The attempted rebranding of Barack Obama following his
November “shellacking” has begun in earnest with President Obama
going to those evil capitalists at the Wall Street Journal
— instead of his New York Times erstwhile fellow
travelers — with an
op-ed entitled “Toward a 21st-Century
Regulatory System” in which he professes his appreciation for
“America’s free market” and “vibrant entrepreneurialism” while
explaining Wednesday’s
Executive Order designed to “improve
regulation and regulatory review.”
While the president uses the left’s weasel-word “balance”
four times in his op-ed, his tone is remarkable for its focus on
economic growth (“growth” used four times) and the detrimental
impact to that growth caused by government regulation.
Obama says he and his administration are “making it our
mission to root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth
the cost, or that are just plain dumb,” giving an example of the
EPA’s regulation of saccharin as a dangerous chemical: “Well, if it
goes in your coffee, it is not hazardous waste. The EPA wisely
eliminated this rule last month.”
Obama also puts on his newly acquired pro-capitalism mask
when talking about the sheer burden of regulation:
We’re also getting rid of absurd and unnecessary paperwork
requirements that waste time and money. We’re looking at the system
as a whole to make sure we avoid excessive, inconsistent and
redundant regulation. And finally, today I am directing federal
agencies to do more to account for — and reduce — the burdens
regulations may place on small businesses. Small firms drive growth
and create most new jobs in this country. We need to make sure
nothing stands in their way.
Unfortunately, despite the laudable sentiment contained in
the president’s words, it’s difficult to take Obama 2.0 seriously.
In particular, is the American public, especially our
entrepreneurs, supposed to sing the praises of Obama’s claimed
conversion from class warfare redistributionist to proto-capitalist
while his signature “accomplishment,” commonly known as Obamacare,
is the single biggest small-business-killing piece of legislation
in generations?
Should we believe that the president actually wants to
rein in the same EPA that is trying to implement economy-destroying
carbon taxes despite the inability of the Democrats, even when they
had massive majorities in both chambers of Congress, to get the
left’s beloved cap-and-tax bill to the president’s desk?
Can we rely on an administration which, though the
Department of the Interior, is doing everything possible to
hinder domestic offshore oil drilling while
Americans’ fuel prices have been steadily, painfully
climbing?
Obama’s says that his move to “modernize our regulations”
will “make our economy stronger and more competitive.” But while
Obamacare and the administration’s energy price-increasing policy
choices persist, tinkering with our rule-making procedures is like
putting higher octane fuel into a car which you’ve just chained to
the ground. Sure, the better fuel could help — once the true
impediments to movement are removed.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that on the same day Obama
announced his Executive Order — and the day before the House of
Representatives is expected to vote on a repeal of Obamacare — the
Department of Health and Human Services released a study
subtitled “129 million people could be denied affordable
coverage” without Obamacare because of pre-existing
conditions.
It’s a transparently political report, not least due to
its use of “could” in both its title, “At Risk: Pre-Existing
Conditions Could Affect 1 in 2 Americans” and subtitle, as even
their own data show a range of people who may have pre-existing
conditions between 50 and 129 million, with — of course — the
high end of the range quoted by the breathless parrots in the
media. In any other circumstance (except perhaps with claims of
man-made global warming), the media would be rightly skeptical of a
government agency giving a range so wide as to demonstrate the
“data” to be what those of us who actually rely on data for living
call SWAG — a stupid (or scientific) wild-ass guess.
As the Obama Administration is chaining the engine of the
economy ever more securely to the concrete by signaling its refusal
to allow any important modification to Obamacare, a spokesman for
America’s Health Insurance Plans says that the report “exaggerates
the number of people who are impacted,” adding that most Americans
(a) already have insurance, (b) would only be at risk if they
changed coverage, (c) even then only if they went into the
individual market because people getting insurance through company
plans are generally guaranteed coverage even with pre-existing
conditions, and (d) “Nine out of ten people who apply for coverage
in the individual market are offered a policy.”
Even the HHS study says that “as many as 82 million
Americans with employer-based coverage have a pre-existing
condition.” In other words, two-thirds of the people they claim
“could” be victims of the insurance market actually have coverage
already. HHS correctly notes that “the need for individual market
coverage has increased as job-based insurance has decreased” but
somehow misses two key points: First, that job-based insurance has
decreased because of government action (both because of Obamacare
and because of unemployment made worse by most of Obama’s major
“achievements”), and second that individual market coverage could
be substantially improved by allowing interstate competition for
customers and equalizing the tax treatment of health insurance
between companies and the self-employed. In other words, most of
the problems with health insurance are due to a failure of
government, not a failure of a supposedly free market, something
health insurance has essentially never seen.
The issue of “pre-existing conditions” is worthy of its
own analysis, not just economic but also moral. In short, covering
pre-existing conditions for someone who has not, or at least not
recently, been insured, is not insurance; it’s welfare. There’s a
reason it is illegal for someone to apply for car insurance just
after wrecking his Porsche and trying to make a claim for a new
Carrera 4S: it is simply forcing others to pay for his carelessness
or misfortune — and whichever it is, pre-existing conditions are
not “society’s” responsibility despite cries from the left that
“it’s different with health.”
President Obama’s op-ed and corresponding Executive Order
as fine as far as they go, but they don’t go nearly far enough.
Yes, avoiding “excessive, inconsistent, and redundant” regulation
add octane to the economy’s fuel tank. But as long as Obamacare and
this administration’s energy policies keep the economy chained to
the ground, we’re not going anywhere fast.
In the meantime, it is difficult to see Obama 2.0’s new
business-friendly façade and hiring of a “pro-business” Chief of
Staff as anything other than trying to avoid Shellacking 2.0 just
under two years from now.
