Viewpoints: Democrats’ ‘Family Feud’ On Health Law; ‘TRAP Laws’ Threaten Abortion Rights

Los Angeles Times: On Obamacare, Could All Democrats Really Be As Clueless As Sen. Schumer?
It's a startling admission of political spinelessness. [Sen. Charles] Schumer gets the positive impact of the legislation wrong, he gets the politics of it wrong, and he displays a shocking ignorance of the problems facing the American middle class. The only good thing about his remarks is that they confirm how bad today's Democrats are at messaging. Let's put it this way: Franklin Roosevelt would never have tried to discredit his own policies the way Schumer just did. (Michael Hiltzik, 11/26)

The Washington Post: Charles Schumer’s Prescription For The Democratic Party
Health reform may be working better lately, but polls still show that it is broadly unpopular, ... The real questions are: Why? And, what, if anything, can Democrats do about it? ... Democrats have periodically won public favor by promising to wield federal power to address long-neglected social and political ills, then lost it again when big-government solutions proved unsatisfactory. Parardoxically, the party of government struggles to gain politically from actually being in government. (Charles Lane, 11/26)

The Washington Post: The Democrats’ Family Feud Is Counterproductive
As a matter of political analysis, Schumer is correct. Had Democrats done more to boost the economy early on and gone after health-care reform in smaller pieces — as then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel advocated at the time — they may well have wound up with more durable achievements on both and kept their majority intact to enact other priorities. The better question is why Schumer chose to reopen those wounds now. The new Republican majority will do everything it can to thwart Obama and the Democrats. Democrats hardly need to be thwarting themselves. (Dana Milbank, 11/28)

Bloomberg: Democrats Do Have An Obamacare Problem
It's easy to be offended by Chuck Schumer's claim yesterday that Obamacare was a mistake, because it favored the interests of the poor ahead of Democrats' electoral fortunes. Harder is dismissing it, because other Democrats are probably thinking the same thing: What did Obamacare gain them? ... Obamacare has mostly been a policy success. Enrollment is high, costs are reasonable, and the sky hasn't fallen on employer-based insurance. Some people on the individual market saw their plans canceled, but for the most part it's working. Yet the political payoff for that success has been close to zero. The problem isn't only, or even primarily, that the poor are less likely to vote; it's that Obamacare's benefits haven't translated into support for the law or the party that brought it into existence. (Christopher Flavelle, 11/26)

The Washington Post: Thank A Politician Today
[L]et’s all express gratitude to our fellow Americans who dare to run for the House and Senate. By way of offering mine, I want to thank a few good people we’re losing to retirement or electoral defeat. ... [Rep. George] Miller and [Rep. Henry] Waxman (like the late Ted Kennedy) spent their careers championing universal health care. So did Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). It’s fitting that all of them got to help Obamacare pass. (E.J. Dionne Jr., 11/26)

USA Today: 10 Reasons To Be Thankful
As Americans gather for Thanksgiving, there's plenty to worry about, ... But for just one day, forget all that, and focus instead on some of the positive trends that too often get overlooked. ... Millions more people have health insurance than did this time last year, thanks to the gradual phase-in of the Affordable Care Act. Even those who loathe Obamacare like some of its parts, such as no lifetime limits on health insurance in case of major illness and being able to keep offspring on the family policy until age 26. (11/26)

USA Today: The Real Lesson From 'Grubergate'
This is the most important lesson to be learned from Jonathan Gruber's honesty: The bigger and more complex the bill, the more vulnerable it is to political manipulation — and the more likely it is to deceive the American people. Obamacare epitomizes why Congress should tackle such sweeping reforms with a piecemeal, straightforward, and transparent approach. Hopefully the incoming Congress will remember this as they take up health care reforms of their own. (Luke Hilgemann, 11/29)

The Baltimore Sun: Gruber Flap Reopens Not-So-Old Wounds
I understand we've turned the page to the next controversy -- Mr. Obama's unconstitutional immigration pander -- but I'd like to dwell a little longer on the previous travesty. Obama administration health-care consultant Jonathan Gruber was discovered to have boasted that Obamacare was designed to exploit the "stupidity" of American voters and elude honest accounting by hiding both its cost and the taxes necessary to pay for it. When asked about this in Brisbane, Australia, the president rolled his eyes at the controversy. ... the biggest lie is the one Mr. Obama left unsaid in Brisbane. He implied that he won the debate. He didn't. He won the fight in Congress -- by brute partisan force. But the majority of the American people watching this farcical debate were never convinced by Mr. Obama's claims. (Jonah Goldberg, 12/1)

Los Angeles Times: 'TRAP Laws' Are A Threat In Disguise To Abortion Rights
Last month, ballot measures that would have given embryos the legal rights of persons were decisively rejected in Colorado and North Dakota. The defeats were hailed as a victory for defenders of the right to legal abortion. But such measures serve as a distraction from a far bigger threat to abortion rights from onerous rules known as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or "TRAP laws." (Caitlin Borgmann, 11/30)

The Des Moines Register: It's Time For An Answer: Is Health Care Safer Now?
This December marks the 15th anniversary of the landmark report from the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine that estimated up to 98,000 Americans die from preventable mistakes in hospitals every year. It is time to know if health care is safer now. Many hospitals in Iowa and elsewhere are working diligently to reduce medication errors, hospital-acquired infections and other causes of harm. Progress has been made, pockets of excellence created and people go home from the hospital alive and well. (Rosemary Gibson and David P. Lind, 11/30)

The New York Times: Mass Imprisonment And Public Health
For many obvious reasons, people in prison are among the unhealthiest members of society. Most come from impoverished communities where chronic and infectious diseases, drug abuse and other physical and mental stressors are present at much higher rates than in the general population. Health care in those communities also tends to be poor or nonexistent. ... public health and criminal justice systems must communicate effectively with one another. (11/26)

Los Angeles Times: At The Supreme Court, Conflicts Of Interest Are Just A Day At The Office
A confluence of recent events has made the Supreme Court the most powerful, least accountable public institution in the country. It is time to make the justices more accountable to the American people. The court rules on wide-ranging issues fundamental to American life — where we can pray, who is eligible to vote and marry, how much regulation businesses should face, and who has access to health insurance. And with Congress gridlocked and relations between the legislative and executive branches at a historic nadir, the court's opinions are binding and irreversible. So much for checks and balances. (Gabe Roth, 11/30)

Bloomberg: Calories, We Never Knew You
Most restaurants have little incentive to disclose calorie information on their own. The new FDA rule is meant to force such disclosure, and then to rely on the operation of the free market. The FDA hopes that once consumers see calorie counts, they will make healthier choices, and there is evidence to support the agency’s optimism. (Cass R. Sunstein, 11/28)