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Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’

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Halftime at Health Summit as Obama Declares “Legitimate Philosophical Disagreement” Exists

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

President Obama Giving Opening Remarks at Today's Health Care Summit

Halftime (three hours in) has been reached at the much-hyped health care summit, and the first half mainly focused on the GOP and Obama going back and forth, mainly talking past each other than to each other as both sides recited their prepared scripts and talking points, with GOP Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tn.) declaring that “We believe we have a better idea” on health care reform. At this point, neither side appears to have gained an upper hand from the proceedings, although the issue of comprehensive health reform (Democrats) versus incremental health reform (Republicans) has been made explicitly clear. Obama summed up the proceedings to the press on the way to lunch by stating that “legitimate philosophical differences” were exposed in the first half of the summit as reported by ABC’s Jake Tapper:

The president said that he believes there are areas where they are finding agreement, but did not out right answer a reporter’s question if he believes the first half of the summit had made progress yet.

“”I think we’re establishing that there are actually some areas of real agreement. And we’re starting to focus on what the real disagreements are,” Obama said, “ If you look at you know the issue of how much government should be involved, you know the argument that republicans are making really isn’t that this is a government takeover of health care but rather than, we’re insuring or we’re regulating the insurance market too much.”

The president called this a “legitimate philosophical disagreement” that he hopes to explore more in the afternoon sessions.

As noted earlier, a minor dust up over equal time between Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky) and President Obama culminated in an Obama quip that his time doesn’t count towards the equal division between the parties “because I’m the President.” Vice President Joe Biden interrupted Obama mid-sentence at one point to contradict the President and House Member Eric Cantor (R-Va) and argued that no serious philosophical difference existed between the parties over federal insurance regulation. GOP Senator John McCain (R-Az) got in a few rhetorical shots at the odious process around Obamacare to date, pointing out a few of the backroom deals between special interest groups and the President as well as deals with individual Democratic Senators. Obama reacted testily and scolded McCain, at one point advising the Senator that “the campaign is over” in reference to Obama’s victory over 2008 GOP Presidential nominee. An early dispute between Obama and Alexander over whether Obamacare would cause premiums to rise appeared to be a draw, with both sides making arguably accurate arguments based on the same data.

Obama also introduced two new talking points during the first half: analogies of health insurance to car insurance and health insurance regulation to the government’s regulation of food safety.

Finally, before the meeting began, Obama gave a cryptic response to a reporter’s shouted question, do you have a “Plan B”, which may have been in reference to the WSJ story last night which claimed the White House is preparing a scaled down, approximately 250 Billion Dollar plan (as opposed to the 950 Billion of the present Obama Health Plan). The AP reports the exchange:

A month after the Massachusetts election that cost Democrats their Senate supermajority and threw the health legislation in doubt, the White House has developed its own slimmed-down health care proposal so the president will know what the impact would be if he chooses that route, according to a Democratic official familiar with the discussions. That official could not provide details, but Democrats have looked at approaches including expanding Medicaid and allowing children to stay on their parents’ health plans until around age 26.

The slimmer backup plan was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Obama himself hinted at a Democrats-only strategy. When asked by reporters as he walked to Blair House if he had a Plan B, he responded: “I’ve always got plans.”

The Politico is also reporting that Obama intends to abandon all bipartisan negotiations on Monday of next week, so it may be that the WSJ was false and Obama intends to attempt to push his comprehensive plan through the Senate via reconciliation after the summit.

UPDATE: Ed at Hotair finds an interesting tidbit from Harry Reid this morning, saying on camera in his initial speech that “no one has talked about reconciliation.” Even the left wing new media site TPM called Reid’s statement “obviously not true.”

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Obama on Speaking Time Imbalance: “Because I’m the President”; UPDATE: Video Added

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

President Barack Obama Appears Bored as He Listens to Members of Congress Recite Scripted Speeches in the First Hour to Today's Health Care Summit

The health care summit between the Congressional GOP, President Obama and Democratic Congressional Leadership is off to an entertaining but generally unsubstantive start, with scripted speeches the norm and a few interesting interactions. Sadly, it appears that actual negotiations over a incremental centrist health care reform bill appears to be out of the question so far as all the Democrats are condemning any talk of an incremental approach while focusing on anecdotal examples of individuals who are without health care instead of the legislation under debate, despite stated agreements over the Medicare fraud sanctions database and enforcement (see #5 of OPINION piece) concept and the stated agreements about the need for substantial medical malpractice reform (see #2 of OPINION piece). At least for now, the Democrats, led by President Obama, are sticking to the “big bill” gameplan and we expect the remainder of the summit to proceed as the first hour did: scripted speeches and a few testy interactions but little substantive progress on a bipartisan deal.

One interesting testy interaction that just occurred was between President Obama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over the issue of the time allotted to each party. McConnell noted that the GOP had received a fair amount less time than the Democrats so far, and the President agreed that there was a time imbalance and quipped that it is “because I’m the President” and his speaking time didn’t “count” toward the pledged equal division of time between parties. Politico reports on the exchange:

McConnell interrupted the discussion at Blair House Thursday, over an hour after it began, to note that Republicans had only spoken for 24 minutes compared with 52 minutes for the Democrats.

“I don’t think that’s quite right, but I’m just going back and forth here, Mitch,” Obama said. “I think we’re just trying to go back and forth, but that’s okay.”

A few moments later, Obama noted the session was running long and acknowledged – with an explanation – that Republicans hadn’t spoken for quite as long.

“You’re right that there’s an imbalance on the opening statements, because I’m the president,” Obama said. “I didn’t count my time in terms of dividing it evenly.”

Such quips from Obama are sure to rile the GOP, who considered the equal time pledge by the White House binding.

Another interesting talking point Obama continues to return to is the comparison of shoddy car insurance to what Obama claims is shoddy health insurance as sold now without the benefit of the federal regulations that Obamacare would impose. House Member Paul Ryan (R-Mi.) made the point that conservatives and moderates are rejecting the Obama Health Plan because of disapproval of the increased federal regulatory power and mandates that will be imposed if Obama’s comprehensive plan is passed. Obama used his car insurance analogy to respond to Ryan’s point, claiming that the federal health rules are necessary to stop shoddy health insurance from being sold. However, there are no federal car insurance regulations, such regulations are handled by state governments, as are regulations over health insurance policy terms as of today. Obama’s proposal envisions bringing another set of regulations over all health insurance policies on top of the current state health insurance regulations, in essence creating a federal insurance commissioner on top of the already-existing 50 state insurance commissioners.

UPDATE: Realclearpolitics posts the video clip of the McConnell-Obama exchange.

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OPINION: What America Needs: Centrist Health Care Reform

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

CentristNet Offers Its First Opinion Piece Regarding the Elements of Centrist Health Care Reform That President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans Can Agree Upon at the Health Care Summit

As the hours count down to the beginning of the vaunted health care summit in Washington, in our opinion, there are many areas in which President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans can agree to move forward with significant, yet incremental reforms to the American health care system.    Most, if not all on the left argue that only a comprehensive, federal government-centered health care plan, like Obama’s Health Plan as released Monday, can reduce the cost of health insurance, reduce the number of uninsured, improve patient outcomes and contain projected massive federal deficits from present health entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.   Indeed, as President Obama and many Congressional Democrats repeatedly state, a comprehensive federal health care reform plan has been the ultimate goal of the left for many decades. Some, but not a majority on the right argue that there is no need for health care reform at this time. The views of the left and the right, as outlined above, are incorrect and an pivot from the present trajectory of health care debate towards centrist health care reform is the appropriate policy choice, as we will detail below.

As the developments this week make clear, with President Obama planning to use reconciliation to push through his left-leaning Obamacare and Congressional Republicans calling for a fresh start to the bill writing process on a blank piece of paper, the prospects for a bipartisan deal from tomorrow’s summit look slim.  The just-leaked smaller Obama plan, if the leak proves accurate, could run into similar troubles, as a key concern of many Americans is the increased federal bureaucracy envisioned by each of his plans. Indeed, the actual overall cost of the Obama Health Plan and the various arguably misleading claims made on Obamacare’s behalf have not inspired confidence in President Obama’s handling of health care, which fell to a mere 35% approval (and 55% disapproval) in the last CBS/NYT poll. Instead of giving into pressures from party ideologues on both sides, we hope that President Obama and Congressional Republicans put aside partisanship and the zero-sum calculus of political warfare to actually consider some centrist health care policies that can be quickly passed, this year, with bipartisan support.

Obama’s present strategy to use reconciliation to pass Obamacare through the Senate after passing the present Senate bill through the House of Representatives has no guarantee of success considering the present bills’ massive unpopularity with the American public and the reluctance of House Democrats to make a career-ending vote for Obamacare.   Further, a new entitlement passed without bipartisan support would be difficult to maintain in years to come and could poison American politics for a generation.   With all that in mind, we offer several straightforward centrist policy prescriptions that the GOP and Obama can agree on. Each centrist incremental federal reform could be worked out between the parties in a matter of weeks, perhaps by fast-tracked policy commissions with an equal split in members between the parties and tasked with producing preliminary reports two weeks from the end of the summit.

1.  Federal Incentives To Encourage States to Decrease the Number of Involuntarily Uninsured Americans.

A large part of the issue that many Americans have with Obamacare is the central role of the federal government in the regulation and operation of the American health care industry, with numerous new federal bureaucracies, and attendant federal health bureaucrats to be added to the payroll, that is at the heart of the design of Obamacare.   We believe that instead of creating a giant new federal government structure, federal policy should focus on incentivizing the states into experimenting with new measures to reduce cost and the involuntarily uninsured.    New federal mandates to states, as are included in Obamacare, would inappropriately constrain the states and hamper the great “laboratory of democracy” from properly operating as it has throughout American history.

While we don’t agree with everything, or even most, of what the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (“RWJF”) advocates, RWJF’s recent report on the health care “State of the States” appropriately highlighted the key role of the states in finding health care solutions:

States play a critical role in advancing coverage expansions and other health reforms by testing new ideas, both politically and practically.  Because health care delivery is largely local, states are closer to the action when it comes to implementing some of the delivery and payment systems changes that are needed to truly transform the health care system. This proximity and flexibility in system redesign is a key strength for states.  In addition, states have first-hand knowledge of their local landscape and relationships with the stakeholders that will be necessary to change the system. Much of the work related to implementing insurance reforms, delivery system redesign, and public health strategies traditionally have been led by states.

Some say that the Massachusetts health care plan was a failure because health care costs are rising faster in that state than nationally since the reform passed, the cost overruns regarding projected state spending and the lack of attainment of true universal coverage. However, the State of Massachusetts passed a bipartisan plan with Republican Governor Milt Romney, a 90% Democratic Massachusetts legislature and a cheerleading Teddy Kennedy present for the signing of the bill by Romney. If Massachusetts desires to change or reverse its programs, the people of Massachusetts will make that happen. Every other state in the Union should have the same opportunity to decide how to proceed regarding its health care systems and the federal government should not straight jacket the states into a one size fits all federal mandate via Obamacare. Federal incentives could also be accessible to several states who wish to forum a regional health care system with uniform rules – but the decisions effecting Americans health care should not be left to a faraway bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.

By maintaining the flexibility of states to engage in policy innovation, the probability increases that a health care policy that is proven to work by empirical evidence will emerge and spread around the country once the benefits of such policy are made clear by results. Creating a huge federal bureaucracy with many new mandates on state governments regarding health care policy will stifle this state innovation and risk damaging the present high quality of care provided by American medical professionals across the land. As 70% to 80% of Americans approve of their present health care arrangements, federal health policy must follow the medical maxim of “first do no harm” and avoid the risk of reducing the present quality of care with too much federal government control over states and medical professionals.

2.  Reform Medical Malpractice Laws:

There is no serious dispute over the need for substantial medical malpractice reform, or tort reform, on the federal level. Some on the right advocate Texas-style tort reform, which involves caps on damage awards and limiting “jackpot justice”, while some on the left wholly reject any tort reform and others advocate a system of specialized health care courts to replace the present courts of general jurisdiction that handle medical malpractice cases. Both policy approaches have pluses and minuses, and to that end the federal health reform effort should provide incentives to the states to attempt either systemic change. It may be that in the long term, specialized health courts, similar to the workers compensation system, are the better choice, but the states should be free to choose how to design their system, as they are in the workers compensation arena. The left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute outlines some benefits of health care courts:

A Better Way: Health Courts

There are many proposals for health care reform that are focused outside the medical justice system. All are well intentioned and some may be practical, but without legal reforms none will likely succeed in containing costs. Clearly, we need major reform, and we can achieve it in part by instituting a network of specialized health courts to replace the current medical justice system.1

Under health courts, malpractice cases would no longer be heard in civil courts. Instead, they would be handled in an administrative system overseen by the states. The system would be similar to the state-run workers’ compensation system. It would give more injured patients access to quicker and less expensive justice.

….

Health court rulings would establish new standards of practice to cover medical circumstances for which common standards have not previously been settled. The health court system would thus yield an essential benefit that our current system of medical justice fails to provide: consistent, rational rulings that send clear signals to health care providers about what constitutes good medical practice. In so doing, it would help eliminate the legal uncertainty that encourages doctors to practice defensive medicine and the silence among practitioners and patients that very likely contributes to medical errors.

It is possible that if even a few states chose to institute health care courts based on incentives in an incremental, centrist federal health reform plan, the benefits of such specialized courts could become empirically proven in a few years. Once proven successful, such a system may become the standard throughout the country; however, as far as a federal policy is concerned, a state should be free to try traditional tort reform, health care courts or any other solution they can create. A federal plan to incentivize the states in the tort reform arena could not be seriously opposed by either party and legislative language could be worked out relatively quickly by bipartisan negotiators.


3. Create a Federal/State/Insurance Companies Mechanism for Covering the Uninsurable with Preexisting Conditions:

The American public believes by a large majority that some federal action should be taken to assist those Americans who cannot obtain health care insurance because they have an uninsurable preexisting condition. Indeed, logically speaking, requiring an health insurance company to provide insurance to an individual that faces certain, and substantial, medical expenses is similar to requiring a car insurance company to provide insurance to an individual with an already wrecked car. It is simply not economically feasible for the private sector insurers to insure against an already existing condition. Because of this, federal government intervention in the health insurance market is appropriate in the instance of uninsurable individuals.

A centrist proposal to deal with uninsurable individuals is to set up comprehensive high risk pools jointly funded by federal and state governments to enable uninsurable individuals to purchase health insurance and a supporting, pro bono role for health insurance companies in administering the program. 31 States presently have high risk pools, and the inclusion of the federal government and insurers into a comprehensive risk pool policy could reduce the cost to the uninsurable while providing folks with care they otherwise would not have received. Both parties already support the use of risk pools, and the Senate version of Obamacare provides for high risk pools between now and 2013. Health insurance companies should be required to participate in this program as a consequence of the federal law, perhaps conditioning a continued exemption from antitrust laws on cooperation by the insurance companies with the risk pool program. This will be an expensive proposition, and many on both sides of the aisle could object to the high cost and some on the left are sure to argue that a comprehensive health care reform plan would be a cheaper alternative. However, as noted earlier, there is no chance of a bipartisan agreement on a comprehensive health care reform plan this year, but neither party could seriously oppose a serious risk pool program for uninsurable individuals and again, the details of this policy could be worked out in a matter of weeks.

4. Create Bipartisan Commission to Study Medical Billing Reform:

Anyone who has reviewed medical bills as provided by doctors and hospitals and then reviewed the payments actually made, and their variance, between insurance companies, government entities and cash-paying individuals knows that the present medical billing system needs substantial reform. Unfortunately, this issue has gotten little attention in the health care reform debate and does not figure prominently in the Obama Health Plan. A single procedure can be billed at $10,000.00 by a hospital to an individual, yet the same procedure could bring in only $4,000.00 from an insurance company and either more or less from a government entity. Greater transparency is needed in medical billing, and health care consumers need to be more involved and aware of what procedures cost and their various choices to create a more efficient and effective medical billing system. While this policy prescription may not be amenable to a quick bipartisan agreement on legislative mandates, neither party could seriously oppose the creation of a Bipartisan Commission to study the medical billing problem and issue recommendations for negotiations between the politicians in a few months.

5. Create a Medicare/Medicaid Sanctions Database and Act to Reduce “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse” in Medicare and Medicaid:

One provision proposed by the Obama Health Plan on Monday was originally proposed by the Republican Study Committee:

The President’s Proposal establishes a comprehensive Medicare and Medicaid sanctions database, overseen by the HHS Inspector General. This database will provide a central storage location, allowing for law enforcement access to information related to past sanctions on health care providers, suppliers and related entities. (Source: H.R. 3400, “Empowering Patients First Act” (Republican Study Committee bill))

Republicans will also likely sign off on some of the other provisions listed on this page by President Obama in his Health Plan, as some are geared towards cracking down on wrongdoers who abuse the payment procedures of Medicare and Medicaid. A good first step, and one that neither party could seriously object to, is the creation of the sanctions database to make sure wrongdoing individuals cannot continue to defraud the government under any circumstances. Again, bipartisan negotiators could work out legislative language on this issue in a matter of weeks.

Many seniors are understandably nervous about what exactly it means for them if Obamacare passes and over 400 Billion Dollars in reductions in Medicare spending occur over the next ten years. A more sensible, bipartisan policy would focus intensely on increasing efficiency in Medicare/Medicaid while reducing waste, fraud and abuse in this programs instead of cutting whole programs like Medicare Advantage, a program relied upon my millions of seniors. Another constructive step would be for President Obama to appoint a Medicare administrator to report to him and Congress about what kind of cuts are feasible or desirable beyond eliminating the improper, fraudulent spending via the sanctions database and stepped up enforcement.

CONCLUSION

The five point plan listed above is no panacea, and will not solve all the problems in the American health care system. However, these above-enumerated centrist health care reforms could not be seriously opposed by either party and compromise legislative language could be worked out in a matter of weeks. Instead of acrimony about Obama’s planned use of reconciliation and the GOP’s obstructionism, one can only hope that the participants in today’s health care summit put aside the pressures of party ideologues on both sides and decide to forge real consensus where it is actually possible: centrist, incremental health care reform.

Update: The initial speeches by President Obama, GOP Senator Lamar Alexander, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid show little sign of true bipartisan negotiations.

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Shocker: Obama Surrenders, Substantially Scales Down Plan on Eve of Summit; UPDATED 2X: White House Furiously Denies WSJ Story, Hoyer Confirms WSJ Story

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

A Pensive Barack Obama Looks On As the White House's Plans to Advocate Scaled Down Health Care Plan Leak, Detailing a Smaller 250 Billion Dollar Health Care Plan as Monday's 950 Billion Dollar Proposal Looks Unlikely to Pass Congress on the Eve of the Health Care Summit

In an incredible development literally hours before the much-hyped health care summit is to begin between President Obama and Congressional Republicans, the Obama Administration signaled its intent to move forward with a much smaller, scaled back health care plan spending perhaps 250 Billion Dollars over 10 years instead of the near Trillion a year proposed by the present Obama Health Plan as released on Monday. The Wall Street Journal reports:

President Barack Obama will use a bipartisan summit Thursday to push for sweeping health-care legislation, but if that fails to generate enough support the White House has prepared the outlines of a more modest plan.

His leading alternate approach would provide health insurance to perhaps 15 million Americans, about half what the comprehensive bill would cover, according to two people familiar with the planning.

It would do that by requiring insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents’ health plans, and by modestly expanding two federal-state health programs, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, one person said. The cost to the federal government would be about one-fourth the price tag for the broader effort, which the White House has said would cost about $950 billion over 10 years.

Officials cautioned that no final decisions had been made but said the smaller plan’s outlines are in place in case the larger plan fails.

Such a move would disappoint many Democrats, including Mr. Obama. They have worked for more than a year to pass comprehensive legislation like the plan the president unveiled Monday, which would cover the bulk of the 46 million uninsured people in the U.S., set new rules for health insurers and try to control spiraling health-care costs.

The last reporting from the WSJ above could be the understatement of the decade, as many Democrats will be much more than disappointed. The left is already disappointed by the White House’s declaration yesterday that the public option was dead, and this scaled back, much smaller plan leaked just hours before the health care summit is sure to infuriate those on the left who have been agitating tirelessly for a comprehensive health care reform package along the lines of Monday’s Obama Health Plan. Indeed, should Obama actually fallback on the smaller plan as the WSJ suggests, such a development is certain to lead to questions about the consistency and effectiveness of Obama’s strategy on health care reform and much consternation in the left wing new media about the incompetence of his execution since the health care debate began in the Spring of 2009.

Looking back, if Obama had been agreeable to the type of plan he’s apparently contemplating now back in the Spring of 2009, health care reform would have passed with 80 votes in the Senate and Obama would have done a lot to prove his bipartisan bona fides. Instead, after nearly a year of advocating a strongly partisan health plan, Obama may now be signaling he will take what he can get in a scaled down bill, yet the damage to the Democratic Party and the Obama brand as inflicted since the Spring of 2009 by the health care debate will remain.

UPDATE:  The Washington Post’s Obama advocate Ezra Klein and the Huffington Post report that the White House is furiously denying the Wall Street Journal’s report that a scaled back plan is under consideration. Klein’s report:

The Wall Street Journal has a splashy piece this evening on the White House’s plan B for health-care reform: a fallback approach that would cover 15 million people, do less to reform the system and cut costs, and carry a lower price tag. Call it health-care lite.

Plan B has been around for awhile. In August, discussions raged in the White House over whether to pare back the bill. The comprehensive folks won the argument, but people also drew up plans for how you could pare back the bill, if it came to that. More thinking was done on this in the aftermath of the Massachusetts election, when Rahm Emanuel and some of the political folks again argued for retreating to a more modest bill. As you’d expect, these conversations included proposals for how that smaller bill would look.

At this point, I could quote some White House sources swearing up and down that that’s all this is. A vestigial document that’s being blown out of proportion by a conservative paper interested in an agenda-setting story. They’re furious over this story. None of the quotes are sourced to the White House — not even anonymously — raising questions that the whole thing is sabotage. But it hardly matters. There’s no Plan B at this point in the game, and most everyone knows it.

UPDATE #2: Ed at Hotair picks up this Hill piece quoting House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stating this morning before the summit that a scaled back bill along the lines of the one described by the WSJ last night is on the table:

Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat, said the president would have to look at a fallback proposal if the current proposals before Congress weren’t able to muster the votes to pass.

“I think the president’s open to that,” Hoyer said during an appearance on CNBC, cautioning that the president would clearly prefer to see the comprehensive bills pass…

“Obviously, the president has indicated he wants to have a comprehensive bill,” Hoyer said. “But the president, like all of us, understands that in a democracy, you do the possible.”

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CNN: 73% Say Start From Scratch (48%) or Stop Work Completely (25%) on Health Care Reform; UPDATE: 52% Oppose Use of Reconciliation

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid May Want to Review CNN's Finding that 73% of the American Public Oppose Passing the Health Care Reform Bills before Congress now or Something Similar

This afternoon CNN released some troubling findings for the Obama Administration: Just 25% of the American public wants Congress to follow the lead of the newly released Obama Health Plan and pass a health care reform plan similar to the plans now before Congress. An overwhelming majority of Americans, 73%, prefer that Congress either start from scratch (48%) or stop work completely on health care reform (25%). Obama’s Health Plan contains essentially the same policies as the bill passed by the Senate, with the addition of price controls for health insurance premiums.

CNN buries the lede in its article accompanying the release of its findings, never mentioning that an overwhelming majority (73%) of the American public disapprove of passing a bill similar to the one before Congress, including four in ten Democrats who want the President and Congress to start over. CNN does manage to state that “nearly three quarters” of Americans want some kind of reform, including in that figure the 48% who want Congress to start over in that grouping in a somewhat dishonest fashion:

Washington (CNN) – Although the overall health care reform bills passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate are unpopular, many of the provisions in the existing bills are extremely popular, even among Republicans, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday also indicates that only a quarter of the public want Congress to stop all work on health care, with nearly three quarters saying lawmakers should pass some kind of reform.

Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform.

…..

The poll’s release comes one day before a critical televised health care summit hosted by President Obama that will include top Congressional Democrats and Republicans.

The survey indicates nearly half of all Democrats say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with nearly 4 in 10 Democrats saying Congress should start from scratch and just 1 in 10 saying lawmakers should stop all work on health care.

A majority of Republicans questioned, 54 percent, want Congress to start from scratch, with just under 4 in 10 saying lawmakers should halt work on health care reform and just 6 percent saying Congress should pass into law the current legislation.

Fifty-two percent of Independents want Congress to start work on a new bill, with 27 percent saying lawmakers should stop all work, and 18 percent saying that the current legislation should be passed into law.

The final finding noted above in the CNN excerpt is truly incredible: a full 79% of Independents reject passing the current bills before Congress or something similar and only 18% of Independents favor moving forward with the present bills as advocated by the Obama Health Plan. That’s a 61 point gap between approval and disapproval, running against the plan initiated by the release of the Obama Health Plan last Monday and subsequent advocacy of the reconciliation process to circumvent the filibuster and push through Obamacare by the President and his Democratic congressional allies. With the mood of the country so clearly opposed to moving forward with the present bills or something similar in Congress, Obama must provide an incredible performance tomorrow to move public opinion back his way to convince nervous Democrats in Congress that proceeding with pushing through Obamacare now is in their best electoral interest.

UPDATE: Hotair points out that a new USAToday/Gallup poll taken yesterday shows the public opposed to Obama’s possible use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare by a 52%/39% margin and that only 22% of the public thinks the health care summit will result in a bipartisan deal.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs indicated Monday that, if necessary, the White House was open to using a parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation to bypass a prospective filibuster in the Senate. That means a measure could pass the Senate with a 51-vote majority rather than the 60 votes needed to end debate.

Americans are opposed 52%-39% to using that device to get a bill through.

The poll of 1,009 adults nationwide, taken by landline and cellphone Tuesday, has a margin of error of +/—4 percentage points.

UPDATE: Ace at Ace of Spades and Allahpundit at Hotair link over, thank you guys. Readers of Ace and Hotair please take a look around and leave a comment or three.

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Obama 2005: Condemns Reconciliation Use as “Absolute Power” and “Not What the Founders Intended.”

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

President Barack Obama and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Had a Very Different View the Use of Reconciliation in 2005

Explosive new video has surfaced today that shows President Barack Obama, and many other prominent Democrats condemning the Bush Administration in 2005 for Bush’s attempt to use reconciliation to push through judicial nominees.  These 2005 quotes are particularly jarring when compared to the 2010 quotes from the same folks about Obama’s attempt to use reconciliation to pass Obamacare. Senator Barack Obama, on 4/26/05, in response to a question on the “nuclear option” (how Democrats in 2005 characterized then-President Bush’s attempts to use reconciliation):

“He hasn’t gotten his way…uh…and that is now prompting a change in the Senate rules that really I think would change the character of the Senate uh forever and uh what I worry about would be that you essentially have still two chambers the House and the Senate but you have simply majoritarian uh absolute power on on either side and that’s just not what the Founders intended.”

Present Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid weighs in as well back on 5/18/2005, noting that

“The right to extend a debate is never more important than when one party controls both Congress and the White House. The filibuster serves as a check, on power, preserve our limited government.”

Considering Leader Reid’s comments yesterday that the Republicans should “stop crying” about Obama’s planned use of reconciliation to push through Obamacare, Reid’s comments in 2005 are particularly explosive in terms of today’s health care debate. Present Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also chimed in with a verbal barrage on 5/23/2005 against then President Bush about controlling himself and calling upon her GOP collegues to go to Bush and tell him reconciliation is “a bridge to far” and that “you have to restrain yourself Mr. President.” One could argue, in aftermath of the shocking GOP upset win in the Massachusetts Senate race in January 2010 by a candidate, Scott Brown, who explicitly campaigned against passing Obamacare, that a Senator from the Democratic side should have the type of conversation with the President as suggested by Secretary Clinton back in 2005.

Vice President Joe Biden weighed in with his familiar bombastic rhetoric in 2005 as well, stating that “this nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power…it is a fundamental power grab” and further opining in prayer that “”I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.” Of course, Biden now supports the Obama Administration’s plan to use reconciliation to push Obamacare through the Senate with only 50 votes (and his tie breaking vote).

A common theme of all of the Democratic Senators remarks in 2005 revolves around the destruction of the “Republic” and the elimination of the “checks and balances” intended by the Founders that would ensue should President Bush succeed in his effort to use reconciliation. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is now leading the Senate effort to pass a public option through reconciliation, had this to say on 5/18/2005 about Bush’s attempt to use reconciliation:

“We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances which say if you get 51% of the vote, you dont get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing its almost a temper tantrum.”

Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Ca.) also condemned Bush for attempting to use reconciliation, stating if used reconciliation would mean “the Senate becomes ipso facto, the House of Representatives” while also showing her more dire concern is the use of reconciliation for substantive legislation, not judicial nominees, by stating Bush will start with reconciliation for judicial nominees but then move on to its use in legislation. Perhaps most bombastic of all in 2005 regarding Bush’s attempted use of reconciliation is Democratic Senator Max Baucus (D-ND), who solemnly stated that “[t]his is the way that Democracy ends not with a bomb, but with a gavel”. Of course, Bush did not actually use reconciliation to get his nominees through the Senate as a bipartisan deal was reached.

Incredibly, each and every one of the above-quoted then-Democratic Senators, Obama, Reid, Biden, Clinton, Schumer, Baucus and Feinstein, are in favor of the use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare, with many of those same folks actively leading the effort, including now-President Obama. Perhaps an enterprising reporter could ask Harry Reid to explain if this comment also applies to Democratic Administrations like Obama’s: “No, we’re not going to follow the Senate rules…no…because of the arrogance of power of this Republican Administration.” Finally, Harry Reid posts in April 2005 on his Senate website an explanation as to why the improper use of reconciliation must be rejected and the claim to entitlement to an “up or down vote” is suspect:

For the past several months, the Senate has operated under a nuclear cloud. As a result of the Senate’s decision to reject a small number of President Bush’s judicial nominees, the Republican majority has threatened to break the Senate rules, violate over 200 years of Senate tradition and impair the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together on issues of real concern to the American people.

It is astounding that Republicans would precipitate this destructive confrontation, especially since this President has a better confirmation rate than any of his recent predecessors. The Senate has confirmed 205 of President Bush’s judicial candidates and turned back only ten, a 95% confirmation rate. Ten rejected judges – only seven of whom are currently before the Senate – does not seem reason enough for Republicans to break the Senate rules.

My Republican colleagues claim that nominees are entitled to an up-down vote. That claim ignores history, including recent history.

UPDATE: ABC’s Jake Tapper adds another Obama 2005 quote on reconciliation and the Framers of the Constitution:

At the National Press Club on April 26, 2005, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was asked about a move being discussed by Senate Republicans, then in control, to change the Senate rules so as to require a mere majority vote rather than the 60 votes necessary to end a potential filibuster.

“You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating it is, to make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward,” then-Sen. Obama told the audience.

His remarks have garnered some attention in recent days given the current likelihood that Senate Democrats will next week use “reconciliation” rules, which require only a 51-vote majority, to pass health care reform legislation, bypassing the current Senate rules of requiring 60 votes to cut off a potential filibuster and proceed to a final vote.

The White House has been in recent days setting the table for use of reconciliation rules for health care reform.

UPDATE #2: American Spectator’s blog reprints the 2005 comments by the various Democratic Senators in full.

UPDATE #3: Thanks for the link, Memeorandum.com. Welcome to Memeorandum readers, please take a look around and stay a while. A quick flashback to early February 2010, when President Obama and the new media left were in full attack mode about the evils of the filibuster. This excerpt supplies a stark contrast to the comments made by the left-leaning Democratic Senators quoted above in 2005 when Bush was trying to circumvent the Senate filibuster with Obama’s comments in bold:

The Filibuster Was Never a Good Idea

Yesterday, talking to Democratic Senators, the president offered some thoughts on the filibuster:

So the problem here you’ve got is an institution that increasingly is not adapted to the demands of a hugely competitive 21st century economy. I think the Senate in particular, the challenge that I gave to Republicans and I will continue to issue to Republicans is if you want to govern then you can’t just say no. It can’t just be about scoring points. There are multiple examples during the course of this year in which that’s been the case.

Look, I mentioned the filibuster record. We’ve had scores of pieces of legislation in which there was a filibuster, cloture had to be invoked, and then ended up passing 90 to 10, or 80 to 15. And what that indicates is a degree to which we’re just trying to gum up the works instead of getting business done.

I appreciate what the President is trying to do here and I agree with the spirit of his comments, but the history here is bad. There was no point in time when supermajority voting in the Senate was well-suited to the challenges of the time. Indeed, as David Mayhew has demonstrated it’s simply not the case that there was routine supermajority voting until the recent past. When FDR’s opponents were seeking to block court-packing and when LBJ was lining up support for Medicare, vote-counters assumed that a majority was needed to block initiatives.

The authentic tradition is of using the filibuster as an extraordinary technique for the specific purpose of maintaining white supremacy in the South. A Harding administration anti-lynching initiative fell prey to the filibuster back in the 20s. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 both had to be largely gutted in order to surmount filibusters. And it was recollection of the filibuster’s specific role as a bastion of white supremacy that led to the bipartisan effort to reform the filibuster in 1975 when northern liberal Democrats teamed up with the Ford administration and many Republicans to cut the cloture threshold to 60.

The institution has always been pernicious, just as the malapportionment of the Senate has always been the result of a hardball political negotiation rather than expressing some underlying good idea about the design of political institutions. Part of what makes the filibuster a bad idea is that it’s viability depends on minority party restraint. But the nature of human psychology is to create a procedural downward spiral in which each time there’s a change of partisan control, the new minority steps-up its obstruction.

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Obama 2012 Begins Operations: Hatch Act Violations?

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod (left) and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina (right) have initiated Obama 2012 reelection activities according to the Politico exclusive reporting

Nearly three years before a possible reelection vote for President Obama in November 2012, Barack Obama has initiated 2012 campaign activities in the past few weeks according to an exclusive report from Politico’s Mike Allen.:

President Barack Obama’s top advisers are quietly laying the groundwork for the 2012 reelection campaign, which is likely to be run out of Chicago and managed by White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, according to Democrats familiar with the discussions.

The planning for now consists entirely of private conversations, with Obama aides at all levels indulging occasionally in closed-door 2012 discussions while focusing ferociously on the midterm elections and health care reform, the Democratic sources said. “The gathering storm is the 2010 elections,” one top official said.

But the sources said Obama has given every sign of planning to run again, and wants the next campaign to resemble the highly successful 2008 effort.

David Axelrod, White House senior adviser, may leave the West Wing to rejoin his family in Chicago and reprise his role as Obama’s muse, overseeing the campaign’s tone, themes, messages and advertising, the sources said.

David Plouffe, the Obama for America campaign manager, described by one friend as “the father of all this,” will be a central player in the reelect, perhaps as an outside adviser.

“The conversations are beginning, but decisions haven’t been made,” a top official said. “If you look at David Plouffe’s stepped-up level of activity with the political organization [as an outside adviser on the 2010 races], that is obviously the beginning of the process.”

This disclosure of the ongoing Obama 2012 campaign work in the White House with “Obama aides at all levels indulging occasionally in closed-door 2012 discussions” could be construed as a possible violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities. The key question regarding a Hatch Act violation would be if any of the “Obama aides” involved in “closed-door 2012 discussions” are outside of the exemptions of the Hatch Act, as such exemption covers federal employees paid via an appropriation for the Executive Office of the President or federal employees that are nominated and confirmed by the Senate.

If federal employees who are not subject to the exemption are shown to have participated in the nascent Obama 2012 activities, such activities may be in violation of the Hatch Act as non-exempt employees are prohibited from “doing political work while on duty, in uniform, in the office or in a government vehicle.” The exempt political appointees of the President can engage in political activities “provided their actions don’t amount to coercive use of the office to which they have been appointed. They cannot pay for political activities with taxpayer dollars, however.” The use of taxpayer dollars in furtherance of the Obama 2012 campaign by “Obama aides at all levels” during “closed door” discussions in federally-funded offices and/or travel to Chicago (where Politico reports Obama 2012 is based) could be violations of the Hatch Act.

Following this exclusive disclosure of these Obama 2012 activities by Politico, in the midst of the battle over passing Obamacare, the media is sure to attempt in the days to come to identify each and every one of the “Obama aides at all levels” who were engaging in such Obama 2012 activities and whether their political activities amounted to Hatch Act violations.

UPDATE: Hotair points out that Obama was just weeks ago talking about being a “great” one term President:

Didn’t The One tell us just a few weeks ago that he’d rather be a great one-term president than a mediocre two-termer? I guess he’s … planning for mediocrity, then?

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CBO: Obama’s Health Care Plan Too Sketchy to Score; UPDATE: Obama Punts on Public Option: “That’s Up To Leader Reid”

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Obama Releases an 11 Page Health Care Plan the CBO Cannot Score

In the wake of this morning’s thunderous 11 pages of vague and somewhat contradictory bullet points from the Obama Administration as the latest iteration of Obamacare, the CBO makes the ironic point that Obama’s plan is too vague to score with any degree of accuracy regarding the 10 year cost of the plan. CBO Director Douglass Elmendorf, who was elevated to his position by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, makes this point as delicately as possible on the Director’s Blog:

This morning the Obama Administration released a description of its health care proposal, and CBO has already received several requests to provide a cost estimate for that proposal. We had not previously received the proposal, and we have just begun the process of reviewing it—a process that will take some time, given the complexity of the issues involved. Although the proposal reflects many elements that were included in the health care bills passed by the House and the Senate last year, it modifies many of those elements and also includes new ones. Moreover, preparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released this morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions. Therefore, CBO cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal without additional detail, and, even if such detail were provided, analyzing the proposal would be a time-consuming process that could not be completed this week.

So the CBO would need the Obama Administration to actually provide “very detailed specifications” of their provisions to score the bill, as opposed to the eleven pages of bullet points with underlined or bold faced (and probably poll-tested) phrases (such as affordable or greater accountability or Improve Individual Responsibility). Indeed, the only real changes, even by the White House’s own talking points, involve only reversing prior, unpopular backroom deals cut by Obama and special interest groups (unions) or specific senators (Ben Nelson (D-NE), the insertion of price controls into the legislation, and a claim that “Republican” ideas are driving the Medicare cuts. Politico’s Ben Smith reports:

The White House, in talking points circulated to allies on the Hill, points to three major differences between Obama’s proposal and the Senate health care bill:

In particular this proposal makes three specific changes to the bill passed by the Senate:

• It eliminates several “special deals” including the arrangement made for Nebraska;

• It includes a series of measures proposed by Republicans to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse;

• It includes a new provision to prevent arbitrary rate hikes like the recent 39 percent increase in California.

The reversal of the odious Cornhusker Kickback and the deal with the unions over the cadillac tax are good steps to reverse prior mistakes, but are not substantive progress towards a more centrist health care reform plan. Indeed, the CBO will not have a price for Obama’s “new” plan by the time of the great health care summit Thursday as planned and by now undoubtedly fully scripted by the Obama Administration. The reason the CBO will not have a score is that Obama’s plan lacks the specifications needed to score a proposal, and even if those specifications were provided, the CBO cannot score a bill in that short a period of time. The Obama Administration obviously knew of this inability of the CBO to score its proposal before it was released, as we know the Administration has hired the best health care economists in America to work on its scoring of the various iterations of Obamacare (remember Jonathan Gruber?). Accordingly, it must be Obama’s intent to head into the health care summit he created blind regarding the cost of his bill according to the CBO. Obviously, the CBO’s scoring will play a critical role in any serious negotiations between the GOP and Obama over a health care bill.

A conclusion from the above-outlined CBO issue and the explicit statements regarding reconciliation by Obama’s communications people this morning when releasing their 11 page bullet point summary could be that Obama is not serious about entering substantive negotiations with the GOP and is instead, again, rushing the process. As noted by the NYT back on February 7, 2010 when Obama first floated the idea of a health care summit with the GOP, it appears that in the absence of an attempt at real consensus, this week’s meeting with the GOP will “serve only to allow Democrats to frame a political argument against the Republicans going into the midterm campaign.”

UPDATE: Regarding the politically charged issue of the inclusion of the public option in the Obama Plan, the Obama Administration omitted any reference to same in today’s 11 pages and via spokesman Robert Gibbs stated “Thats up to Leader Reid”:

The White House says it’s up to Harry Reid whether the Senate votes on the public option.

Twenty senators have signed a letter asking for a vote on the public option through reconciliation, which would allow Democrats to pass legislation with just 51 votes.

White House press secretary Robert Gates said today that the White House will leave that up to the Senate Majority Leader.

“I think they’ve asked for a vote on the floor of the Senate, and that’s certainly up to those who manage those amendments and up to Leader Reid,” Gibbs said.

President Obama did not include a public option in the new healthcare plan he unveiled this morning, which builds on the Senate bill.

Gibbs suggested it was left out because it lacks support, saying the president is looking for “the best way forward into something that can ultimate wind its way through Congress.”

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Breaking: Obama To Propose Price Controls For Health Insurance Premiums Tomorrow

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

President Barack Obama Will Include Federal Price Controls in Tomorrow's Internet Release of New Obamacare Legislative Language

As the anticipation grows in DC regarding tomorrow’s release of Obama’s latest intra-Democratic compromise health care proposal, the NYT reports that the Obama Administration will include provisions that create a “new power” of the federal government to control the price of health insurance:

WASHINGTON — President Obama will propose on Monday giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, as he rolls out comprehensive legislation to revamp the nation’s health care system, White House officials said.

The president’s legislation aims to bridge differences between the bills adopted by the House and Senate late last year, and to frame his debate with Republicans over health policy at a televised “summit” meeting on Thursday.

By focusing on the effort to tighten regulation of insurance costs, a new element not included in either the House or Senate bills, Mr. Obama is seizing on outrage over recent premium increases of up to 39 percent announced by Anthem Blue Cross of California and moving to portray the Democrats’ health overhaul as a way to protect Americans from predatory insurers.

The timing of the leak to the NYT tonight appears designed to control the media narrative tomorrow, when Obama’s specific language will be released on the internet. Obama’s emphasis on being tough on insurance companies appears designed to paint the GOP as soft on insurance companies should the GOP continue to refuse to go along with Obama’s health care plans. Additionally, the price controls would take effect immediately, giving the Democrats something to point to in the short term should Obamacare pass as most individual benefits are not set to begin until 2013. Specifically, the price control system proposed by Obama would work as follows according to the NYT:

The president’s bill would grant the federal health and human services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium increases by private insurers, potentially superseding state insurance regulators. The bill would create a new Health Insurance Rate Authority, comprised of health industry experts that would issue an annual report setting the parameters for reasonable rate increases based on conditions in the market.

Officials said they envisioned the provision taking effect immediately after the health care bill is signed into law.

The legislation would call on the secretary of health and human services to work with state regulators to develop an annual review of rate increases, and if increases are deemed “unjustified” the secretary or the state could block the increase, order the insurer to change it, or even issue a rebate to beneficiaries. States would be eligible for a portion of $250 million in grants finance premium review and approval.

The new price control provisions will also provide the GOP with an opening to paint Obamacare as a big government takeover of the health care system, especially as they are to take effect immediately and potentially disrupt private insurance company operations and plans for the ongoing fiscal year 2010. Conversely, the large new increases in a small subset of non-employer obtained health care insurance in California have provided political fuel to those on the left who advocate strong federal price controls. However, even some Democratic Senators, such as Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who participated in Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’s bipartisan health care negotiations, reject health insurance price controls, notes the LA Times in September 2009:

But Democrats have shied away from regulating premiums in the face of charges from business leaders and Republicans that controlling what insurers charge would be meddling too much in the private sector.

As a result, while states have long supervised what companies charge for mandated automobile and homeowners insurance, the idea has been largely banished from the healthcare debate.

“That would be a very substantial additional intervention in the marketplace,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), a member of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who worked with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on his healthcare bill. “I just don’t think the support would be there for that kind of a change.”

Another wildcard in the health care debate this week is the role of the nation’s governors, who are increasingly upset about being shut out of the intra-Democratic health care negotiations and desire “more of a voice” in the negotiations:

Leaders of the National Governors Association meeting in Washington on Sunday expressed frustration that that they had been largely shut out of negotiations over the future of the health care system, even though they would be responsible for carrying out many of the changes envisioned by federal officials. They said they want more of a voice in shaping those changes.

“It’s important that governors be at the table and bring our perspective to the debate,” said Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican who is chairman of the National Governors Association.

Mr. Douglas said governors were deeply involved in discussions with Congress and Mr. Obama on the economic stimulus law adopted early last year. But he said, “We have not had that kind of relationship in the current debate” on health care.

Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, said: “Governors have something unique to contribute. Washington, D.C., is full of think tanks, theoreticians and advocacy groups. Governors are the ones whose feet are on the ground. We have a sense of what will work and what won’t work. Our perspective is not the only one. But we can bring some practicality to this discussion.”

In what is sure to be an exciting week for those interested in health care reform, the addition of federal price controls into the mix is will spark renewed disputes between liberals and conservatives over whether increased government power is the answer for the issues facing America’s health care system.

UPDATE: Hotair and others follow CentristNet’s lead regarding Obama’s proposed price controls.

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Strong Public Support for the Obama Presidency Falls to New Low

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

Strong support for of Obama's Presidency dwindled to a new low today: 22% of likely voters.

Despite the return of 2007-2008 Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to an active role in molding President Obama’s political strategy, today’s Rasmussen Reports daily polling shows that only 22% of likely voters strongly approve of Obama’s job performance, a new low of Obama’s Presidency, while 41% strongly disapprove:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 22% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. That is the lowest level of strong approval yet recorded for this President.

Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19. The Approval Index has been lower only on one day during Barack Obama’s thirteen months in office. The previous low came on December 22 as the Senate was preparing to approve its version of the proposed health care legislation. The current lows come as the President is once again focusing attention on the health care legislation.

Including soft supporters and opponents of the President’s job performance, President Barack Obama’s overall job approval now stands at 45% approval and 54% disapproval amongst likely voters, also near his all-time low of disapproval. Today’s polling, as well as other polling done by Gallup, the NYT and CNN, demostrates the perils of President Obama’s renewed focus on health care legislation with an “impassioned plea” for the passage of Obamacare at the Nevada town hall, in yesterday’s weekly Saturday morning message and the upcoming “Health Care Summit” on February 25, 2010. Obama fell to his lowest ratings of his Presidency at prior moments of intense focus on health care reform, and it appears his renewed focus over the past few days is eliciting a similiar reaction amongst the American public.

On the day of Scott Brown’s election to the US Senate in Massachuetts, President Obama decided to bring Plouffe back into his inner circle and subsequently shifted rhetorical gears to again focus on bipartisanship, with an emphasis on economic policy. That shift in Obama’s political strategy, and Obama’s performances in the State of the Union and at the House Republican retreat, appeared to staunch the bleeding of Obama’s core supporters while providing him a slight bounce amongst independents.

As noted above, the Obama Administration’s return to an intense focus on health care reform in the leadup to the “Health Care Summit” on February 25, 2010 appears to have halted any positive momentum from the Plouffe strategic shift and once again led Obama to fresh lows in strong supporters of his Presidency. The Obama Administration, the Democrat Party and special interest groups that support Obamacare all argue that once passed by Congress and signed by Obama, the public’s strongly negative view of Obamacare will reverse itself. As Obama’s job approval ratings have reached their lows at moments of public focus on health care reform, that theory may not be tested after all as Congress may balk at taking the last leap by passing Obamacare in final form for Obama’s signature via reconciliation in the face of strong public disapproval and GOP condemnation.

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