Will Obama win a second term?

That is a question I fielded a number of times during these one hundred days in India.  "Or, will the other guy win?" was a typical follow-up question.  The other guy, it always turned out to be Mitt Romney :)

I am all for Obama winning another term, not because I am any fan of his but because there are simply no alternatives: anybody-but-the-other-guy!  John Cassidy reminds me about one of the traits of the then candidate, Senator Obama:

Obama was a moderate young technocrat, whose first instinct was to seek the middle ground. The moment power beckoned, he tilted instinctively toward the establishment, and, in the Democratic Party that Obama had grown up in, the establishment was pro-Wall Street.

I don't care about the pro-Wall Street Democratic Party establishment.  But, in his rhetoric during the primaries, Obama pretended to be against that very establishment that Hillary Clinton represented.  I way preferred Clinton's honest position of being pro-Wall Street, as was Bill Clinton during his presidency.  This was merely one instance of a fakey candidate Obama ...

But, hey, any day Obama was infinitely a better candidate than his GOP rival.  But, this time, the other guy will put up a better fight.  The question remains: will Obama win a second term?  Again, over to Cassidy:

With oil at a hundred and twenty-five dollars a barrel and likely going higher as the sanctions on Iran take hold and the Israelis keep up their bellicose rhetoric, the U.S. economy is effectively facing an election-year tax hike. (The effects of a rise in gas prices and a tax increase are virtually identical.) Although this shock probably won’t be enough to bring about a recession, it could well knock a point or two off G.D.P. growth and cause the unemployment rate to stall above eight per cent, which would give Mitt Romney an opening. (According to some polls, Obama’s approval ratings have already fallen.) But one can’t say for sure. It’s all in the timing.

The costs of healthcare reform

I like the idea of a basic level of healthcare for all.  That to me is not the issue.  It is the costs that worry me.  I am all the more worried because we are being made to understand that this won't add to our tax bills.  I would have way preferred avoiding a scenario such as:

"Our debt crisis began when the previous administration tried to finance two wars with tax cuts. We are overburdened. What we face is a debt crisis, due to military over-commitments, which has devastated our ability to improve our quality of life through government programs," Frank continued.

"We would have had $1 trillion now to help fix the economy and do the things for our people that they deserve." 

But, no point following counterfactuals. It is what it is.  As Rumsfeld once arrogantly and stated (where is he now, BTW?) "you go to war with the army you have--not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."  Yeah, right, we know how that worked out .... aaah, can't afford digressions here ...

Anyway, at an instinct-level, a major effort like this healthcare reform not quite adding to the costs just does not resonate with me.  If it is too good to be true, then ...  I bet we will begin to hear more and more on this issue.

For starters, here is John Cassidy at the New Yorker--one of the two regular economics-related writers there (the other is James Surowieki.) Both are fantastic in their analysis and writing--well, everybody at the New Yorker writes well, of course :)
Cassidy writes:

If all of these predictions turn out to be accurate, ObamaCare will go down as one of the most successful and least costly government initiatives in history. At no net cost to the taxpayer, it will have filled a gaping hole in the social safety net and solved a problem that has frustrated policymakers for decades.

Does Santa Claus live after all? According to the C.B.O., between now and 2019 the net cost of insuring new enrollees in Medicaid and private insurance plans will be $788 billion, but other provisions in the legislation will generate revenues and cost savings of $933 billion. Subtract the first figure from the second and—voila!—you get $143 billion in deficit reduction.

Yes, it is that voila that worries me.
Cassidy has more:

My two big worries about the reform are that it won’t capture nearly as many uninsured people as the official projections suggest, and that many businesses, once they realize the size of the handouts being offered for individual coverage, will wind down their group plans, shifting workers (and costs) onto the new government-subsidized plans. The legislation includes features designed to prevent both these things from happening, but I don’t think they will be effective.

Consider the so-called “individual mandate.” As a strict matter of law, all non-elderly Americans who earn more than the poverty line will be obliged to obtain some form of health coverage. If they don’t, in 2016 and beyond, they could face a fine of about $700 or 2.5 per cent of their income—whichever is the most. Two issues immediately arise.

Even if the fines are vigorously enforced, many people may choose to pay them and stay uninsured. Consider a healthy single man of thirty-five who earns $35,000 a year. Under the new system, he would have a choice of enrolling in a subsidized plan at an annual cost of $2,700 or paying a fine of $875. It may well make sense for him to pay the fine, take his chances, and report to the local emergency room if he gets really sick. (E.R.s will still be legally obliged to treat all comers.) If this sort of thing happens often, as well it could, the new insurance exchanges will be deprived of exactly the sort of healthy young people they need in order to bring down prices. (Healthy people improve the risk pool.) ...

So, the individual mandate is a bit of a sham.

Hmmm .... more for us worrywarts :(