It certainly sounds like panic is setting in among Democrats. And for good reason:
It is now undeniable that when historians write the history of Barack Obama they’ll say a)he accomplished what no other President could do in the Affordable Health Care act b)he used up lots of political capital in getting the Affordable Health Care Act through, which hurt his party in the mid-terms following it’s passage c)the launch was one of the most incompentent launches of a program in American history and in the initial months was like the Ford’s Edsel, the New Coke, of program launches and if problems are not fixed d)the irony is that Obama scuttled any hopes of America having serious health care reform due to the incompetence of its launch by his administration and his not-correctly-stated statements of impact of what the launch would be.
So this should not be surprising:
This Friday, House Republicans are expected to vote on a proposal — championed by GOP Rep. Fred Upton — that would allow insurance companies the option of continuing all existing health plans for a year, in response to the loss of plans that has taken place despite Obama’s vow otherwise. The White House points out that this will undermine the law.
Dem leadership aides have predicted that some House Dems will vote for the plan. And CNN’s Dana Bash stirred up chatter today when she Tweeted that “lots” of House Dems will vote for it if the White House has not put forth its own fix by the end of the week — in effect giving the White House a deadline. Obviously, “a lot” of Dems voting for this proposal would constitute another major Obamacare headache.
For some, its abandon ship from the White House line, for now:
House Democratic leaders are privately warning rank and file Dems that a vote for this bill – and other anti-Obamacare legislation – could alienate leading Democratic donors heading into 2014, a source familiar with internal discussions tells me.
“Votes against the Affordable Care Act are going to turn off a lot of these top national progressive donors,” the source said in characterizing the arguments.
Dem leaders are also pressing members internally with the case (which they are also making publicly) that the Upton plan would essentially preserve the worst aspects of the individual insurance market — allowing discrimination against people with preexisting conditions and allowing higher charges to women — thus undermining Obamacare’s protections, the source says.
So we could head into 2014 with Democrats divided and some donors balking…and Republicans divided and some donors balking. Talk about an even playing field.
The source adds that Bill Clinton’s widely reported comments today are not making this any easier for Democrats. Clinton said that “the president should honor the commitment” made to people who want to keep their insurance, “even if it takes a change in the law.” This sounded a bit like Clinton was trying to echo Obama’s own similar comments to NBC last week — in which he agreed a fix was necessary for these folks and said such a fix is forthcoming – but made a hash of it. However, Clinton’s spokespeople have not clarified the remark — which has also been distinctly unhelpful for Dems, according to my source — and so the damage is done.
Clinton’s spokespeople have not clarified it because Clinton probably meant exactly what he said, due to his hopes for Hillary Clinton’s Presidential changes, his own political antenna, and feedback he has gotten from Democrats in the field and most likely in Congress as well.
And the media narrative will very soon start to get worse –– not better:
Software problems with the federal online health insurance marketplace, especially in handling high volumes, are proving so stubborn that the system is unlikely to work fully by the end of the month as the White House has promised, according to an official with knowledge of the project.
The insurance exchange is balking when more than 20,000 to 30,000 people attempt to use it at the same time — about half its intended capacity, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal information. And CGI Federal, the main contractor that built the site, has succeeded in repairing only about six of every 10 of the defects it has addressed so far.
Government workers and technical contractors racing to repair the Web site have concluded, the official said, that the only way for large numbers of Americans to enroll in the health-care plans soon is by using other means so that the online system isn’t overburdened.
This inside view of the halting nature of HealthCare.gov repairs is emerging as the insurance industry is working behind the scenes on contingency plans, in case the site continues to have problems. And it calls into question the repeated assurances by the White House and other top officials that the insurance exchange will work smoothly for the vast majority of Americans by Nov. 30. Speaking in Dallas a week ago, President Obama said that the “Web site is already better than it was at the beginning of October, and by the end of this month, we anticipate that it is going to be working the way it is supposed to, all right?”
The need for what the official called a “divide-and-conquer strategy” for enrollment puts more emphasis on alternative methods for buying health plans. These methods include federal call centers and insurance companies that sell policies directly to customers — paths that are hobbled for now by some of the same technical problems affecting the federal Web site.
Conservatives are gleeful. Columnist Charles Krauthammer, who could never ever be accused of understating anything, is now pronouncing the death of liberalism:
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer sees “the collapse of American liberalism” in sight, in no small part because of the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act.
“We have not just Obamacare unraveling, not just the Obama administration unraveling, not just the Democratic majority of the Senate [unraveling], but we could be looking at the collapse of American liberalism,” Krauthammer told Bill O’Reilly Tuesday. “Obamacare is the big thing for them. The biggest in a hundred years.”
Krauthammer addressed tensions and tactical disagreements within the Republican Party — particularly related to the government shutdown in October — and said he believes this is an important opportunity for conservatives to unite.
Unite — and hope to savor that moment when it’s assured that millions of Americans who could get insurance if the program works as outlined, don’t get insured.
UPDATE: To follow the reaction of various blogs to this story GO HERE.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.