"Scholarships" have dignity. "Welfare" does not.

Democrats have a problem with Obamacare.  They need to change their message.  It isn't enough that it is way better than that awful, disgusting Trumpcare.

Democrats need to decide.  Are they giving a boost to the prudent and striving poor and working people, or are they putting millions of people onto welfare?

Are they the party of uplift, or the party of making poverty tolerable?

In the Guest Post below, Thad Guyer warns that Democrats defending Obamacare are in effect championing an "out-of-control welfare program called 'Medicaid'."   He urges Democrats to change focus and work to improve Obamacare so that its primary focus is access to affordable insurance for the middle class.

My own belief is that the issue can be ignored by Democrats for the purpose of a political win.  But the fact that they can delay getting clear on their own message hurts them in the long run because in fact they have a decision to make.  Are they the party of uplift or the party of making poverty tolerable.

Criticize Trumpcare, quoting Republicans.

 In the short run for hurting Trump they can simply mimic the highly effective Republican behavior: call it Trumpcare, call it a messy disaster, cite problems, say it made things worse in order to give tax cuts to billionaires, say it cruelly and wantonly kicked hard working people off getting healthcare.   There is only so much mental space in voters' minds and Trump will be alone promoting this as a win, while GOP legislators hide out.   

It will be controversial, then it will get worse.  Governing is hard.

The best thing that can happen to Democrats politicallyis for it to pass.  The second best thing is for Republicans to fail and look stupid, assuming Democrats can then blame Obamacare problems on the feckless GOP.  Neither side will be able to argue the real merits or demerits of Obamacare or Trumpcare because Obamacare got defined by Republicans as a disaster and Democrats made the number of people kicked off healthcare the issue on Trumpcare.  Once the frame was "how big a disaster?" Obamacare was a loser.  Once the frame was "how many people will lose healthcare?" then Trumpcare was a loser.

But still there is the crossroads for Democrats:  are they a party that emphasizes upward mobility or a party that implies that the era of upward mobility is over?  They are at risk of appearing to be defending Obamacare as a great expansion of a welfare program, Medicaid.   In fact a great many of the working poor do not get health insurance thanks to the overt, public, intentional actions of their employers, both small businesses (hospitality) and large ones (Walmart.)  They keep them to less than 30 hours a week.  People therefore work 25 hours a week at employer #1, then get extra work extra hours or days elsewhere at employers #2 or #3.  Medicaid expansion brought them healthcare benefits, with the cost shifted from the employer to the taxpayer.

25 Hours a week.  No benefits.

Welfare has a stigma.  Newt Gingrich sneered that Obama was the "food stamp" president.  Even though the example of a person working 25 hours at Walmart and 25 hours as a server at a restaurant is hardly an example of sloth nor imprudence, the person is getting a needs-based benefit at taxpayer expense, and taxpayers resent it, even while they simultaneously shop at Walmart and eat at the restaurant.   They shame the worker not the employer.  

Guyer makes a subtle point that Democrats need to integrate into their messaging that they are primarily interested in expanding middle class benefits, not lower class benefits.  I summarize it this way:    Democrats need to offer scholarships, not welfare.

Scholarships have honor.  Parents are proud to announce that their child got a scholarship.  Scholarships allow students to carry the same status in college as people paying full cost.  Everyone at the school sits in the same classes, the same dormitory.  By contrast, Medicaid is a form of welfare, and they are handled in a different track at the provider's office and it is considered different by both recipient and taxpayer.  

Scholarships: a point of honor

Yesterday I heard a Fox News opinion host make a caricature of Democrats: a wealthy woman driving a Tesla, plus her housekeeper.  Republicans, he said, were the people in the middle. The characterization is unfair but, like any political cartoon, it exaggerates a point.  Obamacare is a broad expansion of Medicaid, which is a medical version of Food Stamps.  Democrats defend that at their peril because it ratifies the notion of the housekeeper as poor as an ongoing status.  It is demeaning to the housekeeper, it offends the notion of upward opportunity and mobility, and it is political suicide.

Democrats need to emphasize the portion of Obamacare even though it is the part that works least well and is the most complicated: insurance.   Subsidies to buy insurance is a scholarship.  An insurance scholarship is a boost to a middle class behavior, attendance at college or private health insurance.  It has dignity.  

Taxpayers will resent it less.  It sends a message of uplift.

Democrats need to get their heads straight on their message.  Democrats should not want to be the party of welfare expansion.  Instead they should be the party of rewarding good behavior (working two jobs but which lack benefits) with a scholarship.   Medicaid should return to a program for the nonworking poor and disabled.  Democrats are better off with Medicaid reduction and insurance expansion, not the other way around.

Scholarships are not the same thing as welfare, even though in both cases it means that resources go to help someone get a middle class benefit.   Scholarships have a notion of being an "earned" benefit, which changes the morality of it.  And scholarships imply self reliance and upward mobility as a result.  A insurance scholarship brings a person into a middle class healthcare situation, while a welfare benefit rewards a person for neediness, which implies poverty is acceptable and permanent.

Politically, it is all the difference in the world.

Here are Thad Guyer's thoughts.

Guest Post by Thad Guyer:  

Guyer

“Trumpcare Is Tricky Messaging for Democrats”

Yes indeed, Trumpcare could wreak political devastation on Trump and Republicans, especially if voters adopt the liberal media end-of-the-world version of the law— if it passes. But I don’t see that damage to Republicans happening whether it passes or not. Because the overwhelming thrust of the proposed law is paring back an out-of-control welfare program called “Medicaid”, Democrats have a tricky messaging task before us if we are to win voting majorities. If Democrats get tagged as being the defenders of a massive “welfare expansion for the poor and working-poor”, we will lose. Only if Democrats can get labeled “defenders of middle class healthcare insurance”, can we win.

The unfortunate electoral fact is that the Congressional fight is primarily over Medicaid. Democrats are highlighting horrors such as 49% of all American mothers will be hurt, because Medicaid pays for the maternal delivery costs of almost 5,000 of the 10,000 births in the USA each month. This argument hurts us, because it emphasizes that Medicaid is not “insurance” at all, it is welfare. The dog whistle is: Democrats cheer on poor women (minorities and legal green card immigrants) with high birth rates who can’t afford their children, so the middle class is morally obligated to pay. Worse for Democrats are opinion pieces like “Senate Republicans Ready Themselves for a Massive Theft from the Poor” (Washington Post, https://goo.gl/A6t2uU, June 22, 2017). The accusation that voters trying to control Medicaid costs are guilty of “theft” from welfare recipients is offensive, and it's another "deplorables" self-inflicted wound. Again, the dog whistle: “The poor are legally entitled to your money”. Bill Clinton once taught Democrats the winning rhetoric is “welfare” to “workfare”. He slashed billions in public assistance, and gave the states more budgetary discretion, exactly what Trumpcare proposes. Apparently Clinton's winning teachings have faded.

The Congressional Budget Office assessment of the House Bill highlighted that most of the millions who will be hurt are Medicaid recipients, not the middle class. In our liberal media bubble, we’re mostly hearing the Medicaid horror stories. In conservative media, it’s the dog whistles. But in the centrist media, there’s a more cool-headed debate over (1) the threat that uncontrolled Medicaid costs will bring down the whole private healthcare system; (2) we must have the working poor paying (with subsidies) into the private insurance markets rather than becoming “the new Medicaid class”; and (3) affordable lesser coverage is better than coverage you can’t afford to buy at all. This podcast from Wall Street Journal argues that without the essential fixes Trumpcare proposes, affordable middle class private health insurance will increasingly disappear. Listen “Senate Health Bill Sets Up Showdown Among Republicans”, (June 23, 2017 https://goo.gl/1caLzy). Listen also to “The Democrats' Post-Georgia Civil War”, Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2017, https://goo.gl/Ut8dif), reminding us that Trumpcare vs. Obamacare was very vigorously debated in the Georgia special election, and Republicans won by 4+ points.

I’m not seeing evidence that the current hyperbolic Democratic trashing of Trumpcare as a Medicaid killer is a winning argument for us. We can’t win if our message is heard as “we demand a trillion dollars in Medicaid for the poor and working poor”. It has to be “yes, Obamacare is broken, so let Democrats who have a heart reform middle class healthcare insurance markets”. We’re not going to win elections if our candidates just mimic the media focus on Medicaid. Our focus must be affordable private insurance for the middle class.