JONATHAN COHN JANUARY 12, 2011
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
House Republicans have postponed their vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act until next week, because of the Arizona shooting. And even when that debate resumes, Jennifer Haberkorn and Carrie Budoff Brown report in Politico today, the House Republicans will likely adopt a more measured tone. They won’t change their position on the issue itself. They remain committed to total repeal. But the Republican insiders that Haberkorn and Brown interviewed seem to think Republicans would talk in less dramatic and emotional terms, on the assumption that the country has less appetite for such rhetoric in the wake of the weekend's tragedy.
I have no idea whether those insiders are right. But if they are – and if Republicans focus more on actual policy details, as the insiders predict – I wonder whether the repeal movement will start to lose some of its political strength. By and large, the actual policies in the Affordable Care Act remain popular, in some cases very popular. People overwhelmingly support requirements that prohibit insurers from excluding people with pre-existing conditions or that offer consumers the right to appeal treatment denials. Small businesses appreciate tax credits to help buy coverage and seniors like extra money for prescription drugs.
So why, then, is the bill not more popular now? Why do almost half of respondents in most polls say they want to repeal the measure, even though the number drops dramatically once people learn what’s actually in the bill? Part of the reason, I think, is the emotional, apocalyptic rhetoric some conservatives and Republicans have used to describe it. They’ve been arguing that the bill will do more than simply take some money out of Medicare or require people to get insurance -- features that voters, particularly the elderly, genuinely dislike. They've said it will impose socialism, bring on tyranny, and create death panels to deny care to people deemed less worthwhile. And while not all Republicans are saying these things, obviously, neither the party's leaders nor its elder statesmen have disavowed the rhetoric. On the contrary, they have in many cases adopted it as their own.
Whatever the overall impact of these attacks, they have whipped the Republican base into a frenzy over health care reform. And that frenzy, amplified through the right-wing noise machine, has in turn helped to prop up the repeal movement. To be clear, I genuinely hope Republicans do alter their rhetoric, not least because they have been so blatantly dishonest about what the Affordable Care Act actually does. But if they do change, I suspect they’ll find their cause loses at least a little bit of its urgency and maybe quite a lot.
8 comments
Once you are no longer denouncing "Soviet gulag-style socialism" (Rep. John Shadegg, R-AZ), there's not much more you can do to keep the temperature high.
- timteeter
January 12, 2011 at 12:30pm
"not least because they have been so blatantly dishonest about what the Affordable Care Act actually does." Well, it can be difficult to keep promoting untrue propaganda once the reality becomes clear. Eventually Jon Stewart comes out and calls your bluff.
- AllanL5
January 12, 2011 at 12:56pm
Dear Jon: As you well know the insurance companies will be fighting to keep the individual mandate, but to weaken the good stuff notably the limited versions of community rating and guarantee issue, as well as anti-recision, limits on medical expense ratio etc. Despite the current conservative rhetoric, there is almost no chance that there will be any roll back of just the individual mandate (and if there were, as a single payer guy I would support it). After the kabuki theater of "repeal" ends, watch for the corporate PR playbook (per Wendell Potter) playout: The Corporate/Republican PR campaign after repeal fails will be: - "We tried but those bad Dems wouldn't let us. - "Here are the common sense reforms or fixes we need (and stand-alone individual mandate repeal won't be one of them). - We willl need a "common sense market based approach" - We will need "Benefit design flexibility" - That bad government take-over Obamacare is too inflexible, to much one size fits all, we need more benefit flexibility, market flexibilty. And they will probably get enough support from corporate dems to undo some of the good stuff. What it play out Goal: - Get rid of community rating & guarantee issue - Divide young vs. old (why should young pay more to cover old)
- DrSteveB
January 12, 2011 at 1:18pm
Also, in further weakening community rating they will play the young against the old (why should the young pay more to cover the old? Also against the sick. Why should the virtuous healthy (they will say) pay more to cover those bad people who get themselves sick (oveerweight, drugs, alcohol, poor, whatever).
- DrSteveB
January 12, 2011 at 1:21pm
I am not holding my breath ... I've seen enough of the nutjobs to doubt any civility will last more than a few weeks. For pete's sake ... Limbaugh has already accused the Democrats of wanting to save Loughner from the death penalty, Glenn Beck has imagined a scenario in which the death of Sarah Palin would be the end of the Republic ... and no matter what Republican politicians say, ultimately, they're led by the nose by those two evil men and their ilk. I wish it weren't so, and hope for a day when the temperature goes down in our public discourse, but, as I said, not holding my breath.
- NR409654
January 12, 2011 at 2:05pm
Well, then, Jonathan comes the flip side of the argument -- that if you say that the PPACA is the second coming of Karl Marx, totalitarianism, communism, or whatever, what principles do you have if you don't do everything in your power and your being reverse the law? How can you give up so easily if you believe the PPACA forces people to suffer the way people did in totalitarian, communist, etc. states? If you give up so easily, why should the public believe that you take governing seriously?
- jimbomoron
January 12, 2011 at 5:01pm
Maybe short-term, kinder-gentler will be the rule of the day. But if no repeal is forthcoming (as it won't), by about summer, the hysterics meter will be turned up to 11 and the conservative freak-out will continue. After hearing the constant refrain from the GOP about the "Job-killing health care reform bill", why don't the Dems throw it back in their face by talking about the "people killing repeal"? Right now this is probably too incendiary and won't fly in the aftermath of the Giffords shooting. However, unlike the GOP's mantra, although it may be incendiary, at least it's true.
- RobertW
January 12, 2011 at 6:48pm
Boehner claims that employers will not hire employees because the employees must have health insurance, even though there are credits and subisidies for small companies. I thought we were losing factories to Canada because of the cost of health insurance. Anyway, the argument, and that is all it is really, seems not to have been addressed.
- Nusholtz
January 12, 2011 at 9:02pm