The Mainstream Media Falls For Absurd GOP Rhetoric

Always leave it to the media to feed the false balance monster:

Washington Post: "In shutdown blame game, Democrats and Republicans united: It’s the other side’s fault"

"Even before the midnight deadline for a government shutdown, the players were already staking out their positions in the battle to come: the fight over who was at fault."

"President Obama argued that Republicans were to blame for using a budget bill as a means of extortion to roll back health-care reform. No, the GOP shot back, it was Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) who were responsible for refusing to negotiate."

It seriously doesn't take much scrutiny to see just how patently absurd this is. Both sides want to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the government through the rest of the year. However, the GOP wants to add language to delay or defund a key law passed by the Democrats a few years back. The GOP is calling this a compromise since they originally wanted to repeal the whole law. I am just curious as to what practical definition of "compromise" this falls under. Let's ignore for a moment the fact that either of these options would effectively sabotage Obamacare, meaning it would be a repealed anyway*.  I see what Republicans both get and sacrifice in this supposed compromise. I also see what Democrats sacrifice. But I seriously have no clue what Democrats are getting. This is a necessary component of compromise to keep the word from being utterly meaningless. For example, it isn't a compromise for a thief to steal my TV set instead of my car.

What is even more absurd about this whole thing is the Democrats have already compromised on the CR's spending levels. I just seriously cannot understand how some in the media are so gullible to such obvious political spin. Democrats have a reasonable argument for why Republicans are to blame. But Republicans have nothing short of absurdities to justify blaming Democrats. The scary thing about this is that around half the country is still buying it. It isn't bias to point the finger at the culprit. It is objectivity.


*Republicans have not exactly kept this motivation secret, describing the efforts as the "last opportunity we're going to have to stop Obamacare" and a way to "stop the president’s health care law."


Update 10/2/13: Judd Legum also captures the absurdity of the GOP and mainstream media's definition of "compromise."

Further Reads:

 

Greg Sargent: "For GOP, a refresher on the meaning of the word `compromise’"

"In the “compromise” scenario Republicans are insisting on, then, only one side — Democrats — would be making concessions, and Republicans wouldn’t be giving up anything. Folks inclined to blame “both sides” for what’s happening here need to reckon with this basic imbalance."

Kevin Drum: "The Obamacare Fight Starts Tomorrow"

"For the past year or so, Obamacare has been the perfect foil for every corporation in America that's done something unpopular with its benefits package."

Kevin Drum:  "Here's Why the Public Blames Republicans for an Imminent Government Shutdown"

"This is why the public is likely to blame Republicans for a government shutdown: because Republicans have been very clear all along that they were deliberately stringing out the budget process so they could use a shutdown as leverage for their demands."

I don't share Drum's optimism the public will figure it out, at least not when most of the mainstream media seems to have largely ignored this extremely relevant piece of context...

Ezra Klein: "Don’t forget what the shutdown is really about"

"imagine if the Republican Party had won the 2012 election and Senate Democrats threatened to breach the debt ceiling and cause a financial crisis unless Republicans added a public option to Obamacare. Does anyone think a President Mitt Romney would find that position reasonable? Does anyone think that position would be reasonable."

Ezra Klein: "John Boehner’s ‘Plan C’ hurts Congress, hurts taxpayers, fixes nothing" 

This "Plan C" is politics at its worst. It's something that sounds good, but is still a terrible and utterly illogical idea.

"The idea behind this amendment, as Vitter explains it, is that Congress should live in the same health-care system its foisting on everyone else. But that's not what the amendment does. Obamacare doesn't force large employers to dissolve their health insurance arrangements and send their employees to the marketplaces. Congress is creating a worse version of Obamacare and applying it only to itself."

David Weigel: "No, Democrats Never Really Held the Debt Limit Hostage"

"To recap: Raising the debt limit always been unpopular, and tough to explain to voters. A few times, Democrats balked at raising it for a few days to make a point, then caved in. Many more times, they've just voted for the damn thing. John Boehner's Republicans have only ever agreed to raise the debt limit if they won major policy concessions from the president. Both parties don't do it. One party does it."

Greg Sargent: "John Boehner doesn’t have to let the Tea Party paralyze whole government"

John Sides: "Republicans and Democrats are treating the 2012 election like a mandate. They’re both wrong."

No, Obamacare Will Not Be Delayed or Defunded

The newest GOP hostage taking strategy in the continuing resolution and debt ceiling fights is to try and add language delaying Obamacare and/or the individual mandate. What is truly startling about this is just how unbelievably unlikely it is these strategies will ever succeed in delaying either. Before these bills can succeed, they must be approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate and signed by the President. However, this will almost certainly never happen. Ezra Klein and Sarah Kliff from The Washington Post's Wonkblog explain why (I will skip the whole "he will never do this to the signature achievement of his presidency" because it is just too obvious):

Why Senate Democrats will not delay the implementation of Obamacare or the individual mandate:

Klein: "Democrats point out that Obamacare's implementation schedule wasn't an accident. It was purposefully designed to begin in an off-year. That way there would be a year to work out the worst kinks, and by the time of the actual election, Democrats could point to millions of people getting insurance, running ad after ad highlighting constituents who now have coverage. If implementation didn't begin until October 2014, all voters would know about Obamacare would be the early glitches, as insurance coverage wouldn't begin until January 1, 2015."

Why Obama will not delay the implementation of Obamacare or the individual mandate:

Kliff: "A delay to the individual mandate – or the entire law – would also have a giant ripple effect throughout health-care industries, who have spent the past three years preparing for a 2014 launch. They've spent millions on marketing and outreach, writing business plans that hinge on a significant expansion of the health insurance market next year."

"This is especially true for health insurance companies, which decided months ago the prices they would charge consumers on the marketplaces. Those prices assumed that the law would have an individual mandate. Insurers would have likely set different prices if they didn't think the requirement to carry coverage would be in effect."

How the individual mandate is different from other parts of the law that have been delayed:

Kliff: "all the delays so far do have one thing in common: They erased political headaches for the law while barely denting the number of people that the health overhaul will cover in 2014. The delays Republicans are asking for now would cause major political and substantive headaches for the law while sharply reducing the number of people it covers."

"The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, without an individual mandate, 11 million fewer people would gain coverage next year."

"That would happen for two reasons. First, fewer people would buy health insurance coverage without a federal law requiring them to do so. Second, the people who signed up would likely be sicker people, who really thought they would use the coverage. That would cause premiums to spike, making the market a tougher sell for healthy people."

How the individual mandate is different from the employer mandate:

Kliff: "The individual and employer mandates often get lumped together as similar policies. They do, after all, both have the word mandate in their name – and both require certain entities to buy health insurance coverage. In practice though, they're significantly different. The individual mandate is a lynchpin policy, one that makes the rest of the Affordable Care Act work by bringing millions more people in the health-care system who don't currently buy coverage."

"The employer mandate, by contrast, is more of an extra nudge, aimed at encouraging companies to keep doing something they already do right now."

"The Congressional Budget Office estimates that with its [the employer mandate's] delay, a half-million fewer people gain coverage in 2014. This has a lot to do with the fact that most big employers already offer insurance right now, with no requirement to do so."

Make no mistake. A delay of Obamacare and/or the individual mandate is a political and practical impossibility. Delaying the individual mandate in particular would cause insurance rates to spike and insurance companies to flee the exchanges. It wouldn't just be a disaster for insurance companies, but also for the millions of currently uninsured people expected to gain coverage in 2013 (If Democrats are looking for a simple way to explain why they won't delay the individual mandate, try starting there).