Barney Frank Makes a Misdiagnosis on Obamacare

[FarCenter]

Representative Barney Frank, who is not seeking re-election, gave a memorable exit interview this week to New York magazine suggesting that President Barack Obama “underestimated, as did Clinton, the sensitivity of people to what they see as an effort to make them share the health care with poor people.”

The Democratic Party “paid a terrible price for health care,” Frank said. “I would not have pushed it as hard.”

Frank’s take is self-serving. He argued that Obama should have proposed financial reform first, which is convenient considering that he was chairman of the House Financial Services Committee at the time and would have loved all eyes on his bill.

But the question remains: Is Frank right? We know what Republicans unanimously think. What’s surprising is how many Democrats, with the benefit of hindsight and speaking sotto voce, agree with Frank. Although they support the substance of the law, they are appalled by its political fallout and wish they had a do-over. Their thinking was summarized this week in the National Journal by Michael Hirsh, who wrote that by embracing health care reform amid the economic crisis, Obama confused his priorities and took his eye off the ball, much as President George W. Bush did when he invaded Iraq instead of worrying more about al-Qaeda.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-19/barney-frank-makes-a-misdiagnosis-on-obamacare.html

[russspeakeasy]

1. Let's see Barney; who is your new employer ?

[Skinner]

2. The point of getting elected is to pass laws like health care reform.

Not the other way around.

If the Dems take a hit because of health care, so be it. It would be worth it.

[CreekDog]

4. Yes. Like the Civil Rights Act and there was decades of fallout

yet it was practically the best thing the party ever did.

[Lasher]

3. I agree financial reform should have come first.

I am appalled, however, to see the National Journal claim an analogy between Obama's legislative priorities and Bush's invasion of Iraq. I am confident this view is not shared by 'many Democrats', but was instead the product of Michael Hirsh's creative 'journalism'.

[FarCenter]

5. The analogy was that Bush and Obama both chose the wrong thing as top priority

But in Obama's case, I think that his hand was forced by the Congress. Had not Reid and Pelosi and other leaders in Congress pushed health care, it is more likely that Obama's top priority would have been fixing the economy.

[dsc]

6. actually the article states the exact opposite

Obama ignored advice not pass a health care bill. I happen to agree with Obama on this but the decision was clearly his if the article is correct.

[FarCenter]

7. The advice against pushing health care was coming from his advisors

Frank is mistaken that the White House underestimated the political price. At various points, Vice President Joe Biden, senior advisor David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel advised the president to focus entirely on the economy and leave comprehensive health care for another day. “I begged him not to do this,” Emanuel told me when I was researching my book about Obama’s first year in office.

I asked the president in late 2009 why he overruled his team. He answered: “I remember telling Nancy Pelosi that moving forward on this could end up being so costly for me politically that it would affect my chances” in 2012. But he and Pelosi agreed that if they didn’t move at the outset of the Obama presidency “it was not going to get done.”

This implies that Nancy Pelosi was pushing health care.

[Lasher]

8. Health insurance reform is a question of priorities.

Bush intentionally lied us into an unjustified war with Iraq. It should never have occurred.