all our health-care problems have been solved forever,” he conceded with customary modesty. The government appears to have tapped heretofore-unknown reserves of bureaucratic efficiency by releasing numbers timed to this campaign-style pep rally.
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks on the Affordable Care Act with Vice President Joe Biden in the Rose Garden. Getty Images
Yet for months the Health and Human Services Department has refused to disclose crucial contextual data, such as how many insurance contracts are in force, the market-by-market totals and how many beneficiaries were previously covered. Regardless of your partisan sympathies, the White House’s selective disclosure is a crime against transparency and accountable government.
Then there are the 12 Democratic Senators up for re-election who each cast the decisive 60th vote for ObamaCare. They’re acting as if the law is still a political threat, and presumably their polls say as much. The ObamaCare Dozen have tried to create an alibi by saying the plan isn’t perfect but mend it don’t end it. They’ve now proposed some concrete fixes, and they must think their constituents aren’t paying attention.
Courtesy of Democrats like Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Warner of Virginia, the big idea is to create a cheaper, worse type of coverage on the ObamaCare exchanges. All current plans are more or less interchangeable because of the law’s benefit and wealth redistribution mandates. They differ based mainly on how much of the upfront cost is built into the premium, with tiers known as platinum, gold, silver and bronze.
The Senators want to create a new “copper” policy that would cover 50% of average medical expenses with the rest out of pocket. Are people really clamoring for even higher ObamaCare deductibles? A true fix would deregulate the exchanges and trust American consumers to choose the benefits they want or need, rather than forcing them to pay slightly less for one uniform standard. These mandates were determined via HHS administrative discretion, not by the statute or written by a finger of light.
The Democratic fixers also want to ask state insurance commissioners “to develop models for states to sell heath insurance across state lines” and “discern the benefits and challenges of selling health insurance in this manner.” In other words, ask local regulators how much of their vast new ObamaCare powers they want to give up in the name of national competition. Predetermined answer: None.
The Senators also want more money for co-ops, or the insurance start-ups funded with federal loans that are a Solyndra-like fiscal fiasco in the making. Co-ops in Maryland, Michigan, Illinois and elsewhere are barely afloat financially, while Vermont’s has already dissolved. Congress defunded the balance of the original appropriation for the program last year in the fiscal-cliff deal, and now the fixers want to repeal this repeal.
But even writing about the substance is taking this too seriously because the Democrats who run the Senate have no plans to give any of it a vote. Majority Leader Harry Reid is never going to allow even a floor debate that would feature Democrats trashing a White House priority or that Republicans could use to push for other fixes. Ms. Landrieu also better get moving, because insurers are already developing plans for 2015 and rates are due later this spring.
In an op-ed for Politico, Ms. Landrieu and Senate co-authors wrote, “let’s stop trying to score political points by turning up the rhetoric and instead roll up our sleeves and get to work.” But the fix-it ploy is all about political points, a way for these Democrats to distance themselves from ObamaCare while still embracing it. The only way their constituents can truly mend the problems their Senators voted to create is by defeating them in November.
Comments are closed.
