The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Bring Dean On

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Howard Dean appears to be the favored candidate of the netroots to replace Tom Daschle as either HHS Secretary or White House health-care czar. Over at the Huffington Post, Cenk Uygur goes as far as to write, "At this point, if Howard Dean is not selected for at least one of these positions, it is a clear snub." Based on what I've seen of President Obama thus far, I can't imagine that he'd be so stupid as to pick Dean, because it would be an absolute gift to opponents of government-run health care. For one thing, Dean is an arrogant, brash and undisciplined figure who is more likely to alienate lawmakers than win them over. But beyond that, many of Dean's health-care reforms in Vermont were similar to what Obama wants to do on the national level, and they demonstrably failed.

Dean passed regulations known as "community rating" and "guaranteed issue," which force insurers to cover everybody who applies for insurance and charge everybody the same rate, regardless of age or other risk factors. Dean also expanded Medicaid eligibility (something that Obama's proposed stimulus bill would do at least on a temporary basis). In the end, premiums skyrocketed, healthy people exited the market, and private insurers left the state in droves. I know what you might be thinking: the number of uninsured Vermonters shrank, right? Actually, that would be wrong. A 2004 review of the Dean record by the Heartland institute noted that the state's uninsured rate went from 9.5 percent in 1992 to a 9.7 percent average in 1999-2001, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. More recent Census data showed the rate jumping to an 11 percent average in the 2005-2007 time period.

Meanwhile, below is a chart from an August 2004 PowerPoint presentation from the Vermont's Joint Fiscal Office showing the relative growth of the state's Medicaid spending (red line), total health spending (green line), personal income (blue line), and the gross state product (pink line). Notice how Medicaid spending growth accelerated at an alarming rate.

The bottom line is that by giving Dean a prominent role in his administration's health-care push, President Obama would be providing conservatives with a big fat target, and opponents of the effort would be able to run ads demonstrating the disastrous real world implications of some of what Obama has proposed at the national level.

View all comments (8) | Leave a comment

Alan Brooks| 2.4.09 @ 5:49PM

figures lie and liars figure.

pls| 2.4.09 @ 6:07PM

That's funny. As a member of a family of six that makes about $50,0oo a year in Vermont as a freelancer (sole proprietor) and pays about $100 a month for health coverage for the entire clan (including dental for the four kids), I'm having a hard time seeing the failure. If work dries up, I won't be losing health insurance.

Anywhere out there want to trade places?

Victor| 2.5.09 @ 3:52AM

To "pls":

So you get health insurance for eight people for $100/mo. I guess you don't mind living off the sweat of other people's brow. You're a real American hero.

Yeah...

Kevin Riley O'Keeffe| 2.5.09 @ 5:28AM

Get off your high horse, Victor. We all utilize government services we didn't pay for. Or do you eschew the use of the interstate highway system? Your gas taxes pay to maintain it; it was built off the taxes forcibly extracted from others. And with all the billions upon billions going out in corporate welfare payments, which largely benefit the already-wealthy, if a normal guy in Vermont can get adequate health care insurance for his family, at a non-outrageous price, then that is a far, far better (and far, far smaller) use of such funds. We ain't living in a libertarian Utopia, and until we are, snidely denigrating people doing what they need to do to get by in this degenerate, corporate oligarchy that passes for American society of late, is both crass and hypocritical. You ought to just be glad that for once, a family of eight is headed up by an American husband with a job, and not some welfare mammy, or illegal alien. But much safer to stick to PC territory, and condemn him for not being as ruggedly individualist as you, right? Not that the wealthy and powerful elite of today got there by being rugged individualists; they're mostly born into it. Or did I miss something, and suddenly Manhattan is the world capitol of rugged individualism? LOL!!!

Michael Lewis| 2.5.09 @ 9:34PM

There is always a way to lie to the uninitiated with statistics. The figures that should be here would compare the rise in uninsured in VT with the rise in uninsured against all other NE states or states with similar demographics or the entire USA.

I suspect that such comparisons would be very favorable for VT and the actions implemented by Dr. Dean.

And to Victor, actually if the cost of health care were based upon the cost of care, instead of the needed profit margin for the middle men of insurance and big Pharma, EVERYONE's cost of health care would lessen. When there is a profit motive for denial of care as there is in the USA, the country is doomed to second rate health care and a large uninsured population.

Kat| 2.5.09 @ 10:59PM

Sure, Michael, tell that to the Brits.

Frosty| 2.5.09 @ 11:03PM

Obama's ushering in a political oligarchy, much more dangerous than a corporate oligarchy. Corrupt democrat politicians have real power, not just money.

Bill| 2.14.09 @ 3:06PM

You can credit Obama's big election win to Dean. Fifty state strategy. That was Dean not Emanuel. The trouble is Dean and Emanuel can't stand each other. In the end almost all of Obama's policies will go into effect due to the weakness of the current republicans who have bankrupted the nation. Good work W.