We're way past the "not one dime to the deficit" mirage and the manufactured CBO score games, so why not just rack up an even bigger tab? Here's the Senate Majority Leader trying to lay the Obamacare "train wreck" at the feet of a party that didn't cast a single vote for the law, in the context of demanding more funding for the multi-trillion-dollar behemoth:
Where to begin? First, notice how these problems are never, ever the fault of the disastrous law itself. No, it's always the Republicans' fault -- or the public's, for not properly understanding how great the new program really is. President Obama effectively advanced the latter argument at his Tuesday press conference:Ninety percent of you rubes are already enjoying the wonders of my munificence, even if you're too dense to realize it. Thus, now we're back to Democrats lamenting their inability to "tell better stories" or whatever, even though they've had the presidential bully pulpit for five years, and a generally pliant media running interference for them. We're informed that a law whose price tag has already doubled -- and is likely to rise even further -- requires additional taxpayer dollars to finance yet another PR campaign for itself. But weren't Obamacare's provisions going to convince us all, just as soon as it was fully implemented? Lower premiums! Reduced deficits! Cost curve down! Keep your plan! Plenty of doctors! None of that is actually happening, though, so the only conceivable solution is to appropriate more money to temporarily prop up public perceptions for awhile. "Re-education" funds, as Kathleen Sebelius might call them. Nevertheless, no amount of slick advertising can erase what evenelected Democrats and mainstream journalists can see with their own two eyes. (Part-time worker? Sorry, bud). Empirical results are almost irrelevant to the party of "science." Case in point: A hot-off-the-presses landmark study on Medicaid, the results of which are devastating to government healthcare cheerleaders:
In a sane political world populated by quasi-rational actors, this research would be a true game-changer. Here we have solid, methodologically-sound evidence that an enormously expensive government program -- Medicaid -- is failing to improve health outcomes for low income Americans, compared to being uninsured. Which is the entire point of the program. It turns out that Medicaid recipients also aren't cutting down on hospital and emergency room visits, another favored talking point for universal coverage. The primary difference between beneficiaries and their uninsured counterparts is that the former group uses healthcare services more, thus raising expenditures. One of this study's co-authors just happens to be a key designer of Obamacare (MIT's Jon Gruber), so this can't be written off some right-wing hatchet job, either. The new program Gruber helped create calls for the massive expansion (by 11 million people) of an old program that Gruber has now determined doesn't work. Ta-da! Liberal activists and journalists, meanwhile, are feverishly churning out copy to distortthe results and salvage what they can from this catastrophic blow. Be sure to check out Avik Roy's must-read piece that methodically rebuts apologists' straw-grasping. But will this data earthquake impact actual policy one wit? I'm afraid Allahpundit may be right:
Ultimately, the "party of ideas" is about one idea: Statism. The inefficacy of government programs -- no matter how thoroughly demonstrated -- simply isn't enough to pull the plug (eg: Head Start, the unkillable federal Helium Project, etc). Which is why it'll be full speed ahead on Medicaid expansion in blue (and some red) states, amidst calls to spend millions more on applying lipstick to the Obamacare pig. It's for our own good, you see; we just don't understand well enough yet.
Where to begin? First, notice how these problems are never, ever the fault of the disastrous law itself. No, it's always the Republicans' fault -- or the public's, for not properly understanding how great the new program really is. President Obama effectively advanced the latter argument at his Tuesday press conference:Ninety percent of you rubes are already enjoying the wonders of my munificence, even if you're too dense to realize it. Thus, now we're back to Democrats lamenting their inability to "tell better stories" or whatever, even though they've had the presidential bully pulpit for five years, and a generally pliant media running interference for them. We're informed that a law whose price tag has already doubled -- and is likely to rise even further -- requires additional taxpayer dollars to finance yet another PR campaign for itself. But weren't Obamacare's provisions going to convince us all, just as soon as it was fully implemented? Lower premiums! Reduced deficits! Cost curve down! Keep your plan! Plenty of doctors! None of that is actually happening, though, so the only conceivable solution is to appropriate more money to temporarily prop up public perceptions for awhile. "Re-education" funds, as Kathleen Sebelius might call them. Nevertheless, no amount of slick advertising can erase what evenelected Democrats and mainstream journalists can see with their own two eyes. (Part-time worker? Sorry, bud). Empirical results are almost irrelevant to the party of "science." Case in point: A hot-off-the-presses landmark study on Medicaid, the results of which are devastating to government healthcare cheerleaders:
In a sane political world populated by quasi-rational actors, this research would be a true game-changer. Here we have solid, methodologically-sound evidence that an enormously expensive government program -- Medicaid -- is failing to improve health outcomes for low income Americans, compared to being uninsured. Which is the entire point of the program. It turns out that Medicaid recipients also aren't cutting down on hospital and emergency room visits, another favored talking point for universal coverage. The primary difference between beneficiaries and their uninsured counterparts is that the former group uses healthcare services more, thus raising expenditures. One of this study's co-authors just happens to be a key designer of Obamacare (MIT's Jon Gruber), so this can't be written off some right-wing hatchet job, either. The new program Gruber helped create calls for the massive expansion (by 11 million people) of an old program that Gruber has now determined doesn't work. Ta-da! Liberal activists and journalists, meanwhile, are feverishly churning out copy to distortthe results and salvage what they can from this catastrophic blow. Be sure to check out Avik Roy's must-read piece that methodically rebuts apologists' straw-grasping. But will this data earthquake impact actual policy one wit? I'm afraid Allahpundit may be right:
Ultimately, the "party of ideas" is about one idea: Statism. The inefficacy of government programs -- no matter how thoroughly demonstrated -- simply isn't enough to pull the plug (eg: Head Start, the unkillable federal Helium Project, etc). Which is why it'll be full speed ahead on Medicaid expansion in blue (and some red) states, amidst calls to spend millions more on applying lipstick to the Obamacare pig. It's for our own good, you see; we just don't understand well enough yet.
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