Will the new Dem attack on insurers save ObamaCare?
posted at 10:54 am on August 10, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
After seeing their mandate for health-care reform dissipate in a blizzard of CBO analyses showing the costs of ObamaCare and the resistance of Americans to give up choice in coverage, Democrats revamped their message in the last two weeks. Instead of calling their effort health-care reform, they began calling it health-insurance reform. Nancy Pelosi attacked the insurance industry as “villains,” while the White House’s Office For Astroturfing changed its flyers to reflect the new strategy.
Has it worked? Rasmussen says … no. In fact, voters fear government control more than insurers:
When it comes to health care decisions, 51% of the nation’s voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% hold the opposite view and fear the insurance companies more. Seven percent (7%) are not sure who they fear the most.
Among those who have insurance, 53% fear the government more than insurance companies while 39% take the opposite view. Those without insurance fear the insurance companies more.
Adults under 30 fear the insurance companies more while those in their 40s are evenly divided. However, a solid majority of those over 40 fear the government more.
The age demographics show a counter-intuitive result. The younger (and presumably healthier) one is, the easier it should be to get insured. The youngest demo, 18-29, fear insurers more by 51%-42%, but every demographic above them fears government control more. Voters 40-49 have the strongest majority, 60%-38%, but it’s worth noting that the Medicare set, voters 65 and over, also fears government more, 56%-33% — and they should know.
Independents mirror the overall result, 53%-41%, which shows the danger in pursuing this tactic for the Democrats. It may win them their base, but it will drive away the people who gave them their majorities in Congress if they continue to position themselves as supporters of government control of health coverage. They’re also going to damage themselves among the better educated, one of Obama’s natural constituencies, as solid majorities in college-educated voters fear government control more than the insurance companies.
Republicans and other opponents of ObamaCare have made the right decision in emphasizing its potential to turn into a single-payer system. Wide majorities across almost all demographics oppose a single-payer system in the US (57%-32%), and even large majorities and pluralities believe a single-payer system would both be more costly (45%-24%) and less effective (52%-13%). Emphasizing statements from Obama and his allies in Congress that show their desire to use ObamaCare as a Trojan horse to eliminate insurers will tap into those numbers and burden ObamaCare even further.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2
People should always maintain a healthy fear of the government. Power is seductive and we ignore that at our own risk.
chemman on August 10, 2009 at 11:57 AM
I don’t understand your post, Ed. Why would Obama want to put a Trojan on a horse? Do we have a horse population problem? Was this Michelle Obama’s idea?
Damn those evil horse insurance companies!
I’m so confused.
SKYFOX on August 10, 2009 at 11:58 AM
I’d probably use the term healthy respect rather than healthy fear. And, IMO, the root of the problems we see now are the rise of the political class who are jealous with keeping the power of elective office and make reelection more important than doing the right thing. Everybody knows what the real problems are (including social security, tort reform, etc.) but each problem comes with a long line of lobbyists and campaign contributors. Legislative gridlock results.
highhopes on August 10, 2009 at 12:03 PM
We have a golden opportunity to demonstrate to everyone in the United States that the current leadership of the democrat party CAN NOT GOVERN this country. They are nothing more than loud mouth cowards, trouble making, pot stirring, activists who can not make a decision. Their policies are a disaster. They have no ideas, no vision, no understanding. They can do nothing but stir up trouble, setting neighbor against neighbor, fueling race wars, class war, envy and resentment.
The democrats OWN the government, at all levels, local, state, federal; All branches of government, all the bureaucrats, all the media, the schools, even many voices within the business community. They can stuff the ballot boxes. They control vast, unimaginable amounts of money.
We conservatives are demonstrably a minority in this country. Poll after poll, conservatives are between 25-35 percent. The democrats have control of all the levers of power in this country YET THEY CAN NOT GOVERN IT.
Skandia Recluse on August 10, 2009 at 12:04 PM
I braved Linda Douglass’s section on “You can keep your health insurance”.
1) She never went to the written material to back up her statement.
2) She only showed clips of Obama saying we would be able to keep our insurance (an AARP audience- I wonder why he said that)
3)She says we “cobbled” together words or tapes of Obama distorting what he said about wanting single-payer. Ed or AP already exploded that myth by running the entire clip of his wanting to go to single payer 10-15-20 years down the road after the Dems get control of Congress and the WH.
I don’t know if I want to check the others. Blood pressure rising. I have to find a new home project. More paint, definitely more painting….
journeyintothewhirlwind on August 10, 2009 at 12:04 PM
beware when bambi says that you can keep your current ins. well, you can. but if you change jobs or your insurance company changes for any reason, you cannot go out & shop insurance companies.
at that point, you can only go with the govt. plan. essentially, this bill runs all the current insurees off the books at some point.
sooooo. how will the ins. companies make money you wonder? i wonder that too. they must be in bed with bambi.
kelley in virginia on August 10, 2009 at 12:07 PM
The absolute ignorance portrayed by Pelosi and the rest of the usual suspects is appalling.
And they expect, fully expect, that the absolute ignorance of a preponderant portion of the population will enable them to pass legislation, unseen, unread, with the promise that such will benefit all Americans. And that is appalling in itself.
Talk to yuor friends, family members, co-workers…help them learn, understand and comprehend what the 111th Congress and the Obama Administration are attempting to do…reshape the United States. Reshape it to their idea of a Utopian dream. Reshape it despite it being antithesis to everything that is American, and contrary to the Principles of our Founding Fathers and our Founding documents.
In essence they are well into the process of destroying the United States and building something more akin to national socialism.
Unless you, and I, and everyone we know is able to digest what the 111th Congress and the Obama Administration plan for America…I fear it will pass, voted on in the dark of night, citizens physically prevented from access to any and all legislation, or be inacted via Executive fiat from the White House.
If you love this nation, do not sit by and watch. Get involved. Help educate your friends and family members, neighbors and co-workers. Attend town hall meetings. Write, email, fax or call your members of Congress, regardless of Party, and let them know what you believe.
The 111th Congress is at a tipping point. If Pelosi and the usual suspects are permitted to rule unfettered the end result will not be the America you thought you knew.
If we can stop them, now, today, make their return to Washington from the August recess something looking like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow…we can save this Nation.
But don’t sit along the sidelines…get involved. You owe it to your kids and grand kids.
coldwarrior on August 10, 2009 at 12:12 PM
Look at this BS:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/
izoneguy on August 10, 2009 at 12:21 PM
Figures, they’re the same wide-eyed idiots that brought Barry’s pablum hook, line and sinker. Just another example of our education system providing youth with the tools to succeed in life.
GarandFan on August 10, 2009 at 12:24 PM
LOL. They are going to make everything better, cheaper, and more available, while maintaining medical research that is currently done for the profit in the US system and covering everyone who steps foot on American soil – all through government stewardship. What a joke. They might as well claim that people will be able to fly like birds.
The left love trying to sell their perpetual motion machines.
progressoverpeace on August 10, 2009 at 12:26 PM
And all of it paid by our tax dollars.
coldwarrior on August 10, 2009 at 12:27 PM
And yet these very same fools voted 55/45 for the party that has repeatedly said they will implement single payer.
Conclusion: Americans have no idea what they want.
angryed on August 10, 2009 at 12:28 PM
WHY is no one talking about Oregon – government run healthcare – rationing – assisted suicide – it’s all already happening.
http://speakmymindblog.com/2009/07/27/birthers-its-not-just-about-kenya/
sherryande on August 10, 2009 at 12:30 PM
sorry wrong link………
http://speakmymindblog.com/2009/08/10/oregon-health-plan-ohp-a-peek-into-the-future-of-obamacare/
sherryande on August 10, 2009 at 12:31 PM
Yes, they should know. And Medicare is very popular.
This poll is pretty silly. It should just be transparent and ask “Are you more afraid of the devil you know or the devil you dont?” Why would you put a term like “fear” in this poll anyway? That obviously skews things towards a right-wing talking point.
orange on August 10, 2009 at 12:31 PM
I prefer gridlock to freewheeling toward destruction.
ROCnPhilly on August 10, 2009 at 12:34 PM
I seem to recall that the Demon-crat congress just passed a bill spending $200 million or so for the preservation of Mustangs (horses, not the cars).
So, the horse problem is now completely fixed. Thank you, Nancy and Harry, and you to, Dear Leader.
TXUS on August 10, 2009 at 12:35 PM
Funny you should say that. I theorize that as government becomes more powerful and diverges from reality, those who think like the nuts in government, becoming adept at learning and exploiting the bureaucracy, actually get ahead in society. “Survival of the fittest” implies superiority in one’s environment. It’s a perverse view of Darwinism, but damn if it doesn’t seem intuitively true.
ROCnPhilly on August 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM
I “trust” those who I can sue if things don’t work out right. According to HR 3200, there will be “no judicial review” against the government. I realize that litigation runs up the cost of healthcare but if you know that I can sue you, you’re a lot more careful. If I have no recourse, you can do whatever according to your own morals/conscience or lack of them.
mph on August 10, 2009 at 1:08 PM
Every time I hear the name Nancy Pelosi, I am reminded it’s time to “drain the swamp” of the subspecies that comprises our current Congress!
Sweet_Thang on August 10, 2009 at 1:48 PM
Insurance Co’s are breaking the economy!!!!!!!!!!
But But If you like yours you can keep it?????? WTF
Rick007 on August 10, 2009 at 2:02 PM
(1) The cost-management assertions are completely implausible from a policy standpoint. CBO shows costs breaking out again in a very serious way starting in decade 2 of the program. And there’s little to nothing in the way of institutional reform or policy in here to make even the first ten years look reasonable.
(2) If you buy the Democrats’ conflation of health insurance and health care, then you’re talking about allowing 47 million people to effectuate a demand for health care under Obamacare who currently can’t. I don’t care what scale effects there are on costs, there is simply no way the transacted price goes down with that kind of rightward shift in the demand schedule.
DrSteve on August 10, 2009 at 2:10 PM
You understand. Now get everyone you know to understand as well.
Obamacare is not about health care, it is about breaking the back of the private insurance industry in America. Obama says one thing, knowing it is an outright lie, then Pelosi comes along and demonizes the insurance companies so when they are driven to bankruptcy, government will take them all over and convert it all to single payer, and it will be more “acceptable” to the general public because Pelosi has primed everyone with these denunciations of the insurance companies.
coldwarrior on August 10, 2009 at 2:11 PM
(3) Anything that leaves open the door for an operating subsidy for the public option can kill the private insurance industry. If you’re in charge of setting premia for the public option and you know you can operate at a loss, you can undercut your competitors. We can’t even seem to get rid of the operating subsidy for Amtrak, for goodness’ sakes.
(4) The implicit or explicit possibility of a government bailout for the public option (even if there is no yearly operating subsidy) means their cost of capital will be materially discounted.
(5) There are other discounts available to the public options for which there will never be a public accounting — such as the cross-subsidization of government patients at the level of individual medical offices and practices.
DrSteve on August 10, 2009 at 2:16 PM
Not just that, but the government is setting regulations for the private plans – and will be forcing all sorts of idiocy on them. The way the dems keep hammering that people shouldn’t be turned away for pre-existing conditions means that they are going to force private plans to do away with any consideration fo pre-existing conditions, which is a signal that private plans will be run into bankruptcy by sick people jumping on when they need expensive care. This would be like forcing life insurance plans not to take age into account for assessing their premiums.
progressoverpeace on August 10, 2009 at 2:26 PM
All this says is that the younger demographic is pro-gov’t and likely doesn’t understand insurance. Conservatism may die with Millenials.
MajorKong on August 10, 2009 at 2:43 PM
Young people are used to be taken care of, they see the government as Mommy. That will change as they get older.
Terrye on August 10, 2009 at 4:21 PM
MajorKong:
I am not so sure about that. Young people always feel that way, whatever the generation.
Terrye on August 10, 2009 at 4:22 PM
It also says class warfare as a disgusting political strategy works to an extent and average Americans better start opposing it more fervently. The left wants to destroy capitalism piece by piece.
mike_NC9 on August 10, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2