Obama sends out dishonest hit piece...real "politics of hope"

[Thorgrim]

February 1, 2008, 10:58 am
Obama does Harry and Louise, again

The Obama campaign sends out an ugly mailer. Sorry, but this is just destructive — like the Obama plan, the Clinton plan offers subsidies to lower-income families. And BO himself has conceded that he might have to penalize people who don’t buy insurance until they need care. So this is just poisoning the well for health care reform. The politics of hope, indeed.

Update: Ezra Klein adds a screenshot of the original Harry and Louise ad — they’ve obviously deliberately copied it. Just to remind everyone, Harry and Louise were the center of the vile smear campaign the insurance lobby waged against health care reform in 1993 — and this time a Democratic candidate is doing the smearing for them.

Ezra also points us to an Urban Institute study that shows that yes, mandates are essential. The key passage:

Voluntary measures would tend to enroll disproportionate numbers of individuals with higher cost health problems, creating high premiums and instability in the insurance pools in which they are enrolled.

I know that Obama supporters want to hear no evil, but this is really, really bad.

An "automatic sign-up," a la Medicare, would still force Americans into health care they may not want to pay for, or may feel overburdened by. Some seniors feel overburdened by Medicare's cost-sharing now. Meanwhile, Obama not only has a mandate for kids in his own health care plan -- what if the parents can't pay, one might ask? -- but he said, in last night's debate, "If people are gaming the system, there are ways we can address that. By, for example, making them pay some of the back premiums for not having gotten it in the first place." That, of course, is exactly what a mandate does. Gaming the system, in this context, means not purchasing health care. And Obama is now threatening to force them to pay back premiums. That's a harsher penalty than anything Clinton has proposed.

Obama does Harry and Louise, again - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog

Ugh

This is the kind of "I can have it both ways because the media hates you and loves me!!!" Obama gets away with...day after day

You think anyone is going to call him on this? Nope...

Will any Obama supporter call this, or any other of his underhanded attacks? No

He is using right wing talking points, or using racial material to try and get the upper hand (as mentioned in a previous thread) and he's still St. Obama

Just another reminder, Obama is a hardball politician like the rest of them...you can only pray that if he wins, people and the media ignore it until the election...which I doubt...the media loves to be savage to people they used to love

[garbagemanlb]

'hardball politician', huh? I thought you said he would never be able to stand up to the 'tough' mccain in a debate or a general election.

[Rouger2]

I like where Obama's ad says that he will cap Insurance profits if they are taking advantage of people. Their is no competition in the insurance industry so they can take huge uncapitalistic profits and people don't care about costs if the insurance companies are paying. They are not in a competitive field so are not part of capitalism which absolutely requires competition so the government absolutely has to control their profits.

[Donkey®]

Complete lies. Where's the outrage?

[thomez]

Originally Posted by Rouger2

I like where Obama's ad says that he will cap Insurance profits if they are taking advantage of people. Their is no competition in the insurance industry so they can take huge uncapitalistic profits and people don't care about costs if the insurance companies are paying. They are not in a competitive field so are not part of capitalism which absolutely requires competition so the government absolutely has to control their profits.

Insurance isn't part of capitalism?

[motivez]

Originally Posted by thomez

Insurance death by spreadsheet isn't part of capitalism?

A bad part.

[thomez]

Originally Posted by motivez

A bad part.

Oh, that's constructive.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by garbagemanlb

'hardball politician', huh? I thought you said he would never be able to stand up to the 'tough' mccain in a debate or a general election.

sleazy and arrogant is one thing

tough is another

He's "Mitt Romney tough"...throw out a ton of money and use everything you can think of because you think you're smarter than everyone else...and in the end people still think you're weak and an empty suit

[6SpeedTA95]

Originally Posted by motivez

A bad part.

Insurance is bad?

[motivez]

It's the truth.

As every libertarian on this site has said, a companies primary responsibility is to it's shareholders, who want to make money.

And because they make more money by providing subpar care, looking for every bullshit technicality to avoid paying out.. and are relieved (from a profit standpoint) every time one of their customers dies before they're able to get a return on their paid premiums, there's no way the free markets can be a solution.

Competition can only take you so far, at their core they'll still make more money by allowing people to die.. and that's unacceptable IMO.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

Insurance is bad?

The industry, yes. Even your buddy Mitt got the people of MA some form of health insurance, or at least that's what's being said!

[6SpeedTA95]

The primary problems in the insurance industry are in fact due to GOVERNMENT regulation. Insurance agencies are forbidden by law to compete with eachother beyond state boundaries. This is absolutely terrible as it severely limits customer pools and drives up cost substantially due to various infrastructure that must be put in place to abide by the laws.

The insurance industry is far from perfect but they do provide a good service to people in need. Does it have some issues? Absolutely! Are there problems with people getting denied surgeries/coverage when they should be covered? Yes that is a problem, but to basically call all insurance companies bad is blatantly false and is taking a close minded myopic view of the health industry.

I think we could make some substantial improvements to the industry, but calling them bad basically eliminates all hope and means that the only answer in your view is government run medicine which for the most part has been a disaster overseas. Even the countries with good systems like France, have substantial wait times, doctors are in short supply and many doctors leave the country after 10 years especially if they're any good.

[motivez]

The primary problems (as I see them) with insurance is the nature of the beast, not because of anything related to the government.. as I said, competition only gets so far, but you can't change the nature of the beast by making more options of the same creature available.

When you have a company that makes money by allowing people to die, and everyone admits a company should try to make as much money as possible, there's a pretty obvious consequence to that mentality.

As far as it being a disaster overseas, like I've said.. none of the people I know from Europe would trade their system for ours, so while I don't think either system is perfect.. a system in which people are able to get coverage without allowing greedy corporations to profit off their deaths is a far more ethical system.

[garbagemanlb]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

sleazy and arrogant is one thing

tough is another

He's "Mitt Romney tough"...throw out a ton of money and use everything you can think of because you think you're smarter than everyone else...and in the end people still think you're weak and an empty suit

Sleazy and arrogant?

And I suppose Hillary is humbly running a clean campaign?

[motivez]

Originally Posted by garbagemanlb

Sleazy and arrogant?

And I suppose Hillary is humbly running a clean campaign?

She hasn't for sure, but why does Obama get a pass every time he does stuff that's similar?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

She hasn't for sure, but why does Obama get a pass every time he does stuff that's similar?

It's few and far between. I agree this ad isn't entirely accurate considering Hillary has left a gaping gray area of where government subsidies start and end. It most likely will leave people uninsured and punished due to inability to pay insurance premiums. That number may be a few, thousands or millions. We don't know because her plan hasn't been finalized yet... At least it hasn't from what I've seen on her website.

I also think it's kinda funny that they're in a nice house, dressed nicely, holding a metal pen and acting like they're crunching numbers trying to figure out how to pay for healthcare...

[garbagemanlb]

Originally Posted by motivez

She hasn't for sure, but why does Obama get a pass every time he does stuff that's similar?

I don't think he does. Krugman, of the NYT no less, is writing about it. I'd say the media does have a certain attraction to Obama, but I don't think it is a major bias against Hillary like some are making it out to be.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by garbagemanlb

I don't think he does. Krugman, of the NYT no less, is writing about it. I'd say the media does have a certain attraction to Obama, but I don't think it is a major bias against Hillary like some are making it out to be.

Who else aside from Krugman?

And let's not forget, Krugman has been *widely* criticized by people on the left for even daring to say anything negative about Obama.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by JaJae

It's few and far between. I agree this ad isn't entirely accurate considering Hillary has left a gaping gray area of where government subsidies start and end. It most likely will leave people uninsured and punished due to inability to pay insurance premiums. That number may be a few, thousands or millions. We don't know because her plan hasn't been finalized yet... At least it hasn't from what I've seen on her website.

I also think it's kinda funny that they're in a nice house, dressed nicely, holding a metal pen and acting like they're crunching numbers trying to figure out how to pay for healthcare...

Hillary for you has always "sunk to a new low" because you found some graphic from some right wing website...stuff so ridiculously out of context or just plain wrong that Obama peddlers on the internet won't even push it (and believe me, they'll push anything anti-hillary)

Obama does something and "it's not entirely accurate"

Holy double standard batman

Some could say Obama's new BFF Kennedy "simply made an accidental wrong turn" in 1969

The new Obama-Kennedy campaign team running through the country...is that morally superior while Bill isn't saying one mean word to anyone and Hillary is out campaining on her own, winning voters on issues, not attacks or underhanded mailers