Morning Bell: Obama Offers Flexibility to Implement Single Payer Faster

Conn Carroll / March 01, 2011

Obamacare remains tremendously unpopular with the American people. According to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll, only 14 percent of Americans believe they have benefited from the law, compared to 17 percent who say the law has already harmed them. Only 28 percent of Americans believe Obamacare will help the nation’s economy, compared to 45 percent who believe it will make it worse. Overall, 48 percent of Americans oppose Obamacare while only 43 percent favor it. Some provisions, like the individual mandate, are particularly unpopular, with a full 67 percent of Americans favoring its repeal.

President Barack Obama knows all of this, which is why he told the visiting National Governors Association at the White House yesterday that he supports changing the date that states can begin applying for waivers from some Obamacare mandates from 2017 up to 2014. Specifically, the President endorsed legislation by Senators Ron Wyden (D–OR) and Scott Brown (R–MA), claiming: “It will give you flexibility more quickly while still guaranteeing the American people reform.” President Obama is at least half right here. Wyden–Brown would give states some flexibility—but only the flexibility to implement a government take over of health care faster. Heritage Foundation Center for Policy Innovation Director Stuart Butler explained in the New England Journal of Medicine:

One [problem] is that [Wyden-Brown] still locks the states into guaranteeing a generous and costly level of benefits. True, a state could propose alternative benefit requirements if they had the same actuarial value as those in the [health care bill]. But the requirements go well beyond basic coverage, and the HHS secretary is the one who defines “at least as comprehensive” benefits. … (more…)