Four Errors Obama made in his health reform strategy: Vicente Navarro

Navarro is Prof. of Health Policy at Johns Hopkins university. Obviously many people on the right are critical of Obama's health care reform policies but leftists such as Navarro are also quite critical of Obama's strategies and policies. Navarro says: ( My own remarks are after quoted passages and NOTE:)

""As I said, I never had great expectations about him and his policies, but even the lowest of my expectations have not been met.

... But my greatest disappointment is the strategies he is now following in his proposals for health care reform - they could not be worse. I am really concerned that the fiasco of this reform may make Obama a one-term president.""""

NOTE: The first error that Obama made was to concentrate upon the theme of reducing costs and the deficit. Certainly there will be a need to reduce costs but to emphasize cost reduction to such a degree-- especially without showing exactly how it can be done without reducing services --is bound to produce a negative reaction. Indeed, the opposition to Obama's reforms has shown itself to be quite adept at using this negative reaction to their advantage:

""""This message, as it reaches the average citizen, seems like a threat to achieve cost reductions by cutting existing benefits. This perception is particularly accentuated among elderly people - which is not unreasonable, given that the president indicates that the funds needed to provide health benefits coverage to the 48 million currently uncovered will come partially from existing programs, such as Medicare, with savings supposedly achieved by increasing efficiency. To the average citizen (who has developed an enormous skepticism about the political process), this call for savings by increasing efficiency sounds like a code for cutting benefits. Not surprisingly, then, one sector of the population most skeptical about health care reform is seniors - the beneficiaries of Medicare. The comment that "government should keep its hands off my Medicare," as heard at some of the town hall meetings, is not as paradoxical or ridiculous as the liberal media paint it. It makes a lot of sense. An increasing number of elderly people feel that the uninsured are going to be insured at the expense of seniors' benefits. """"

NOTE: Obama's strategy is to emphasize the number of people in the US that have no insurance. While Navarro agrees that this is a problem he sees underinsurance as an even greater problem. Those who are not well off cannot afford sufficient insurance to adequately cover them in case of serious illness or accident. Obama's health care reforms do not adequately deal with these issues:

""During the presidential campaign, both Obama and Hillary ClintonHillary Clinton, in discussing the need for health care reform, made frequent reference to heart-breaking stories - cases in which families and individuals suffer under our current system of medical care. But none of the proposals that the Obama administration is ready to support would address most of these cases. It will be an embarrassing and uncomfortable moment during the 2012 presidential campaign if someone asks candidate Obama about what has happened to some of the people whose stories he told in the 2008 campaign.""

NOTE: Navarro thinks that any plan should be universal and not targetted to particular groups. Obama targets reforms to particular groups such as the poor or the uninsured. However, others who must pay for these reforms through their taxes will often feel that the reforms actually hurt them--notice the reaction of seniors on medicare! Without a universal government plan the resulting reforms will simply tinker with the system and the govt. role will simply be to further subsidize the interests that are already causing the problems in the system.

NOTE; The fourth error is for Obama to exclude the single payer system from the debate. Although he understands why Obama might end up not adopting it, if the single payer were a real option then he would have been able to organise support from the left but instead of that he has let opposition to his reforms gain the momentum and the result is that he continually abandons his own reform goals to achieve at least something.

Navarro concludes:

""I don't doubt that President Obama, a decent man, wants to provide universal health care to all citizens of this country. But his judgment in developing his strategy to reach that goal is profoundly flawed, and, as mentioned above, it may cost him the presidency - an outcome that would be extremely negative for the country. He should have called for a major mobilization against the medical-industrial complex, to ensure that everyone has the same benefits that their representatives in Congress have, broadening and improving Medicare for all. The emphasis of his strategy should have been on improving health benefits coverage for everyone, including those who are currently uncovered. And to achieve this goal - which the majority of the population supports - he should have stressed the need for government to ensure that this extension of benefits to everyone will occur.""