Posted by Shyam Moondra
President Barack Obama and his team have badly stumbled on the health care proposal. Here are some observations:
· President Bill Clinton's health care proposal failed because the Clinton administration pretty much took over the job of writing the legislation and the Congress rebelled. This time, the Obama administration just outlined the key requirements and then became completely aloof from the process of writing the bill that was prepared by the members of the Congress with the help of lobbyists. This approach resulted in a draft bill riddled with loopholes diluting the reforms that were originally envisioned. Obama's lack of participation made him look like lacking leadership skills and it became impossible to have a unified message. The critics tore the plan apart, fueling a grass-root rebellion as witnessed at many town-hall meetings across the country.
· During the election campaign, Obama presented himself as a centrist, but the Democrat health care proposal in the House made it apparent that Obama is really a leftist in disguise. A vast majority of Americans are either at the center or slightly to the right of the center, so once it became clear that Obama was really a liberal, his support among the Democrat conservatives and Independents plummeted.
· During the depression of the 1930's, when people were suffering tremendously, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was able to push through his liberal agenda of starting new entitlement programs or creating what he called a "safety net." Some on the Obama team thought that, given the suffering among the masses because of the current financial crisis, they could push through a health care entitlement program costing $1 trillion for the first ten years. That approach seems to have backfired.
· Obama's superb speech making skills are not enough – he needs to be more hands-on. He needs to roll-up his sleeves and sit down with the Congressional leaders to hammer out the details of new bills rather than become completely detached from the whole process. In other words, he needs to do more walking than talking – people are tired of his speeches, press conferences, video blogs, and on-camera pronouncements.
The poor performance by the Obama team on the health care has far reaching consequences:
· Democrats could lose the control of the Senate and House in 2010, as happened during the Clinton's first term when his plan for universal health care coverage was rejected by the Congress. If Obama loses the support of Independents, he would not be able to win re-election in 2012, although it's too early to talk about that.
· Obama's other initiatives on climate change, education, regulatory reforms, energy independence, etc. may now be in jeopardy.
· If Obama is perceived as weak at home, it will embolden our adversaries abroad that would have negative security consequences for us and for our allies.
In general, the American people have the following core beliefs:
· They believe that the government is too inept to be able to run a program efficiently. Case in points, Amtrak and United States Postal Service – they both would go bankrupt if the government didn't bail them out. Even Medicare and Medicaid are fraught with corruption and fraud by service providers.
· The government can't be entrusted with their personal data and they would certainly not like the government to make any life and death decisions. The people simply don't like governmental intrusion in their personal lives, period.
· Those who work hard must be allowed to reap the fruits of their labor. They vehemently oppose the idea of government's taxing the rich and using that money to provide "free" services to the poor. They reject the idea of income re-distribution by the government in any form.
· They don't like a welfare state. The best thing that Clinton did was to dismantle the welfare programs that made many poor people too dependent on the government welfare checks, to the point that many poor people found it more profitable to remain unemployed. The American people oppose any Obama attempt to resurrect a welfare state.
So, where do we go from here?
· First, some changes within the White House are inevitable. To regain the trust of the American people, Obama needs to make personnel changes amongst the ranks of his advisors and perhaps some cabinet secretaries.
· Obama will be helped if the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is replaced. She is far more to the left than Obama is and that's a real political problem because most of the population is more centrist. It would also help if some of the committee chairpersons in the House and Senate are also replaced by more younger, energetic, and innovative leaders.
· Scrap the existing health care proposals and start all over. Obama needs to focus on reducing health care costs and reforming insurance abuses and guarding against their greed. Obama should refrain from proposing any new expenditures (the people are not at all in the mood of starting any new entitlement program when the budget deficits are running at record levels – if we ever become prosperous again, we can reconsider new health care expenditures at that time but not right now).
