Health Care Fight: No Echoes of Bush Social Security Debacle
On Monday, the AP portrayed President Obama's struggle to pass health care reform as the second coming of George W. Bush's unpopular and ultimately disastrous attempt to privatize Social Security. But while man each left the bill crafting to Congress and faced a growing backlash from frightened American seniors, the parallels end there. Democratic health care proposals, including the public option centerpiece, have maintained broad popular support while voters never trusted Bush or his party when it came to Social Security. As for the elderly, they feared privatization with good reason.
Even before Barack Obama took the oath of office, Republican water carriers like Bill Kristol made clear the party should and would repeat its successful 1993/4 effort to block health care reform at all costs. (The $787 billion stimulus bill was a warning sign; Obama like Clinton before him received zero votes from the House GOP for his economic recovery package.)
Nevertheless, the AP insisted, "Health Care Fight: Echoes of Bush, Social Security":
President Barack Obama's health care initiative is repeating history. No, not the failed attempt by President Bill Clinton in 1993. Right now, Obama's troubled plan is on the same shaky ground that preceded President George W. Bush' grand flop with Social Security.
The parallels are remarkably similar: A president lays out broad outlines for his top legislative priority and lets his party allies in Congress work out the details of legislation. The opposition pounces, casting the measure as an assault on a cherished government entitlement for older Americans.
In 2005, Democrats depicted Bush's proposed retirement investment accounts as a move toward privatizing Social Security. Republican unity broke down and Bush's plan went down in a heap.
But from the beginning, Americans were suspicious of Bush's plans which Republicans themselves depicted as "a move toward privatizing Social Security." During the 2000 campaign, the New York Times reported, "59 percent favored the guaranteed payment" of benefits based on lifetime earnings, as under the current system, "while 33 percent backed private investment." And with good reason. The transition period during which Americans under 50 began establishing personal accounts would have drained trillions of dollars from the Social Security trust fund. To pay for it, Bush's chief economic adviser Gregory Mankiw in 2004 "explicitly floated the idea of cutting benefits, a necessary but unmentioned part of the White House's privatization plan."
So when a cocky President Bush crowed after his reelection that "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it" on Social Security privatization, his personal account was already empty. As CBS polling showed throughout the 2005 debate, Democrats enjoyed a 17% edge over Republicans as the party "more likely to make the right decisions about Social Security." From February 2005 through early 2006, AP surveys showed approval for President Bush's handling of Social Security flatlined between 35% and 39%, while Democrats earned marks as high as 60%. As for the private accounts themselves, NBC/Wall Street Journal polls in 2004 and 2005 revealed that over 50% of Americans consistently viewed investing their Social Security contributions in the stock market as a "bad idea." (As the Wall Street meltdown during Bush's final year in office showed, they were right.)
The contrast with President Obama and the battle over health care reform could not be greater. Swept into office with commanding Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, Obama in March enjoyed the backing of "nearly three out of four Americans [who] support government programs to improve the country's health care system."
Seventy-two percent of those questioned in recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey say they favor increasing the federal government's influence over the country's health care system in an attempt to lower costs and provide health care coverage to more Americans, with 27 percent opposing such a move.
Even after a devastating August for Obama during which Republican demagogues falsely claimed Democratic health care proposals would gut Medicare benefits and establish government "death panels" which would "pull the plug on grandma," the supposedly controversial public option still enjoys broad public support. As a Research 2000/DailyKos survey found last week, the public option is maintaining its backing by a 3-2 margin:
Do you favor or oppose creating a government-administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans?
Favor (58%) Oppose (34%) Not Sure (8%)
Sadly, the Republican fear-mongering is working, especially among the elderly. (Americans over 65, the one age group which supported John McCain for President, now solidly opposes Obama's health care initiatives.) But despite the reassurance from the likes of Politifact and the AARP that Obama does not intend to cut Medicare benefits, the AP today suggested the President was responsible for opening the door to misrepresentations from the same Republican party that opposed Medicare in the first place and tried to slash it by 15% during the 1990's:
Democrats have helped advance seniors' suspicions by proposing to finance their health plan by trimming $500 billion from Medicare over 10 years. The reductions would be achieved by eliminating waste, cutting some reimbursements to providers and slicing subsidies for Medicare Advantage, a part of Medicare operated by private insurers.
At the end of the day, George W. Bush never had a real chance of passing his dangerously misguided and wildly unpopular Social Security privatization scheme. As for Barack Obama, his waffling in the face of Republican smear tactics and his shocking failure to define and market a product many Americans are literally dying to have had jeopardized the health care reform that might define his presidency.
All of which points to a final difference ignored by the AP. Unlike the hapless Bush, President Obama seems to be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
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You betcha, just like Barack and Hillary snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with their down to the wire primary.
Unbelievable.
Posted by Barry Schwartz on September 7, 2009 10:01 PM