President Obama today conceded that his administration “missed
the mark” when it estimated the unemployment level if the
stimulus package passed, but that didn’t stop him from making a
series of dubious claims to push his health care agenda.
During his afternoon press conference, Obama was asked about the
fact that the White House projected that unemployment would now
be around 8 percent if the stimulus legislation passed, yet in
reality it now stands at 9.4 percent and he says that it will
reach the double digits.
“Keep in mind the stimulus package was the first thing we did,
and we did it a couple of weeks after Inauguration, and at that
point nobody understood what the depths of this recession were
going to look like,” Obama said. “If you recall, it was only
significantly later that we suddenly get a report the economy
tanked. It’s not surprising then that we missed the mark in
terms of estimates of where unemployment would go.“
Of course, at the time, President Obama was arguing that we were
facing the worst crisis since the Great Depression.
Asked if he could estimate the peak unemployment rate, he said,
“I’m not suggesting I have a crystal ball. Since you just threw
back at us our last prognosis, let’s not engage in another one.”
Yet even though he’s suddenly shy about making prognoses, he
said, “Here’s some things I know for certain. In the absence of
the stimulus, I think our recession would be much worse.”
Of course, given that the same team that gave us the first set of
estimates is in charge of calculating how many jobs are “saved or
created” as a result of the stimulus package, it would be wise to
avoid taking his statements at face value. Which brings us to
health care.
During his opening remarks, Obama reiterated a promise he has
made over and over again:. “There’s no doubt that we must
preserve what’s best about our health care system, and that means
allowing Americans who like their doctors and their health care
plans to keep them,” he said.
Last week, the Associated Press
reported that “White House officials suggest the president's
rhetoric shouldn't be taken literally,” and Obama confirmed this
when ABC's Jake Tapper asked him about how Americans would lose
their insurance if their employers decided to dump them in a new
government-run exchange.
“When I say if you have your plan and you like it… and you
have a doctor and you like your doctor, you don’t have to change
plans, what I’m saying is the government is not going to make you
change plans under health reform,” Obama said.
In other words, the government will not force people to
change plans. But this rather immaterial, given that independent
analysts from the Congressional Budget Office
to the Lewin
Group have estimated that anywhere from 23 million to 119
million would lose their current health care, depending on the
nature of the legislation as employers drop health care coverage
and direct their workers to government.
Obama’s response during the press conference was to dip into the
stimulus playbook and argue that even more people would lose
their current health care if we did nothing.
“Let’s assume that nothing happened,” Obama theorized. “I can
guarantee you that there’s a possibility out there that a whole
lot of Americans, there are not going to have the same health
care they have, because what’s going to happen is, as costs keep
going up, employers are going to start making decisions, ‘we’ve
got to raise premiums on our employees,' in some cases, 'we can’t
provide health insurance at all,' and so there are going to be a
whole set of changes out there.”
So, essentially, this is the equivalent of arguing that
legislation will “save or create” more employer-based health care
than would have otherwise existed. Thus Obama can manufacture
whatever numbers he wants.
Now as a matter of policy, there’s no particular merit in
guaranteeing that everybody will get to keep their current health
care coverage. Personally, I would support a health care
proposal that eliminated the employer tax exclusion and
transferred that benefit to individuals. Such a disruption to the
current system would undoubtedly mean that some people would have
to lose their current health care plans, even though I think we’d
end up with a better system with expanded coverage, because
individuals could choose their own plans rather than having an
employer do it for them, those who are on their own could enjoy
equal tax treatment, and people could take their policies with
them from job to job.
But the point of drawing attention to this is to highlight
Obama’s dishonest approach to health care, and governing in
general. He doesn’t want to level with the American people and
acknowledge that there are tradeoffs involved in any major policy
initiative. If people want to overhaul the entire health care
system, it’s going to have an effect on every aspect of the
system. This idea that we can change everything that people don’t
like while preserving everything that people do like, as if it
exists in a bubble, is tremendously deceptive. Obama now has to
backtrack on his stimulus claims, how will he react if health
care passes and suddenly millions of Americans are losing the
health care plan they like?
