Opinion: Few Health Care Pundits Behaving Unpredictably

(Feb. 22) -- Perhaps the partisan and ideological divide has become so entrenched that bloggers and pundits no longer feel the need to read anything before they react to it. That might help explain the lightning-fast and almost entirely predictable reaction to President Barack Obama's health care plan, details of which were released today.

To be sure, there was little new or unexpected in the White House proposal. But was there really nothing in it that either made conservatives smile a bit, or caused liberals heartburn? At least, something they'd be willing to admit publicly?

In the spirit of bipartisanship, we scoured the Internet to find out. It's slim pickings, but we were able to find a few examples of commentators willing to say something at least a little bit unexpected.

Friendly Fire From the Left

At the Nation, John Nichols chastised the administration for being late to the game with a weak plan: "For more than a year, President Obama remained on the sidelines of the health care debate -- chiming in now and again with sometimes-inspired, sometimes-disappointing rhetoric about broad values while members of Congress did the heavy lifting. Now, the president has finally weighed it with 'a plan.' But it is not enough." What it is, he says, "is the Senate bill with the rough edges shaved off. That's not exactly great news, as the Senate bill was not exactly a great bill."

Meanwhile, over at Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher had a more specific complaint: "The president's new health care bill does not include a public option, but it does increase the maximum penalty for failure to comply with the mandate to buy health insurance, which rises from 2 percent to 2.5 percent of annual income. But for months now, polling has shown that a mandate with no public option is an extremely unpopular combination. The annual penalty for failure to comply makes it even more unpopular in swing districts."

And the site's Jon Walker complained about what he calls the "potentially cynical politics" behind the White House plan to add federal oversight to insurance premiums, noting that it's unlikely to make it through the so-called reconciliation process. "It sounds like a classic Rahm Emanuel idea of a win-win. Republicans are forced to take a difficult vote. Democrats get to pretend they supported something popular, but, in the end, Democrats don't need to worry about hurting a potential donor because the insurance companies also win when Republicans kill the idea."

Finally, Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler had the courage to admit that reform is still a long shot. "So health care is certainly grabbing headlines once again, and the House and Senate have come a long way toward resolving their differences. But for the most part nothing has changed, and a lot of work remains to be done before health care passes -- if in fact it can."

Faint Praise on the Right

Finding anyone on the right with anything good to say was a bit of a tougher challenge. But we did manage to uncover two examples:

The conservative news site Daily Caller gave Obama kudos for stripping out some of the most politically offensive provisions added into the Senate bill to get it passed in late December. In a story headlined "Obama takes out most offensive health care provisions in bid to save reform," Jon Ward led by saying: "President Obama made his best effort to save health care reform Monday by leaving the Senate-passed bill largely intact while removing provisions that were viewed as the most egregious and offensive products of back room deals with special interests."

And Philip Klein, writing for the American Spectator, credited Obama for "some positive measures to combat Medicare and Medicaid fraud in the proposal. For instance, I'm particularly supportive of the idea of giving background checks to providers who have the ability to bill Medicare," but adds that "these are things that we should be doing anyway, and don't justify Obama's move toward a government takeover of the health care system, with all of the spending, taxes and regulation that goes along with it."

Not much, but perhaps it's a start toward the more nuanced and compelling discussion -- from all sides -- that health care reform deserves.

(If you see other examples of health care pundits behaving unpredictably, let us know at opinion@aolnews.com and we'll add them in.)