Prescription for Health Care Reform; Unemployment Rates Soar
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most Politics in the Morning. Inside the Beltway right now, President Obama trying to rally lawmakers on health care reform. But critics who say it will be way too expensive and cracks within his own party may derail an August deadline for a vote, if not the whole thing. Here to break that down and more political hot topics, Democratic strategist Lisa Caputo. She's here in New York with us this morning. Good morning, Lisa.</s>LISA CAPUTO, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good morning.</s>ROBERTS: And Washington Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez. So let's take a look at this. Peter Orszag talking to John King yesterday in "STATE OF THE UNION" suggested that this August deadline, while they'd like to stick to it, may be a little softer than they thought. And when you look at public opinion polls, "Washington Post"/ABC News poll, President Obama's approval on health care reform slipped below 50 percent. He was at 57 percent, now 49 percent. Lisa, is this whole thing in trouble?</s>CAPUTO: Well, I think that's why you see the president going out full barrel. I mean, he is their greatest resource. And you see him today, he's going to do an event. He's going to do a press conference on Wednesday night. I also think it's important to note that they're using Michelle Obama now, and you're going to see a grassroots effort through the Internet. And so he's going out full barrel. I think a couple of things. I said -- I think, one, you have to remember Peter Orszag said yesterday, which is while the criticism is on, this is going to add to the deficit. You have to remember that it's not, they're not taking into account the cost aids you're going to get from the cost-cutting in Medicare and Medicaid program.</s>ROBERTS: That's if Congress came up with the deal on...</s>CAPUTO: Yes, but the other thing also is that states are going to benefit from reduced health care costs. And it's also important to note that when you take a step back and look at this, people are not understanding the fact that they're going to save money when it comes down over ten years on children's health and Medicare.</s>ROBERTS: What do you think about all of this, Leslie? Obviously, there's the cost that's one issue. It's also how do you pay for it. Do you tax wealthy income earners? Do you tax employer benefits? Is this thing going to fly?</s>LESLIE SANCHEZ, CO-CHAIR, HISPANIC ALLIANCE FOR PROSPERITY INSTITUTE: It's going to be very difficult to fly. I mean, let's start with the obvious which is the American public is very skeptical about politicians and their ability to get this right. And with all due respect to the president, his very high approval ratings, at least alluded to, there is a lot of skepticism about a Congress that is trying to railroad a major reform, a major government involvement on health care. And you do have Peter Orszag saying that there is the potential to tax some of these benefits and that is implying, if you look at the numbers of individuals making less than $250,000 which was the threshold the president set. So, you're talking about an increase in taxes. Who knows if this is going to be the right solution? And I think it is very cautious. And the American public is right in this case of wanting to slow down and look at the details of what the president is trying to do.</s>ROBERTS: Lisa, we also saw -- we saw six moderates sending a letter, they're both Republicans and Democrats, moderates, though, sending a letter to the leadership saying, whoa, slow this whole thing down. Why are we going into this so fast? We might make a mistake here. We want to get this right.</s>CAPUTO: Well, I think, you know, there are two issues. One is, he's got to get the revenue stream right on this. And second, what are the political implications? Let's remember Barack Obama ran on health care as one of his key platforms. So he's got to think about the political ramifications going into the midterm elections. That's why you see the Blue Dog Democrats saying hold on a minute. "Going into the midterm elections, do I really want to be associated with something that may raise taxes on the wealthy?"</s>ROBERTS: Right.</s>CAPUTO: So I think this is -- this is the political dynamic that the president is certainly going to address over the next couple of days. And Senator Kennedy, I thought, did a fantastic job laying with the column in "Newsweek" really laying out the case for health care.</s>ROBERTS: You know, there was an interesting article in "The New York Times Magazine" over the weekend written by Matt Bai calling President Obama "the shuffle president." Here's what he said. He said, "Obama is the nation's first shuffle president. He's telling lots of stories at once, and in no particular order. His agenda is fully downloadable. If what you care most about is health care, then you can jump right to that. If global warming gets you going, then click over there." Peggy Noonan said in the "Wall Street Journal," "The administration about everything is an administration about nothing." What do you think, Leslie? Is he taking on too much here? Has this administration -- you know, have they got too much on the table here to really get anything done effectively?</s>SANCHEZ: I think Republicans and Democrats would agree that this is a very ambitious agenda. And the problem is that the president -- by their own admission, has said that they misread the economy. Now you have 10 states that -- or excuse me, you have 15 states with unemployment over 10 percent. They are not seeing the type of residual benefits in the economy they thought the president talked about in the stimulus package. In fact, it's gotten worse. Now you're talking about health care. He's talking about cap and trade, immigration reform. You have situation increasingly difficult in Afghanistan. There are so many issues this president has to deal with that with respect to his ability to be effective, people don't want to see this kind of instant gratification. They're starting to say, let's look at the details. Can he do this, and can our economy take it?</s>ROBERTS: Even Colin Powell rang in on this, Lisa, saying, "I think that one of the cautions that has to be given to the president, and I've talked to some of his people about this, is that you can't have so many things on the table and you can't absorb it all."</s>CAPUTO: Well, I think a couple of things. One, I take issue with what Leslie said. I mean, the stimulus package is not supposed to work in six months. OK? So let's be clear about that, number one. Number two, I would take --</s>ROBERTS: She's impatient.</s>CAPUTO: I would take it --</s>SANCHEZ: Sure. It wasn't supposed to get worse, Lisa?</s>CAPUTO: I would take an ambitious agenda in a heartbeat to address what was a do-nothing administration for eight years. So he's got a lot of political momentum. He's got, you know, very high approvals, even though they're slipping and he should use that to his advantage to push through various reforms that I think the country needs.</s>ROBERTS: Well, certainly --</s>SANCHEZ: Bottom line, John, he's losing support among independents. He's losing not to partisans but people who are looking objectively at this president. The situation was not supposed to get worse with this economic stimulus plan and it has.</s>CAPUTO: But, Leslie, if you look at those -- I'm looking at those same polls, and independents still are in favor of health care reform, so...</s>SANCHEZ: I think the reality is the deficits. We didn't see it. The government misread it. And I think that's where people are most concerned.</s>ROBERTS: We've got to wrap this up. Leslie Sanchez, Lisa Caputo, always great to see you.</s>CAPUTO: Nice seeing you.</s>ROBERTS: Thanks for coming in this morning. Really appreciate it. Seventeen and a half minutes now after the hour.