How the president debates health care.
‘When I use a word,’” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’”
Like the famously cracked egg in the Lewis Carroll fantasy, Barack Obama refuses to be bound by conventional English. Words like “choice” and “competition” are thrown around in ways that mean the opposite of how most Americans understand them. Once Americans do understand how he’s been using a word, moreover, it changes—in the way that a second “stimulus” suddenly becomes a “jobs bill.” Other words simply disappear.
The Dumpty dynamic is especially pronounced in the home stretch of the health-care debate. During a boisterous rally yesterday at Arcadia University outside Philadelphia, the president thumped that the time for “an up-or-down vote on health care” has come, and today he follows up with remarks in St. Louis.
In the interests of furthering understanding of this debate, here are five words Mr. Obama now avoids unless forced to comment by some reporter or Republican lawmaker:
• Reconciliation. Last Wednesday the president called for Senate Democrats to use reconciliation to ram a health-care bill through Congress. In the same way he called for a second stimulus back in November without ever saying it, however, “reconciliation” did not cross Mr. Obama’s lips as he endorsed it. Instead, he spoke of a vote that is “nothing more than a simple majority.”
The White House Web page suggests the last time the president uttered the word “reconciliation” in the context of health care was a dismissive answer to a question from John McCain during the bipartisan summit. “I think the American people aren’t always all that interested in procedures inside the Senate,” he told the Arizona Republican—notwithstanding that Americans seem very much interested in the procedures that led to the Cornhusker Kickback or a federal judgeship for a wavering House Democrat’s brother. Not to mention Mr. Obama’s own statement in October 2007 that “we are not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-one strategy.”
• Cadillac. In his town-hall meetings last summer the president spoke frankly of the problem posed by so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans. These are expensive policies, provided by employers, that give people more coverage than what they would choose if they had to buy them on their own, without the tax advantage that comes from getting insurance through their jobs.
In September, Mr. Obama told CNN, “I do think that giving a disincentive to insurance companies to offer Cadillac plans that don’t make people healthier is part of the way that we’re going to bring down health-care costs for everybody over the long term.” In other words, a tax on employer-provided health coverage over a certain level.
Then, in January, he agreed to a big exemption for unions. In his own proposal released last month, he scaled the tax down for everyone and delayed implementation. As a result, Cadillac is not a word the president brings up himself these days.
• C-SPAN. On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama loved the word C-SPAN. As he stated at one point, “we’ll have the [health-care] negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” Alas, it hasn’t turned out that way, and C-SPAN is a word that Mr. Obama no longer volunteers.
• Health-care reform. OK, he still says this. But sometime last summer, after the protests, the official name for ObamaCare became “health-insurance reform.”
This signaled both a ratcheting down of his original ambitions for universal coverage, and a ratcheting up of the rhetoric against the corporate villains who would serve as his foil. Thus yesterday’s remarks in Pennsylvania, where the president warned that evil insurance companies will keep on raising premiums “for as long as they can get away with it” unless Congress acts now.
• Mandate. During the Democratic presidential primary, Mr. Obama slammed rival Hillary Clinton over the individual mandate. “The main difference between my plan and Senator Clinton’s plan,” he said, “is that she’d require the government to force you to buy health insurance and she said she’d ‘go after’ your wages if you don’t.”
Now the Senate and House bills include a mandate that would force Americans to do just that. When asked about it at the recent health-care summit, Mr. Obama did concede he’s flip-flopped. But because the word smacks of “force,” “mandate” went unmentioned yesterday—and will likely stay that way.
So listen closely as the health-care debate comes down to the wire. The words the president won’t say are more telling than the words he will.
William McGurn, Wall Street Journal
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Full article and photo: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575109902245112126.html
