Andrew Sullivan took a close look at Barack Obama and likes what he sees. Namely, Obama doesn’t shy from giving a stern talking to groups that Sullivan thinks could use a good talking to. It strikes me as a good sign that renegade Republicans, who make up about half the party these days, haven’t yet found a reason to dislike Obama. Compare this with, say, Rudy Giuliani’s problem with major fractions of his own base.
Hailing from the proudly irrelevant state of Pennsylvania it doesn’t really matter who I prefer among the Dem candidates. By May 2008 the top Republican and the top Democrat will basically be running a general election campaign. Assuming that we don’t nominate Dennis Kucinich I don’t have a problem with supporting whichever Dem the rest of the country serves up. That said, as much as I like the apparently core instinct that Obama has to reach across boundaries I don’t think that instinct will help him craft healthcare policy. Looking over Kevin Drum’s summary of Obama’s detailed healthcare proposal, it looks like he runs afoul of my standard criticism that (1) halfway measures can easily make our current system worse, and (2) the insurance biz will never line up behind a reasonable proposal so amending your plans to try to win their support (or avoid their fury) is is a fool’s errand.
Expanding on point (1), the problem with public-private mishmash proposals is that the government cannot effectively compete with private insurance plans without enabling a massive cycle of adverse selection. Private insurers will use the availability of a bare-bones government plan to dump anybody who threatens the tiniest dent in the bottom line, ensuring that the government gets stuck with the costliest clients while dirt-cheap private plans (they don’t have to insure any sick people) siphon off the young and healthy. Any plan that limits the options of private insurers to the point where adverse selection no longer becomes a problem might as well go single payer for all the support they will get from insurers and rightwing ideologues. The massive costs of insuring the least desirable cases will give government insurance a bad name and the beaurocratic paperwork of overseeing the private insurers will easily take as many resources as simply switching to single-payer. In my view these halfway plans, no matter how intricately crafted, all have the same doomed karma as Hillarycare.
Jackmormon
B-A-R-A-C-K.
Andrew
What does it matter how you spell his first name when his last name is Osama?
Tom Hilton
And his middle name is Saddam.
Zifnab
Tim, they already do that. This is the problem. If you stubbed your toe in grad school, your premiums go through the roof. If you come down with a bad case of the flu, and they can cut you from their rolls, they will. If a mass epidemic of black mold breaks out, insurance companies simply choose to stop covering it.
Government healthcare is so necessary at some level to insure the 50 million no one will touch, for one reason or another.
I agree, a half-assed system will be worse than a well-planned system, and that playing ball with insurance companies is a no-win game. But at this point something really is better than nothing if for no other reason than we shouldn’t have emergency rooms footing the bill for every impoverished mother dragging her half-dead flu-ridden kids into the ward because she couldn’t afford a $10 vaccine shot and a yearly check-up.
Doubting Thomas
Sullivan for Obama? I immediately see red flags. If Andrew is for Obama, then I’m pretty sure he’s not the progressive candidate I thought he was. An endorsement by Sullivan and his recent heath care plan that appease the insurance lobby are two signs that he represents the capitulation wing of the party. Talks a good game, but I fear the action ain’t there.
Lee
Them is fighting words…
I 100% support his wife as First Lady…she is smoooookin hot.
Andrew
No. The last thing we need are the gingers taking over the nuclear launch codes.
Tom Hilton
That’s an inherently self-defeating attitude (and, alas, not uncommon among progressives). The reality is that no Democrat can win without the votes of a fair number of people about as conservative as Sullivan; the only question is how we accomplish that.
The DLC solution is to out-conservative the conservatives. That, obviously, is sub-optimal from a progressive standpoint. Obama’s approach is to make liberal policies appealing to moderates and conservatives–to frame basic liberal values as American values.
That said, I think the recent New Yorker profile is right in observing that there is a streak of Burkean conservatism in Obama…but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.
Zombie Santa Claus
Exactly. One look at her made me a diehard Kucinich supporter.
dslak
Why not a solid supporter?
HyperIon
a DEAD diehard…hmmm
Nancy Irving
Bureaucratic. :)
(Good post, though.)
BIRDZILLA
He would probibly vote for any liberal demcratic reptile
CalD
How ironic then, that Kucinich is currently the only Dem, to my knowlege, who is advocating true single-payer national health insurance. BTW, I could be wrong (it’s been a while) but I also thought Obama’s plan actually sounded a lot like the plan Republicans in Congress proposed back in ’92 as their alternative to the Clinton plan.