{"id":6659,"date":"2013-10-22T11:09:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T18:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6659"},"modified":"2013-10-22T11:09:08","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T18:09:08","slug":"new-coke-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/new-coke-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"New Coke Health Care?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The president has compared the rollout disaster of Obamacare to temporary tech \"New_Coke_can\"glitches with a new-model iPhone. But a better comparison is the disastrous 1985 campaign to replace Coca-Cola with \u201cNew Coke,\u201d a new sweeter formula that was supposed to stop Pepsi from gaining more market share. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in slick ad campaigns, and all sorts of sales strategies, the public simply revolted at even the idea of the new formula, and a few years later, after all sorts of face-saving measures, the Edsel-like effort quietly was dropped.<\/p>\n

The problem with Obamacare is that the few things the public liked \u2014 kids covered until 26 on their parents\u2019 plans, no coverage problems with preexisting medical conditions, etc. \u2014 were all front-loaded and still unpaid for; and all the things people will dislike \u2014 higher premiums, more taxes, bureaucratic red tape and incoherence, higher deductibles, higher costs to businesses, fewer doctors and less choices, more government borrowing to pay for the program, exemptions for pet constituencies, etc. \u2014 are all on the horizon. A host of further assumptions \u2014 that there are many millions of the uninsured who have no access to health care and will quickly sign up (rather than continue to prefer free federal and state walk-in\/low-income clinics and emergency rooms), that young people in their twenties will feel a need to buy health insurance, that buying government coverage is smarter and cheaper than paying a penalty and buying it after you are hospitalized, that existing private plans and Medicare won\u2019t be harmed to subsidize it, etc. \u2014 remain still unproven.<\/p>\n

Like New Coke, the more the public experiences Obamacare, the less it will like the taste.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner\u00a0 The president has compared the rollout disaster of Obamacare to temporary tech glitches with a new-model iPhone. But a better comparison is the disastrous 1985 campaign to replace Coca-Cola with \u201cNew Coke,\u201d a new sweeter formula that was supposed to stop Pepsi from gaining more market share. Despite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[278],"tags":[1064,40],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Jp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6745,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamacare-is-dead-long-live-obamacare\/","url_meta":{"origin":6659,"position":0},"title":"Obamacare Is Dead. Long Live Obamacare!","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 In the next 90 days, the Obama administration will have to declare victory and then abandon most of Obamacare. The legislation defies the laws of physics\u2014more and broader coverage for more people at\u00a0less\u00a0cost\u2014as well as logic: Young people, on average as a cohort\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6672,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamacare-redefines-the-shutdown\/","url_meta":{"origin":6659,"position":1},"title":"Obamacare Redefines the Shutdown","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 Democratic senators up for reelection in 13 months are now embracing, in their calls to delay Obamacare, the same themes as did the House Republicans and a few senators a few weeks ago\u2014hoping to preempt mounting criticism. In this surreal landscape, three weeks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6799,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/affordable-care-of-patient-protection-or-obamacare\/","url_meta":{"origin":6659,"position":2},"title":"Affordable Care or Patient Protection or Obamacare?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 There are some rumors that the administration wants to distance itself from the slang \u201cObamacare,\u201d a term the president embraced in the 2012 campaign but now finds hurtful to his polls and his colleagues in the Congress. But what would be alternatives? We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6643,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/where-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":6659,"position":3},"title":"Where Now?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 The government gridlock is, to use now politically incorrect metaphors, only one lost battle in a long campaign, and we are now back to the original proposition of watching the administration try to implement Obamacare. We know the president does exceedingly well when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6705,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamacare-and-human-nature\/","url_meta":{"origin":6659,"position":4},"title":"Obamacare and Human Nature","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner Obamacare was predicated on the idea that it would be techie-driven and noble in inspiration, and therefore, presto, just had to work. But the entire program, whether one likes it or not, assumes things that simply are contrary to human nature, and therefore,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6669,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/beware-of-beautifully-misnamed-laws\/","url_meta":{"origin":6659,"position":5},"title":"Beware of Beautifully Misnamed Laws","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Who would oppose \"affordable care\" and \"farm security\"? by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Washington has a bad habit of naming laws by what they are not. These euphemisms usually win temporary public support. After all, who wants to be against anything \u201caffordable\u201d? But on examination, such idealistically named\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Law"","block_context":{"text":"Law","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/law\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Capitol_Building_3-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6661,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659\/revisions\/6661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}