President Obama: Goofus or Gallant When it Comes to Health Care Discourse?

Gallant President Obama rises above below-the-belt discussions of health care reform:

What we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.

Goofus President Obama uses same tactics later in the same speech:

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result.

Full text here.

Reason's Matt Welch on the speech here. My take here.

Goofus & Gallant confidential here.

Comments

[Jaybird]

Goofus yells "Hitler! HITLER!!!"

Gallant makes a joke about the 1936 Olympics.

[@]

Anyone else notice when the Doctor In Chief said that Americans could "catch" diseases like breast and colon cancer? Did somebody actually write that?

[Michael Ejercito]

Would it not be simpler to enact price controls?

Management of health care would remain private, as would profits. The only government spending necessary is to pay people to determine the correct prices for medical services and to prosecute lawbreakers.

Anyone else notice when the Doctor In Chief said that Americans could "catch" diseases like breast and colon cancer?

I did not.

[Jaybird]

Cover your mouth when you cough, @.

[@]

Oh, I see. The script says: "because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse." I'm relieved, somewhat.

[$]

I'm disappointed you guys caught that before one of his fans could tell us Obama's way out ahead of the public on the viral theory of cancer.

Of the ass.

[@]

I blame the phrase "catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer" for my hearing error and obvious racism.

[Zeb]

"...that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government"

Why do people say this as if it is a bad thing?

[JB]

Lying Cunt.

[Neu Mejican]

Goofus President Obama uses same tactics later in the same speech:

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result.

A nitpick. This is only a scare tactic if these statements are somehow hyperbolic or untrue. I would have expected some evidence that the claims are indeed exaggerated in order to manipulate.

[DanD]

Micheal Ejercito:

"Would it not be simpler to enact price controls?"

Hooooooooooooooooo boy..........

[Michael Ejercito]

Hooooooooooooooooo boy..........

I asked if price controls would be simpler than President Obama's plan.

I have heard rumors that price controls might have side effects.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why do I still get surprised about what a piece of shit Obama is?

[Old Mick]

"Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result."

It's a scare tactic because it posits that there is either Obama's plan or a plan to do nothing. I have yet to see the "Do Nothing Plan". However, I have seen several non-Obama plans that appear to be superior to the Obama plan.

[Neu Mejican]

Nick Gillespie:

"One of the great problems with health care reform is that it always takes place, perhaps necessarily, either at the most grandiose level of abstraction ("Now," thundered Obama, "is the time to deliver on health care," as if it's an easily defined commodity) or the least insightful level of anecdote..."

Nick Gillespie one paragraph later...

Here's a more basic question when it comes to controlling costs: The easiest way to do this is to make the person doing the buying actually pay the price. You haggle more when the change is coming out of your own pocket. Or, alternatively, you splurge because you're worth it. Earlier this year, my coverage changed from a conventional network preferred-provider plan with a standard co-pay for prescription drugs to a high-dollar deductible plan in which I essentially pay the first $2,000 dollars of medical care I consume in a year (any unused money rolls over in a Medical Savings Account that I can use in the following year). As my doctor prescribed me a brand-name drug, I thought about the cost and whether there were any possible alternatives. For the first time I can recall, I actually had a conversation with my doctor-right there, in the examination room-about medical costs. We settled on a generic alternative, saving me roughly $75 on that particular transaction. More recently, we had a similar conversation, in which he didn't know the costs of a name-brand drug and a generic alternative-a sign that the medical system has a long way to go in terms of customer service. Imagine going into an auto shop and the mechanic not being able to quote you the price difference between a new and refurbished part.

Which looks to me like a combination of grandiose abstraction mingled with anecdote.

Just saying.

[Old Mick]

BTW, the Obama plan is to have congress draft and pass whatever it wants while he promotes it repeatedly during prime-time.

[Xeones]

Why do I still get surprised about what a piece of shit Obama is?

Racism, probably.

[Neu Mejican]

It's a scare tactic because it posits that there is either Obama's plan or a plan to do nothing. I have yet to see the "Do Nothing Plan". However, I have seen several non-Obama plans that appear to be superior to the Obama plan.

I don't see the "my plan or no plan" part of this statement. Can you point it out to me. The speech I saw seemed more aimed at "we need to work together to figure out the best way to address these problems."

[tarran]

It's also a scare tactic since his plan will make the deficit worse, its manadates on employers will put numerous small businesses out of commission, and leave us all poorer.

I am aghast that my countrymen keep wasting their votes on these morons. Many of us are as stupid as the Obamas and Bushes of the world think we are.

[Neu Mejican]

tarran,

Again, show me where his "scare tactics" sentence says "if we don't implement my plan."

[Big B]

Its a scare tactic becuase his plan would likely cause...

A) Our deficit will grow.
B) More businesses will close.
C) More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result.

A - see CBO projections
B - see what happens when companies are forced to offer coverage and the economy sucks
C - see Canada, where they "lose" their coverage, they just can't use it until their cancer has passed the stage where its reversible.

[Big B]

Neu - the reality is, "doing nothing", which he references, isn't even on the table, and his solution, the one he pushed in his speech, would solve at most one of the issues, while others out there that he ignores would likely solve two or more.

[Vogateer]

Neu Mejican:
"Which looks to me like a combination of grandiose abstraction mingled with anecdote."

How is talking about a transaction an the individual level grandiose abstraction? The individual paying and the doctor treating are pretty concrete, after all. The anecdote is completely relevant and illustrative of individuals being more careful with their spending when it's coming directly out of their own pocket.

[wingnutx]

You are all going to die unless my opponents stop fear-mongering.

[Old Mick]

" don't see the "my plan or no plan" part of this statement. Can you point it out to me."

Obama: Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing.

[wingnutx\'s opponents]

But if we stop fear-mongering, people will die!

[jtuf]

Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.

Obama calls his opponents liars, and most people don't even blink at the remark. One of his opponents calls Obama a liar, and there is an uproar over the remark. To his credit, Joe Wilson apologized for his outburst.

[tarran]

Neu mejican, sweetie, he gave te speech to jumpstart the adoption of his plan.

Thus, when he talks about the harms of "doing nothing" he is implying that his policies will address those harms.

Otherwise, why bring them up?

Can you imagine him saying, "if we do nothing, the Earth is vulnerable to an asteroid strike?". That wouldbe a true statement, and of course his plan would do nothing to reduce that risk. yet he didn't include that. Why?

Because, and I think you know this well, he is limiting his speech to the issues and matters affected by his plan.

[Neu Mejican]

Vogateer,

Well, it probably isn't "grandiose," but it is certainly an abstraction. As for the anecdote...NG was the one claiming that it was "the least insightful level."

[Old Mick]

Last night, President Obama said 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance each day.

That's funny, because since January, 13,095.2 Americans have lost their jobs each day.

[Michael Ejercito]

Why is Congress attacking the insurance companies?

When oil prices rose, Congress did not attack the auto insurance companies; they went after the oil companies.

In the end, it is hospitals and doctors who choose to engage in price gouging. Why is the same Congress so vocal about price gouging by oil companies silent about price gouging by doctors and hospitals, choosing to attack the health insurance industry instead?

[Old Mick]

@ Neu Mejican

Yeah sure, whatever.

[Old Mick]

"Why is the same Congress so vocal about price gouging by oil companies silent about price gouging by doctors and hospitals, choosing to attack the health insurance industry instead?"

Well they certainly can't blame themselves now can they?

[Neu Mejican]

tarran,

He does indeed advocate his plan, but the point of the speech I heard was that the plan wasn't finalized and that he was interested in results not methods. (look, he says that explicitly) If we are putting these quotes in context, that is the context where they resonate...something along the lines of "if we keep bickering rather than working on solutions, nothing will get done "and we all know where that leads."

There is no "my way or the highway" implicit in the sentence NG quoted.

[Old Mick]

From today's WSJ:

Millions of Americans watched President Barack Obama's speech last night to a joint session of Congress. Much of it was familiar, having been delivered in at least 111 speeches, town halls, radio addresses and other appearances on health care. But his most revealing remarks on the topic came on Monday, at a Labor Day union picnic in Cincinnati.

There Mr. Obama accused critics of his health reforms of spreading "lies" and said opponents want "to do nothing." These false charges do not reveal a spirit of bipartisanship nor do they create a foundation for dialogue. It is more like what you'd say if you are planning to jam through a bill without compromise. Which is exactly what Mr. Obama is about to attempt.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574402882066261774.html

Anybody see a pattern here?

[Neu Mejican]

Old Mick,

I don't have a problem with NG's argument. I just think it is really easy to find the kind of hypocrisy that he is accusing Obama of in the arguments of almost anyone making a point about anything. The fact that you find NG down playing the importance of anecdote right before launching into his own anecdote just seemed ironic to me.

[Tony]

Anybody see a pattern here?

Yeah, the WSJ continues to be a right-wing rag.

[Old Mick]

Well good luck with that irony thing.

Next up on the nm debate board, it's not belly button lint because it insn't entirely composed of lint.

[The Angry Optimist]

Tony, you've been asked, but do you have any proof for this statement?:

Right, in some places they're given academic credit for listening to Limbaugh for 3 hours a day.

Because I have not seen any. Given that you now have a history of providing unsupported "facts" to back up your "arguments", why should anyone take you seriously?

[Old Mick]

"Yeah, the WSJ continues to be a right-wing rag."

Maybe that's why the continue to make money.

[Neu Mejican]

Old Mick,

Well good luck with that irony thing.

That was my basic message to NG.
Ironic.

[Tony]

TAO if I ever gained your trust I'd take a long shower to get it off.

[Kawliga]

Tony: "Yeah, the WSJ continues to be a right-wing rag."

I tune into Herr Olbermann and Senorita Matthews
for pure unbiased truth.

[Neu Mejican]

Right, in some places they're given academic credit for listening to Limbaugh for 3 hours a day.

Well, now I didn't require 3 hours a day, but when I used to teach persuasive writing I required my students to listen to Limbaugh (and other prominent speakers of the day) to analyze the rhetoric being used.

[Invisible Finger]

That was my basic message to NG.
Ironic.

Yawn. Get back to us when Nick Gillespie is a government rep.

[The Angry Optimist]

TAO if I ever gained your trust I'd take a long shower to get it off.

I don't need to hear about your personal fantasies about me.

[Juice]

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow.

Even if you DO SOMETHING, the deficit will grow. No matter what you people do, the deficit will grow. It's like a law of nature now.

And stop calling it "our" deficit. I didn't spend a dime of that money and I don't owe shit.

[Neu Mejican]

Invisible Finger

What, you mean he's not?

http://eatthestate.org/08-08/FourthBranchGovernment.htm

;^)

[Xeones]

Well, now I didn't require 3 hours a day, but when I used to teach persuasive writing I required my students to listen to Limbaugh

I always knew you were a fascist right-winger, Neu.

[bigbigslacker]

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result.

Was he talking about health care or the big-business corporate welfare trickle-down stimulus spending?

Speaking of which, I noticed he opened his speech with a couple lies. First, he said the stimulus is working. Then he took credit for the plan's introduction in January. The stimulus is merely an extension of the previous mental midget's 2008 plan - only worse. I do have to say I'm happy we are done with all that free-market stuff Bush subjected us to...

[Michael Vogt]

Neu Mejican:
Well, it probably isn't "grandiose," but it is certainly an abstraction. As for the anecdote...NG was the one claiming that it was "the least insightful level."
----

How is it an abstraction at all?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_object
Abstract: Tennis
Concrete: A tennis player

He was talking about a patient and a doctor. Instances of those two things are concrete. Instances of "health care" are not concrete.

Don't confuse a denotation "a patient" with an abstraction. You can read Bertrand Russell if you want to know more about denoting, but it's not easy reading; Or at least it isn't easy reading for me:
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Russell/denoting/

Nick's anecdote about a specific instance of an individual and doctor meeting and discussing options is an example that you can logically connect to his previous statement with ease. You can't connect the individual anecdotes with "health care" without connecting more dots than you can find in a pointillism painting.

[Neu Mejican]

MV,

Well, it is abstract in this sense...

Concrete: the person/patient
abstract: make the person doing the buying actually pay the price (how are you doing that?...with some unspecified process...this is the abstraction).

As for the anecdote. I have already said I don't have a problem with anecdote as a rhetorical tool.

[Neu Mejican]

MV,

And, just an aside, Russell's is hardly the last word on denotation, but I will agree it is hardly a light read. Don't know if I want to revisit it at the moment.

[Michael Vogt]

@Neu Mejican

You are very confused. I'll see if I can help you.

"Paying" is a verb. It's an action, not an abstraction. The person exists, money and credit cards exist, the doctor exists, existing things being acted upon are not abstractions.

Please understand that your definition of abstraction is not the same as how philosophers and dictionaries define it. If you're not going to use words in ways that everyone else does, you're not going to get your point across. Did you read the Wikipedia article? Here it is again; please read it, as it's not that long:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_object

[evil monger]

And of course the pliant press "fact checks" all his statements. You know like they proved he never "palled around with terrorists" because no matter how many contacts he had with Bill Ayers, and no matter how central Bill Ayers was to Obama's early political career and CV, Obama and Ayers in no way "palled around."

This kind of hyper-legalistic defense is at the bottom of all of the "smears" that Obama fights. Death panels may be hyperbole, but look at every government run healthcare system and there is a government body performing the functions that Palin is warning about.

[Gilbert Martin]

"When oil prices rose, Congress did not attack the auto insurance companies; they went after the oil companies."

Which was also the wrong target.

They should have been attacking themselves for blocking oil exploration and drilling, building new refineries and all the other meddling ways they've interfered in the energy market.

[bookworm]

"if we keep bickering rather than working on solutions, nothing will get done "and we all know where that leads."

We'd be better off if we did nothing than to go Obama's route with all the rationing and high cost it will entail.

[Rich]

And of course the pliant press "fact checks" all his statements.

How about if this transparent high-tech administration simply inserts hyperlinked citations in every speech transcript?

[Tulpa]

Neu Mejican

-or-

Why I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Comment Filters.

Google "incif", people.

[Gilbert Martin]

"This kind of hyper-legalistic defense is at the bottom of all of the "smears" that Obama fights. Death panels may be hyperbole, but look at every government run healthcare system and there is a government body performing the functions that Palin is warning about."

It is also about mis-direction. The lefties who are squawking that there are no "death panels" claim that this relates to the end of life counseling provision when it actually relates to Obama's attempt to create an entity under the direct control of the White House (rather than Congress) that decides what Medicare and will and won't pay for and under what circumstances.

[Vogateer]

@Tulpa

That's brilliant.

It's the little things like incif + Firefox that make the Internet a wonderful place for freedom. It always makes me happy when I gain greater control of my browsing experience.

Reason, please alert us if you ever think about changing the html of your comments section. We need time to beta test our userscripts.

[R C Dean]

Why is the same Congress so vocal about price gouging by oil companies silent about price gouging by doctors and hospitals,

I dunno about doctors, but hospitals for the most part historically deliver single digit to negative net revenues. Which is not what you would expect from "price gouging."

Of course, it doesn't help that around half their book of business is non-negotiable and pays at less than cost (that would be the Medicare and Medicaid parts), and they are required by law to provide care to anyone who stumbles through an ER door.

[horsewithnonick]

Gallant President Obama rises above below-the-belt discussions of health care reform:

What we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.

I'm confused - how is repeatedly describing your political opponents as wicked, greedy saboteurs of the obsequious fawning healthy debate over the Dem's plan(s) "above the belt"?

[TrickyVic]

"""I dunno about doctors, but hospitals for the most part historically deliver single digit to negative net revenues. Which is not what you would expect from "price gouging.""""

True with hospitals, but negative net revenues doesn't mean you're not price gouging when you hand the patient the bill. Less than cost services for the government, bad debt and charity, makes it look like they are not gouging.

[Neu Mejican]

The person exists, money and credit cards exist, the doctor exists, existing things being acted upon are not abstractions.

Indeed.
I am not, however, confused.

NG is talking about the general concept of "having patients pay their own costs." He has abstracted, distilled, whatever, this concept away from any specific proposal for how to change the current system. He was talking about a general abstract concept "having people pay their own costs without an intermediary." He is talking about a general scheme, unspecified, "abstracted" away from any particular concrete plan.

Dictionary definition of "abstraction": Generalisation; ignoring or hiding details to capture some kind of commonality between different instances.

Where I think you are confused is that we are talking about abstraction on the level of rhetoric, and you are stuck down in the level of lexical semantics.

But maybe you are confused for some other reason.

[Neu Mejican]

MV,

Notice the original quote from NG:

the most grandiose level of abstraction ("Now," thundered Obama, "is the time to deliver on health care,

The concepts "deliver" and "health care" are abstracted away from their more specific instances in the same way that "paying" and "price" are abstracted in NG's paragraph.

[New Mexican]

The nicest thing about comment filters is now I get far fewer inane comments from Tulpa about "proper" use of paragraph breaks in comments.

[Neu Mejican]

MV,

For future reference you may want to point to this rather than wikipedia.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Neu Mejican | September 10, 2009, 1:18pm | #

Well, now I didn't require 3 hours a day, but when I used to teach persuasive writing I required my students to listen to Limbaugh (and other prominent speakers of the day) to analyze the rhetoric being used.

I saw the pattern long ago, but was just too polite to ask: You are so talented at Sophistry, that at one time you were paid to teach others in your black arts.

Or as Slim said, "Gosh, Mr. Lamarr, you use yore tongue purtier than a ten dollar whore!"

[Neu Mejican]

you were paid to teach others in your black arts

Paid by the state no less.

[Neu Mejican]

...honey-sweet, well-rounded sentences, words and facts alike as it were, besprinkled with poppy and sesame. Under such a training it is no more possible to acquire good taste than it is not to stink, if you live in a kitchen. Give me leave to tell you that you rhetoricians are chiefly to blame for the ruin of Oratory, for with your silly, idle phrases, meant only to tickle the ears of an audience, you have enervated and deboshed the very substance of true eloquence.

From The Satyricon
By Gaius Petronius

[Neu Mejican]

existing things being acted upon are not abstractions.

I think I have identified the confusion.

When NG talks about a general principles, he is talking about abstractions.

In this case the general principles are

"The easiest way to do this is to make the person doing the buying actually pay the price. You haggle more when the change is coming out of your own pocket. Or, alternatively, you splurge because you're worth it."

These are general principles used to approach the problem. They are "ideas," "concepts," "principles" that you could use to guide your design of a concrete plan. His anecdote presents a concrete example of how these general principles worked in a specific episode.

Of course, both the general principles and the anecdote ignore many important details (you pay for health insurance that your employer provides with your labor, the whole concept of health insurance is about distributing costs across people, yadda yadda). So, there are several levels of abstraction between these general principles and the "concrete" level of a patient and a doctor carrying out a transaction. In this sense they are closer to Obama's "deliver health care now" than they are to "a concrete patient using concrete dollars to pay for a concrete service." They are general principles about that class of interaction. They are abstractions.

[Vogateer]

@Neu Mexican

The NG quote you just gave doesn't explicitly abstract anything, it merely contains a self-evident judgment made in concrete terms regarding how an individual usually acts, which is capable of being abstracted into general principles, but no actual abstraction is in that quote. If he would have spoken of "incentivizing" something it would be a different matter.

Yes, you can easily take that quote made up of concrete objects or actions performed by or on them and speak of them in abstract terms (me exchanging money for a good or service can be abstracted into a free market transaction). And in the end, it is the abstract concepts and principles we're concerned about. But just because you're able to easily discern the principles that this quote is pointing toward doesn't make it abstract.

Yes, you can eventually find abstract concepts mentioned at the end of that original quote, but in my last post I was referring to my first comment, which was probably a source of confusion.

Principles and abstraction are important, and NG doesn't claim anecdotes are bad, but the President's anecdotes didn't support his claims any better than the other side's claims, which is what makes them not insightful. NG's anecdote and principles (people worry about costs more when it comes directly out of their pocket, doctors are more responsive to patient's desire when they're paid by patients instead of third party insurance companies) are logical and easy to follow, with the anecdote being an insightful example that supports exactly those principles at the same level of activity we're discussing.

But that's neither grandiose abstraction, nor an anecdote on the least insightful level. Speaking of the health care system is grandiose abstraction. Relaying individual horror stories that don't support your own ideas any better than they do the other side's ideas (largely because there are so many levels between "health care" and "that person's personal health experience") are not insightful.

[Neu Mejican]

Vogateer,

The thing is, the concept of abstraction is a continuous variable. There is not a clear line between "abstract" and "concrete." These are concepts that have been intensely troublesome to define with any rigor despite a general intuition that there is a difference (I am very familiar with the literature). Of course, different people will have different intuitions about which end of the continuum a particular assertion lies. So, while you can reasonably argue that "Heath Care" is more towards the abstract pole, I think you make a mistake to say that NG is "talking about" the concrete elements of the interaction rather than the abstract ideas behind them. But that is just a difference of opinion.

Likewise, anecdote's are more or less informative depending upon their use. I didn't find NG's anecdote anymore compelling than any of the stories Obama used in his speech. But again that is a matter of opinion. Obama's anecdotes about individual's who have had services denied due to problems with their insurance are as connected to the abstracted principles they were used to illustrate as NG's is connected to the principles he is illustrating. They both suffer from the weakness that all anecdotes suffer from, however, in that they tell us nothing about how typical they are, and ignore the complicating context that lead to the particular outcome.

So, the only reason I pulled the NG quote was to point out something entirely different. Pointing to the fact that someone used a rhetorical device that he had just disparaged as an example of hypocrisy only moments after doing the same thing himself seemed kinda of ironic.

Clearly, NG's pedantic post brought out the pedant in me. And clearly my pedantic comments brought out those who were feeling even more pedantic. What goes around comes around I guess.

[Neu Mejican]

So,

Vogateer.

If you want to ding me for hyperbole calling NG's abstraction "grandiose" I am fine with that...his abstractions is pretty mundane (and as a result, not all that insightful. We all agree with it, but the reasons we are in the situation we are in where patients are not directly purchasing care are ignored in NG's framing of the issue).

If you want to say that his anecdote is more connected to the abstract principle he was attempting to illustrate than Obama's anecdotes were connected to the principles he was trying to illustrate, I would say you are incorrect. But that is just my opinion. This is primarily because the "grandiose" abstractions NG pointed to were not the abstractions that Obama supported with the anecdote NG quoted. That anecdote as AT LEAST as tightly connected to the abstract concept he was discussing as NG's was to his.