How Does It Feel to Be at the Table Now?
On Monday, the Obama administration held a well-publicized love-fest with lobbyists for the health care industry. It turns out that rather than a "game-changer," the event was a fraud. And the industry got burned.
At the time, President Obama called it a "a watershed event in the long and elusive quest for health care reform":
Over the next 10 years — from 2010 to 2019 — [these industry lobbyists] are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that's equal to over $2 trillion.
By an amazing coincidence, $2 trillion is just enough to pay for Obama's proposed government takeover of the health care sector.
Yet The New York Times reports that isn't the magnitude of spending reductions the lobbyists thought they were supporting:
Hospitals and insurance companies said Thursday that President Obama had substantially overstated their promise earlier this week to reduce the growth of health spending... [C]onfusion swirled in Washington as the companies’ trade associations raced to tamp down angst among members around the country.
Health care leaders who attended the meeting...say they agreed to slow health spending in a more gradual way and did not pledge specific year-by-year cuts...
My initial reaction to Monday's fairly transparent media stunt was: "I smell a rat. Lobbyists never advocate less revenue for their members. Ever." The lobbyists are proving me right, albeit slowly. (Take your time, guys. I don't mind.)
The Obama administration seems a little less clear on that rule. Again, The New York Times:
Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said “the president misspoke” on Monday and again on Wednesday when he described the industry’s commitment in similar terms. After providing that account, Ms. DeParle called back about an hour later on Thursday and said: “I don’t think the president misspoke. His remarks correctly and accurately described the industry’s commitment.”
How did the industry find itself in this position? Politico reports:
The group of six organizations with a major stake in health care...had been working in secret for several weeks on a savings plan.
But they learned late last week that the White House wanted to go public with the coalition. One health care insider said: “It came together more quickly than it should have." A health-care lobbyist said the participants weren’t prepared to go live with the news over the weekend, when the news of a deal, including the $2 trillion savings claim, was announced by White House officials to reporters.
Gosh, it's almost like the White House strong-armed the lobbyists in order to create a false sense of agreement and momentum. Pay no attention to that discord behind the curtain!
At the time, I also hypothesized that this "agreement" was a clever ploy by all parties to pressure a recalcitrant Congressional Budget Office to assume that the Democrat's reforms would produce budgetary savings. "Otherwise, health care reform is in jeopardy," says Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). Turns out there was no agreement, and the industry was just being used.
American Hospital Association president Richard Umbdenstock was more right than he knew when he told that group's 230 members:
There has been a tremendous amount of confusion and frankly a lot of political spin.
Merriam-Webster lists "to engage in spin control (as in politics)" as its seventh definition of the word "spin." Its second definition is "to form a thread by extruding a viscous rapidly hardening fluid — used especially of a spider or insect." Which reminds me...
CORRECTION: My initial reaction to Monday's media stunt -- "I smell a rat" -- was transcribed incorrectly. It should have read, "I smell arachnid."
(HT: Joe Guarino for the pointers.)
