rssGOPers See No Kennedy Effect in Health Care Debate
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 6:08 pm
- 24 Comments
The late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) (WDCpix)
At a town hall meeting last week in Florence, S.C., Sen. Jim DeMint acknowledged the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy, then shot a warning flare. Democrats, he said, would have no reservations about using an outpouring of sympathy for the late senator to push for passage of a health care reform bill.
“They will try to leverage his name and attach it to the health care bill and basically try to blackmail us to vote against a fallen senator,” DeMint said. “I’m not going to fall for that. It makes no sense to go to a government takeover of health care, despite what name they put on it.”
Image by: Matt Mahurin
DeMint offered up the unvarnished version of an argument that opponents of Democratic health care reform plans–conservative activists and Republicans–are making in the wake of Kennedy’s death. Last week, conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity predicted that Democrats would go overboard in packaging the health care bill as a chance to “win one for Teddy.” Republican allies of Kennedy, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), attempted to argue that Kennedy would have wanted Democrats to compromise with Republicans and scrap much of their health care plans.
But with Kennedy’s death and memorial service in the rearview mirror, conservatives are coming around to DeMint’s perspective: The late senator’s legacy will play no substantive role in health care negotiations when Congress returns, nor will it stunt Republican momentum against the plan. And they’re being supported in that view by national polls, receptions at town hall meetings, and what several Republican House and Senate staffers described to TWI as a muted reaction from constituents.
Conservatives have kept an eye on the increasing use of Kennedy’s name at health care reform rallies. In areas where health care reform was already unpopular, Kennedy’s name has provided no boost, and occasionally even an angry reaction from crowds, according to some staffers. Last week, Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.), who narrowly won a seat in upstate New York last year in a district that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) narrowly carried over Barack Obama, asked for a moment of silence for the late senator. Some constituents shouted throughout the 10 seconds, as supporters of health care reform stayed mum. At a town hall for Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.), a Democrat who won a deep red seat in 2008, Kennedy’s name set off derisive heckling and cries of “Chappaquiddick” and “Mary Joe Kopechne,” the location of Kennedy’s calamitous 1969 car wreck and the woman who died in it. And the backlash extended to rallies where no members of Congress made appearances. A Saturday rally for health care reform in Fargo, N.D. was interrupted by conservative counter-protesters, who booed when a recording of Kennedy’s voice was played.
“Saying ‘Do This for Teddy’ might galvanize the liberal base for two or three weeks,” said Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who works on health care policy. “Not so if you’re talking to conservatives in, say, Tennessee. Conservatives loathed Sen. Kennedy. The public, by and large, was undecided on health care reform at the start of August and has become more and more opposed. Once they moved that way, Democrats needed an intervening event to roll that back. This isn’t a sufficient intervening event.”
Conservatives can speak confidently about moving past Kennedy because his national appeal, even at the end of his life, was limited. The final public poll on opinion of Kennedy was a survey by CNN/Opinion Research conducted in July and released in August. It found that a “bare majority,” 51 percent of Americans, viewed Kennedy positively while 35 percent viewed him negatively. Most Southerners viewed him negatively, as did two-thirds of Republicans. That was actually down from the first poll taken after Kennedy’s terminal brain cancer was revealed last summer. Kennedy’s 56 percent positive rating in that poll was the highest CNN had recorded in 12 years of surveys on the question.
Those numbers are backed up by Republican strategists. At an August 27 breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Public Opinion Strategies pollster Bill McInturff, who worked for both John McCain’s 2008 campaign and for Republicans in the run-up to the 1994 takeover of Congress, talked down the chances of Republicans or conservative Democrats buckling on health care reform. The idea that “despite the current and justified emotion, the average Blue Dog Democrat in Kentucky or Idaho or other states is going to want to make a vote about his or her future based on the legacy [of Kennedy]” was just not credible.
Senate GOP staffers, whose employers hold the reins in the health care fight, echoed many of these arguments and remarked on the lack of contact they were getting about Kennedy–although some speculated that Democrats will ramp it up when Congress returns. One pointed to an interview with Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) as representative.
“It’s a loss to the nation,” Barrasso told ABC News. “I will tell you, people are actually focused on what’s in the health care bill — that’s what’s turning out at all of these town hall meetings. What I’m hearing all across the country is ‘kill the bill.’”
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24 Comments
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Comment posted September 1, 2009 @ 1:16 am
Republicans are going to lose this fight because the Democrats will get behind what Kennedy wanted and worked for. No amount of ridicule by Republican shills and office holders can detract from that. And, when did Senator DeMint ever have a positive idea for something to help the American people? As a southerner myself, I think it is regrettable that Republican senators representing the region constantly sell the average southerner out to moneyed elites and corporate interests. And, the voters line up to vote for them because the GOP labels everything the government might do as socialism, liberal thinking, Jesus would not do it, or some other pejorative. If they voted their interests, they would throw DeMint and similar politicians out of office, as they are not for the common American citizen.
Comment posted September 1, 2009 @ 3:02 am
I applaud your enthusiasm…and I agree entirely that the GOP has become a kind of mockery within a mockery, but you're a lot less cynical than I am. I can't imagine the democrats, who are only slightly less lobbied and purchased than the GOP, somehow finishing a bill that will do any real good.
I'd love to see TK's dream become a reality, but only without the kind of obvious compromises that would leave us with a giant cash hoover funning billions per year to insurance agencies that already rob us daily.
So far, not seeing any shortage of compromise in DC these days. I can only assume that the Democrats are whittling away at this bill not to placate the GOP, who will vote against anything created by, sponsored by or even complimented by a Democrat, but rather because they need to make a show of being serious while they gut everything that would transform tax dollars into actual services instead of insurer profits.
But, hey…we can always hope a little good comes of all this somehow. I just might be wrong…and that would be a refreshing change of pace.
Comment posted September 1, 2009 @ 10:04 am
Many reformers recognized roughly 30 percent of all health-care spending in the U.S. -some $700 billion a year- might be wasted on no coordinated preventive care program waiting until people get ill, about 50% of idle world's best practices, a pay for each and every service reimbursement and frequent readmissions, no e-medical record and deaths, crushing litigations and the more profits via the unnecessary, risk-carrying procedures, and the most inefficient paper billing systems imaginable, overpriced pharmaceuticals, bloated insurance companies, incredible medial fraud, exorbitant costs by the tragic ER visits etc.
And with around 50% of top of the line practices sitting around, granted the American people pay around twice the amount of the efficient systems, the result is still well below them, the ratio of waste might be estimated to reach far more than 50% in the U.S.
Today, another innovative, fundamental change in payment system, or patient's outcome based payment reform that is able to turn the profit-oriented malpractices and volume into the patient-oriented value and quality is waiting for a final decision.
Now that Minnesota spends “20 percent” less per patient than the national average and 31 percent less than in the highest cost state, under a pay for patient's outcome pack, this promising reform could be successful along the way, I believe.
Aside from the already allocated $583 billion and the savings of this reform package, “20%” of $923.5bn (the combined Medicare and Medicaid cost per year, as of July) is around $184.7bn per year and 1.847trillion over the next decade, and this patient-oriented value alone could be sufficient to meet the goal.
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Comment posted September 1, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
Sometimes it's harder to tell who is actively working against meaningful reform: the GOP or conservative Dems.
The Republicans are certainly more boisterous about it. The Blue Dogs seem a little more effective, though.
Comment posted September 1, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
peter777 and voxmagi,
When they all go back to the Hill next week, you will see the resistance ramp up in an ugly way, now that the right has no reason to hide behind the fallacy of “bipartisanship”. Reasonable minds were shut out of this “dabate” early-on, guaranteeing waht you saw these past weeks. Forget about a compromise, the Repubs won't even come to the table.
Preventive care has been a cornerstone of Obama's, and Ted Kennedy's idea of healthcare, and it will be in whatever bill is pushed through (and I say “pushed”, because the Repubs only card left is filibuster) the House.
peter, the healthcare insurance industry and big pharma have bought more than half of Congress in a variety of ways. It's not just in the South. I once privately compared them with malaria. Seems the analogy was apt. It is confusing, I agree. I think the best solution at this point would be to look up any bill being considered, rather than depend on hyperbolic news reports or those who would lie openly. How can you tell if they're lying? Easy. They're trying to scare you. No educator worth his salt EVER used fear to educate.
HSR0601,
While what Minnesota is doing is laudable, some states' healthcare systems are wholly owned by the healthcare insurance industry and big pharma. Those states have no choice. These are the states most at risk. While we could go to a system like Minnesota's, those two will not go quietly. The excuse of no competition is a lie, as well. If the healthcare insurance industry and big pharma go bust, it won't be because of competition, but greed.
Personally, I'm willing to wait and see, as well. I've put in my two cents to my Congressman, so let's see where all this goes!
Comment posted September 1, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
Heck, the 'reasonable minds' were drummed out of the GOP during that last 8 years when honest, decent republicans spoke out against fraud and corruption in their own ranks, and were rewarded by being shoved into the dustbin. All that's left is a collection of inarticulate paranoiacs and opportunistic carnival barkers.
(PS: your point on fear is spot-on! Doomsayers are the lowest common denominator among political hacks.)
Comment posted September 1, 2009 @ 9:42 pm
voxmagi,
Yah, fear has been the currency these carnival barkers(!!!LOL!!!) have used for some time now, and it strikes me odd that no one has seen this. I have been telling people this for a while, you need to point this out to as many as you can, as well. It's a small part of what I owe the American people for the VA med benefits I receive. I want them ALL to have what I have (it's my dream, anyway).
Comment posted September 1, 2009 @ 11:33 pm
(About those VA benfits…don't feel like you owe a debt for them. Like my father, my uncle, my brother and my oldest friend..you earned them…if anything, WE owe our support in the struggle to keep and extend those benefits for you and for all others who serve honorably.)
Comment posted September 9, 2009 @ 12:05 am
The Blue dogs are attempting to kill reform just as much as the GOP (and rightly so, have you see the amount of money they get from these health organizations? Go to opensecrets.org and see for yourself) The GOP just doesn't mind throwing a great man and possibly the greatest politician of our time, the late Teddy Kennedy, under the bus in doing so.
Comment posted September 9, 2009 @ 12:39 am
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Comment posted September 9, 2009 @ 12:50 am
Sign this petition people. It's time we changed the rules these lobbyist's play by!
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