Obama's sound messaging on healthcare reform
President Obama and ABC’s Jake Tapper had a good back-and-forth at today’s Rose Garden presser. Tapper asked a tough question and the president gave a sound answer. I guess I was caught by it because right now I’m reading Eric Alterman’s Sound and Fury, a book which will make you desperate about the state of American journalism (if you already weren’t). So this is nice to see.
via Jonathan Cohn at TNR:
I thought the most interesting exchange came after ABC’s Jake Tapper asked a question about Obama’s pledge that nobody would have to give up their health insurance if reform passed. As Tapper explained,
if the government is offering a cheaper health care plan, then lots of employers will want to have their employees covered by that cheaper plan, which will not have to be for-profit, unlike private plans, and may, possibly, benefit from some government subsidies, who knows. And then their employees would be signed up for this public plan, which would violate what you’re promising the American people, that they will not have to change health care plans if they like the plan they have.
Tapper’s question was more narrow than it had to be. The real issue here isn’t simply about a public plan. If private plans made available through the insurance exchange are more financially attractive than the plans employers offer on their own, then you could have the same problem—people fleeing employer-sponsored covearge to opt for these new plans. And it’s always possible that if enough people leave an employer’s plan, that employer will stop offering it.
The issue is very much on the minds of Capitol HIll reformers. And while there are various ways to mitigate this problem—some better than others—over the long run it’s quite possible there’d be some, gradual migration from current employer plans over to plans offered through the exchange. (Again, that’s true whether or not there’s a public option in the exchange.)
But Obama gave what I considered the proper response, at least on substantive grounds: First, that nobody should have to give up their doctors and hospitals, which is what people care about most; second, that some people are going to lose current coverage because that’s how the system works now. Premiums are constantly going up, employers are constantly switching plans. The key is whether government makes that problem worse, either by hastening the shift or dumping people into inferior plans.
…there going to be employers right now, assuming we don’t do anything—let’s say that we take the advice of some folks who are out there and say, “Oh, this is not the time to do health care. We can’t afford it. It’s too complicated. Let’s take our time,” et cetera.
So let’s assume that nothing happened. I can guarantee you that there’s the possibility for a whole lot of Americans out there that they’re not going to end up having the same health care they have. Because what’s going to happen is, as costs keep on going up, employers are going to start making decisions. We’ve got to raise premiums on our employees. In some cases, we can’t provide health insurance at all.
And so there are going to be a whole set of changes out there. That’s exactly why health reform is so important.
For my own yeoman part, I think the president frames the issue in exactly the right way with this kind of answer. For one, he gets nearly all healthcare policyholders on board by raising the specter of costs rising to prohibitive levels. And then he nudges them down his path in arguing that because things are going to change so radically anyway, we might as well reform things to make that change a good one. Putting Americans and Congress in a mindset that change is inevitable not only will bolster the 72 percent majority that already favor healthcare reform, it takes away from the table those fringers who want to stall any attempt at reform. I’d score this one for the president.
