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Right must fight Round 2
Now for the counteroffensive. The House Republicans are pushing to repeal ObamaCare. While they will doubtless succeed in the House and either fail in the Senate or face an Obama veto, their decision to raise and debate the issue is a crucial one. As happened when it passed last year, ObamaCare will ignite a national controversy.
But are conservatives prepared to win the debate? When ObamaCare was being pushed through Congress by the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Obama and Emanuel, the right was galvanized. Rallies, demonstrations, town-hall forums, television ads, letters to the editor, television commentary — all bombarded the nation, emphasizing the faults of the bill. But now these voices are stilled, complacent, perhaps exhausted. Or are they intimidated by the liberal spin on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting that we all must lower our voices?
“Members of Congress know that their health insurance plan can’t deny coverage for their kids. Congressmen can rest assured that their insurance plan won’t drop their families if they get sick. The Affordable Care Act gave your family the same protections that members of Congress get. But Republicans want to take that protection away from your family. They want to put insurance companies back in charge. Call Congress. Tell them you deserve the same health insurance protection they get. Tell them: Don’t repeal the Affordable Care Act. You deserve the same health insurance protections as Congress.”
Where is the conservative reply? Where are the conservative voices? Could the opportunity to repeal ObamaCare give the left a chance to make its case without an answer?
Voters still oppose ObamaCare. The Rasmussen Poll has them backing repeal by 55-40. But if opponents of the program remain complacent, those numbers could change quickly.
Republicans need to remind America that the huge increases they are now paying in their health insurance are concrete evidence of the impact of the mandates in ObamaCare. They need to point out that the $500 billion of Medicare cuts are coming and that, already, reductions in physician fees are driving thousands of doctors to close their doors to Medicare patients. The Republicans need to explain how ObamaCare creates an entirely new entitlement and will swell the deficit.
Voters don’t buy the argument that ObamaCare will cut the deficit. According to Rasmussen, 45 percent say that repealing the program is more likely to cut the deficit, while 33 percent say leaving it on the books will be a better way to reduce it. Republicans need to underscore this linkage.
The larger point is that the new Republican House gives conservatives a chance to re-litigate the battles they lost in Congress in 2009 and 2010. At each turn, they need to re-fight the battle for public opinion and carry it each time. A president usually sets the agenda. But conservatives can keep the focus on the unpopular spending and legislation Obama jammed through a Democratic Congress by pushing for de-funding and repeal.
Republicans won’t get repeal. But they will be able to de-fund the program. They can block the IRS from enforcing the individual and employer mandates and can stop the Department of Health and Human Services from slicing $500 billion from Medicare and implementing healthcare rationing. But it will be a long fight. Republicans will have to demand these concessions as a prerequisite for approving the budget and perhaps even a debt-limit increase. They will need to stand their ground in the face of the hue and cry that they are being irresponsible and holding the nation hostage.
And they’ll need public opinion on their side!
They will need the Tea Party to get loud and conservative groups to start advertising. It’s the second round. A round the opponents of ObamaCare can win. But they mustn’t go to sleep. They need to wake up!
Morris, a former adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Outrage, Fleeced and Catastrophe. To get all of his and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by e-mail or to order a signed copy of their latest book, 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan, go to dickmorris.com.
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Comments (14)
The GOP must not back down and aggressively make the case about the devastating impacts of ObamaCare should it not be repealed in full.
And every time the Democrats lie about the GOP "denying care to children" the GOP should immediately hit back with the accurate claims that the ObamaCare has "death panels" that will pull the plug on our grandmothers.BY defund obamacare on 01/19/2011 at 12:11
"Voters don’t buy the argument that ObamaCare will cut the deficit." Imagine that, Mr. Morris! Unfortunately, economics is NOT a poll! And CBO? Most assuredly DOES argue that HR3590 cuts the deficit.
Mr. Morris? Can you explain on which page of ANY of the drafts of the legislation wrought over the longest debate in American Congressional history ever bore the term "Obamacare"? Hint: Zero. The term is a juvenile childish taunt, and you're riddled with it. Juvenility. Grow up, Mr. Morris. Wipe that petty smirk off your face, drop the "Oh, but RAAASmussen says"… and get real.BY Honest Abe on 01/19/2011 at 12:56
— Tort reform. We don't need attorneys and punitive damages to compensate patients for bad medical outcomes, and we can't afford the crushing costs of defensive medicine.
— Separate Health-Care Insurers from Health-Care Providers. Health maintenance is a responsibility of each individual adult, and can be achieved with minimal reliance upon health-care providers, in most cases, by a single check-up every year. There is no reason working adults above the poverty line should ask for, or expect government to pay for this cost. It is also reasonable and prudent to use tax-revenues to provide these relatively inexpensive services to those who cannot afford them, particularly their children.
— Let Health-Care Insurers do their job: provide responsible citizens who invest their time and money in preserving their good-health, with a means of pooling resources to provide for unpredictable medical catastrophe. Set standards for responsible health-preserving behaviors, and continuous participation in shared risk pools, as prerequisites to receiving coverage without regard to pre-existing conditions, and with reasonable limits on total benefits.
— Competition. Enable providers and insurers to compete across state boundaries, and define simple regulations for fair-trade practices which are objective and easily identified. Require providers to be publicly accountable for their pricing and performance using on-line patient forums, not burdensome paperwork and legions of bureaucrats to shuffle it.
Health-care in this country is not a right, it is our most expensive privilege, dependent upon our most sophisticated technology, and the best, brightest, and most hard-working professionals among us. It is not, and will not ever be within our means to supply it to everyone, and it, more than any other public service, depends upon the vitality of our economy, and acceptance by each of us of our responsibility to do all we can to preserve our good health. Unless each of us is truly at risk of dire consequences if we indulge in behaviors that compromise our health, experience shows that most of us will indulge, and then start looking around for someone to provide care when those consequences come true. One need look no further than the 30% of Americans who are clinically obese to see the proof of that. It is a fact of life: most of us simply can't afford to be fat, and yet many of us simply ignore the liability we create by indulging our appetites.
The exorbitant costs of health-care are a direct consequence of our unwillingness to take responsibility for our individual choices and behaviors. The assertion that health-care is "a right", and passing legislation which promises unlimited coverage to everyone is a natural lie, and a recipe for disaster for this country. The idea that we can blame and punish the doctors we rely upon, for every bad medical outcome, is a perversion of justice which is at the core of our exponentially increasing health-care costs. Legislation which codifies these ideas is pure demagoguery, which serves only the interests of a few opportunists who feed off it, at the expense of everyone else.
We are all adults, well aware of our mortality, capable of accepting the obligation to earn that which we consume, and taking responsibility for preserving our health. It's time we did so, and get about the task of re-tooling and repairing the finest health-care industry on Earth.BY cosmotopper777 on 01/20/2011 at 11:32
I am watching You and have to say - You have never been Right in anything.
How do they allow even to put Your crap in here?BY Linda, Fl on 01/21/2011 at 12:55
As for "cross state lines"—- I've before written AT GREAT LENGTH about why "cross state lines" is actually a HORRIFYING federal assault on states' individula sovereignty—- and will fail in the exact same way that allowing "cross state lines" failed the credit card industry—- or, rather—- failed the American consumer and SOLELY BENEFITTED the corporatist industry—- but feel free to look for sources yourself, or if you'd prefer: http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/02/18/selling-health-insurance-across-state-lines-won-t-work.htmlBY Honest Abe on 01/23/2011 at 01:15
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