Just the facts, ma’am
In his Times piece yesterday, February 13, Charles Blow points out that the President’s language (the President’s thinking?) has not changed much between press conferences, that of 2/9/2009 (his first) and that of just one year later, 2/9/2010 (his last).
On February 9, one year ago, the President said: “I am the eternal optimist. I think that over time people respond to — to civility and rational argument.”
And that on February 9 of this year he said much the same thing: “I am just an eternal optimist…. And all I can do is just to keep on making the argument about what’s right for the country and assume that over time people, regardless of party, regardless of their particular political positions, are going to gravitate towards the truth.”
Blow concludes from these two statements that the President hasn’t changed during his first year in office, that he still naively believes that people, and in particular members of Congress, can be changed by reasonable argument. Of course this is not how things work and as a result the President has accomplished little or nothing in respect to the country’s real problems.
Get tough, Mr. President, Blow seems to be saying. Crack some heads. Stop being Mr. Nice Guy.
I read the same two texts and come to quite different conclusions. In my opinion the President is not, in spite of his statements to the contrary, telling us the truth about the country’s problems. Is he covering them up? Probably not. But he is, at least in public, not facing up to them, that which he would be the first to admit that he has to do if he would find solutions.
For example, two spending areas, one discretionary and one mandatory, are consuming larger and larger portions of our tax dollars. The one is defense, in this year’s budget some 663 billion, well over half of the total discretionary budget, and nearly 13% up from a year earlier.
The other is entitlements, social security, medicare, and medicaid, together accounting for two thirds of all the mandatory spending budget. In particular Medicare at $453 billion is up nearly 7% from a year ago and Medicaid at $290 billion is up 12%. The CPI rose only 2.7% for the year, and most of that was because of higher energy prices.
These are facts and the President is not addressing them. It’s ironic in that Obama himself, in his recent press conference tells a story about Senator Moynihan. Moynihan was in an argument with a Senate colleague who, getting flustered with Moynihan said to him, “Well, I’m entitled to my own opinion.” And Senator Moynihan replying, “Well, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.”
Well while listening to the press conferences on u-Tube I was asking myself if the President was confronting the “facts,” or was he only interested in his own facts. He is certainly implying, and he is most likely mistaken about this, that his facts are ones that we might all agree on and that we should have them in mind when we set about trying to solve the country’s problems.
As a country we haven’t yet agreed to the so called facts about anything at all, not even the meaning of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Be it Guantanamo, global warming, bank regulation, surges in Irak and Afghanistan, let alone the perennial favorites, education and health care, we’re not, although citizens of one and the same country, looking at the same facts.
What facts did the President have in mind when he was ready to go along with the Senate Health Care bill? Well among others, there were such as these: One in Ten Americans are without health insurance. Preexisting medical conditions prevent some from obtaining reasonably priced health insurance. And many, who lose their jobs, also lose the health insurance that went along with the job.
And it’s true that the Senate bill would address these facts, do something about these unsatisfactory conditions, but what about other facts, the fact, for example, that public and private health expenditures are consuming a larger and larger portion of the country’s gross national product, over 16% in 2008.
The US Department of Health and Human Services makes the following projection: “Over the projection period (2009-2019), average annual health spending growth (6.1 percent) is anticipated to outpace average annual growth in the overall economy (4.4 percent). By 2019, national health spending is expected to reach $4.5 trillion and comprise 19.3 percent of GDP.”
This fact alone should call for a complete retooling of how we provide health insurance and health care in the country. The present arrangements are no longer viable. The country cannot become primarily about health care, when one of every five dollars earned, perhaps one of every four in the near future, goes to the health industry. There are too many other things, now neglected, that the country should also be about.
Other facts in regard to health care that the President is not directly confronting. People are living longer and longer, entering into that period of life when health care and health insurance are most in demand, that which results in increased insurance costs for everyone, especially for those who are still working and can pay.
In addition, the care itself is becoming more and more expensive, especially during that period of old age when there are more people living longer. The care is more expensive, much more expensive because of new treatments, miracle drugs, wonder machines fueled by wonder technologies, improved hospital and surgical procedures, and other such, all now available, but at a greater and greater cost, one we cannot afford to pay.
These facts are all well known. But no one is confronting them. Not the President, not the Congress, not the private insurers, no one. Why? Because these facts are a political third rail. He who would take away available treatment because of an inability to meet the cost, he who would balance the budget over health care, well that person or persons will not be returned to Washington. And those in Washington know that. Is the President no different?
