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What You Need to Know About This Year's Medicare Open Enrollment Period

If you have Medicare, you don't need to participate in the new health insurance marketplace

by Marsha Mercer, AARP, October 15, 2013

During Medicare's open enrollment period you can shop for Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, or keep the coverage you have. — Richard Drury/Getty Images

If you’re a Medicare beneficiary, here’s something for your autumn to-do list: Go Medicare shopping.

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Review your benefits and costs for 2014, compare alternatives and decide whether to keep or change plans during Medicare’s annual open enrollment period Oct. 15 through Dec. 7.

This year, Medicare’s open enrollment overlaps with open enrollment for the new insurance marketplaces or exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act, also commonly referred to as Obamacare — but don’t let that throw you. Medicare’s 50 million-plus beneficiaries, most of them seniors, will steer clear of the marketplaces.

Got questions? Here’s what you need to know about Medicare’s open enrollment in the marketplace era.

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Q: I have Medicare. Can I use my online state insurance marketplace to compare and buy a Medicare Advantage, supplement or prescription plan?

A: No, the marketplaces (also known as health exchanges) are not for Medicare beneficiaries. They are mostly for uninsured Americans and do not offer Medicare Advantage, medigap supplemental policies or Part D prescription plans. Medicare is not changing because of the marketplaces. For a medigap or Medicare Advantage plan, consultwww.medicare.gov.

Q: What if I mistakenly sign up for insurance on the marketplace, will my Medicare coverage be automatically canceled?

A: No, if you have Medicare coverage, you won’t qualify for insurance on the marketplace. But if you do sign up for a plan accidentally, cancel the marketplace policy.

Q: But I’m a Medicare beneficiary, and someone contacted me and said I could buy insurance through the marketplace. What’s up?

A: It’s illegal for someone to knowingly sell a Medicare beneficiary a marketplace plan. Watch out for scammers during open enrollment. Do not share your Medicare number or personal information with anyone who says he or she can sell you a plan through the marketplace.

Q: Can I get the premium tax credit that people get when they buy insurance on the marketplaces?

A: If you’re enrolled in Medicare, you’re not eligible for the tax credits that some people qualify for on the marketplaces, but you already get a substantial break on costs. The overall costs of care under Medicare Part B, which pays doctors’ visits, and Part D, the prescription drug benefit, are subsidized 75 percent from federal general revenues. Plus, if you’re a Medicare beneficiary with limited resources and income, you may qualify for low-cost Part D drug coverage under the Extra Help program. Go to www.ssa.gov, call 800-772-1213 or visit your local Social Security office.

Next page: More about Medicare and the health insurance marketplace. »

Q. I’ve just become eligible for Medicare, but I haven’t signed up yet and haven’t started collecting Social Security. Can I choose coverage on the marketplace instead of Medicare?

A. Yes, but be aware that if you fail to sign up for Medicare during your initial seven-month enrollment period — the three months before the month you turn 65, your birthday month and three months after your 65th birthday — you may have to pay a late enrollment penalty for as long as you have Medicare. Also, if you don’t enroll in Medicare Part B during your initial enrollment period, you can sign up only during what’s called the general enrollment period — Jan. 1 through March 31 — and your coverage won’t begin until July of that year.

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Q: I’ll turn 65 next year and will become eligible for Medicare, but I don’t have health insurance now. Can I use the marketplace?

A: Yes, you’re uninsured and can buy a plan on the marketplace now that will be effective Jan. 1. Once you receive Medicare coverage, you should cancel the marketplace plan.

Q: I’m 65, a legal immigrant with a green card and have lived in this country for three years. Can I get Medicare coverage?

A: No, Medicare requires that you have lived in the United States continuously for five years. You may qualify for a health insurance plan on the marketplace, which does not have a residency waiting period.

Q: I’m 65 and Medicare-eligible, but I’m still working and covered by my employer’s health plan. My employer says she may terminate the company plan next year. What are my options?

A: If you didn’t sign up for Medicare Part A or Part B when you were first eligible because you were covered by a group plan based on current employment — yours or a spouse’s — you can sign up for Part A or Part B (or both) anytime you’re still covered by the group plan or during an eight-month period that begins the month after your coverage ends.

Q: I’m eligible for Medicare but didn’t sign up on time, and I haven’t bought insurance through the marketplace. Will I have to pay a fine?

A: Yes, if you’re uninsured and don’t qualify for an exemption to the requirement that everyone carry health insurance in 2014, you will have to pay a penalty. Exemptions include being a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe or having income too low to file a tax return.

Q: I have only Medicare Part A. Do I need to buy more insurance to meet the legal requirement that I have insurance?

A: No, whether you’re in a traditional Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan, you meet the insurance requirement.

Q: I’m 60 and retired, but I’m too young for Medicare. I get my insurance through my former employer’s retiree health plan. Do I need to get additional coverage on the marketplace to comply with the health law?

A: No, retiree plans generally meet the requirement.

Next page: So many choices ... where should you begin? »

Q: What happens during the regular annual Medicare open enrollment?

A: Medicare beneficiaries can change their health and prescription plans for the next year. Changes go into effect Jan. 1. You can: 

• Change from original or traditional fee-for-service Medicare to a private, managed-care Medicare Advantage plan
• Change from a Medicare Advantage plan back to traditional Medicare
• Switch from one Medicare Advantage plan to another
• Switch from a Medicare Advantage plan that doesn’t offer drug coverage to one that does
• Switch from a Medicare Advantage plan that offers drug coverage to one that doesn’t
• Join a stand-alone Medicare prescription plan
• Switch from one prescription plan to another
• Drop your prescription drug coverage altogether

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Q: I’m not thrilled with my plan, but there are a lot of choices. Where do I start?

A: Use the Plan Finder tool at www.medicare.gov to compare costs and benefits for each plan available in your area. Details of 2014 plans are available now. If you need personal help, call your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP). Contact information is at www.shiptalk.org. If you have Medicare Advantage or a Part D prescription drug plan, you should have received a notice of changes for 2014 in the mail. It will tell you whether your premiums, deductibles, copays and benefits will change next year.

Q: Can’t people change their Medicare coverage later than December?

A. Yes, between Jan. 1 and Feb. 14 every year, people with Medicare Advantage plans can leave their plans and switch to traditional Medicare, if they choose. In specific circumstances, such as a move, people can change Medicare coverage anytime.

Q: I’m happy with my current Medicare choices. What do I do during open enrollment?

A: Not a thing. Your current choices will continue next year.

Q: Where can I find more Medicare information?

A: For enrollment information, go to Social Security’s website, www.ssa.gov or call 800-772-1213. For coverage information, go to www.medicare.gov or call 800-MEDICARE (800-633-4227).

Marsha Mercer is a freelance writer in the Washington, D.C., area who covers health policy.

History says Obamacare may yet thrive -- Oct. 10, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The new health benefit got off to a rocky start. Complaints about long wait times were flying, and politicians wanted to ditch the law.  

“Any time Washington passes a new law, sometimes the transition period can be interesting,” the president said.

“That,” The New York Times reported dryly, “was something of an understatement.” 

But it wasn’t President Barack Obama, responding last week to complaints about overwhelmed servers and long waits to access the new online marketplaces to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

It was President George W. Bush in March 2006, trying to defuse anger over a new prescription drug benefit for seniors, known as Medicare Part D. Democrats and seniors hated it.

“This is lousy legislation,” then-Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., declared when Bush signed the major new entitlement in December 2003. “We may spend the rest of our careers repairing the flaws of this bill.”

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, thundered at a rally against the drug benefit:  “Who do you trust? The H.M.O.-coddling, drug-company-loving, Medicare-destroying, Social Security-hating Bush administration? Or do you trust Democrats, who created Medicare and will fight with you to defend it – every day of every week of every year?”

The week Bush signed the prescription benefit, only one in four seniors approved.  Republicans and Democrats were – surprise! -- polarized. Forty-nine percent of Republicans approved and 52 percent of Democrats disapproved, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll. 

Nearly 10 years later, you’d hardly know anyone ever objected to the prescription benefit.

It’s optional, but nine in 10 seniors choose it. Of these, 90 percent say they’re satisfied with their drug coverage and 60 percent are very satisfied, according to a survey commissioned by Medicare Today, an industry group.

So what does all this say about today’s political flashpoint – Obamacare? It likely is on more solid ground than you might think, despite House Republicans’ dozens of votes to repeal it and multiple proposals to defund or delay it.   

Only about one in three people has a favorable opinion of the health law – far from a ringing endorsement. But when you think that only one in four seniors approved of the drug benefit, one in three is not so shabby.

Plus, while those who think Obamacare goes too far make the most fuss, about 7 percent of those who disapprove of the health law think it didn’t go far enough. There’s still support for a single-payer system.

   

Even its most devoted critics concede that once people actually see the Affordable Care Act in action, they’ll really like it.  

In July, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., told Fox News, “What the administration desperately wants is to get to January, to get the exchanges in place…they want people hooked on Obamacare so it can never be unwound. If we’re going to repeal it, we’ve got to do so now or it will remain with us forever.”

Cruz persuaded his House colleagues to shut down the federal government in the erroneous belief that Obama would cave on Obamacare. Republicans succeeded in shutting down the government, but funding was already in place for the rollout of Obamacare. Open enrollment began as scheduled Oct. 1.

Republicans have backed off repealing and defunding Obamacare, although they’d still like to delay it.

Obama insists that one day his signature health law will be as beloved as the Medicare drug benefit. As even Cruz indicated, it’s hard to see how Congress can take back health insurance after millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions get coverage starting Jan. 1.

Ironically, the government shutdown Cruz and others orchestrated has given the exchanges breathing room. The shutdown is more newsworthy than computer problems plaguing the rollout.

The glitches don’t get the media scrutiny they would if the marketplaces were the big news story in town. 

The Obama administration talks about the millions who have gone on the marketplaces, but it has not said how many people have been able to close the deal and buy insurance so far. Open enrollment continues through March 31.  

As another president once said, “Any time Washington passes a new law, sometimes the transition period can be interesting.”

© 2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

It's time for two 'dirty' words: compromise and negotiate -- Oct. 3, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

A few hours before the federal government pointlessly shut down for lack of a budget, President Barack Obama called House Speaker John Boehner.

   

“I’m not going to negotiate,” the president said Monday night, according to Boehner’s account of the conversation. On the House floor, Boehner even regaled his pals with a poor imitation of the president’s “I’m not going to negotiate.”

As bad as the shutdown is, the real crisis could come when the United States reaches its limit for borrowing money Oct. 17 and faces a default on some of its debts.  Republicans are insisting on spending cuts or entitlement reform equal to the amount of the increase in borrowing authority. The White House feared that if it started negotiating now over the budget, it would be weakened in the coming fight over the debt ceiling.

For his part, Boehner pledged to Republicans last January that he would not negotiate one-on-one with Obama ever again. Boehner felt heat from tea party members, who see compromise as caving, pure and simple.  Plus, he felt the White House mistreated him after he attempted to reach a grand bargain on deficit reduction in 2011 and 2012.

So here we are. The country’s most powerful Democrat and Republican refused on principle to negotiate, the federal government ground to a halt for the first time in 17 years, and the worst is yet to come.

Whether you believe Obama or Boehner is right, something is very wrong when both parties dig in their heels and lead the country into a costly, stressful, avoidable crisis. We’re better than that. It’s good that the president finally invited congressional leaders to the White House to talk, but it should have happened sooner.    

Boehner has acquiesced when conservative House Republicans’ claimed compromise by passing bills that everybody knew were dead on arrival in the Democratic Senate. That’s brinksmanship, not compromise.

Obama likes to say that “one faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government” can’t shut the government down. Except that it has. Now what?  

A recent poll indicated that most people prefer a candidate who “stands up for what he or she believes” over one who “compromises to get things done.” But that’s a false, either-or choice. We should have both: principled leaders compromise for the greater good.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is running a new re-election campaign ad around the novel notion that compromise isn’t a bad thing.

“See, I think as long as you stick to your principles, compromise isn’t a dirty word,” Republican Christie says in the ad. He insists that his every accomplishment as governor has been the result of bipartisanship.

New Jersey has a strong Democratic base, which requires bipartisanship. In the U.S. House, though, because of the way districts are drawn, lawmakers need to appeal only to like-minded constituents. There’s little, if any, upside to cooperation.  

With neither side inclined to budge, we’re stuck. But what would happen if Obama and Boehner called in a true negotiator to break the impasse?

They could agree to listen to someone like Kenneth Feinberg, who has been the go-to mediator of compensation for victims of almost every major disaster in recent American history. Feinberg negotiated settlements for the victims of 9/11, the Virginia Tech shooting, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the shooting victims in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn.  He most recently has been negotiating payments for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.

He got his start in this difficult work in 1984 in a case involving Vietnam veterans who suffered exposure to Agent Orange.

  

For anyone who’s sick of business as usual in Washington -- and who isn’t? – it’s intriguing to consider what could happen if someone who cares about fairness, not political gain, was in charge.

As the shutdown began on Tuesday, World War II veterans came to visit their memorial in Washington only to find the memorial closed. Around the country, everyone -- Democrats and Republicans alike --  cheered upon hearing that the old soldiers simply walked or rolled their wheelchairs around the barriers.

What we need now is someone who will remove the barriers between Congress and the president, and get us rolling on the path to a functional government. Calling Ken Feinberg.

©2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Is partisan gridlock race-based?

By MARSHA MERCER

Fall is the season of books and provocative ideas, and author Taylor Branch has no shortage of either.  

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian hopes to keep educators interested in teaching about the civil rights era with the publication of “The King Years,” a short version of his much-acclaimed trilogy on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.

Last Saturday, he challenged his audience under a big tent at the National Book Festival in Washington with an idea he said is both dangerous and delicate. He’d sprung it last month on Gwen Ifill when she interviewed him for the PBS NewsHour. Intrigued, Ifill gingerly broached the idea when she and Judy Woodruff interviewed President Barack Obama a day later.

Obama “danced all around it,” Branch said.  

Here it is: Obama is the victim of partisan racial gridlock.

Everyone agrees that Congress is dysfunctional and that the tea party has put sand in the gears of Washington. 

But is it accurate – or unfair -- to ascribe race as a motivator of partisan gridlock?

Even practiced interviewers like Ifill and veteran interviewees like Obama get hives using the words race and racial. Ifill held the question until last, and she used many words asking it. She asked the president if he agreed with the historian “and, if so, what, if anything, the first African-American president can do to break through that kind of motivated gridlock.”

The last thing Obama wants is to suggest that he considers himself a victim of racism. He talked and talked. He went on for 647 words, more than twice as many words as Lincoln used for the Gettysburg Address, and basically Obama said no, he doesn’t think partisan gridlock is race-based.

But he did offer context to gridlock. Since the 1960s, Obama said, people have fought government efforts to help minorities and the poor as being bad for the economy, and that has led to thinking of government as the problem instead of the solution. That in turn led to criticism that “pointy-headed bureaucrats in Washington are just trying to help out minorities or trying to give them something free.”   

Bingo! Obama is thinking of the racism of George Wallace even if he’s not talking about it.  

In early 1963, Alabama’s governor declared, “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” As Branch tells it, the March on Washington and other events convinced Wallace that talk of segregation and race were unacceptable, and Wallace never mentioned them again.

"He turned on a dime,” Branch says. “He switched his message adroitly.”

That September, Wallace launched a presidential bid with a speech that turned his scorn to “pointy-headed bureaucrats,” tyrannical judges and “tax, tax, spend” legislators.

It was “the beginning of the vocabulary of modern politics,” Branch says.  For him, “The greatest unexamined question today is to what extent the underpinnings of partisan gridlock are racial.”

I thought of Branch’s question in connection with recent comments of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about Jesse Helms.   

“We need a hundred more like Jesse Helms in the U.S. Senate,” Cruz declared Sept. 11 at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Helms died five years ago, but his star in the political right constellation is brighter than ever. 

Former Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., head of Heritage, calls Helms “my kind of conservative.”

Cruz said that he sent his very first political contribution -- $10 -- to Helms because critics were “beating up on him.” Helms’s “willingness to say all those crazy things is a rare, rare characteristic,” Cruz said admiringly.

Cruz was 19 in 1990 when Helms ran a chilling campaign ad against Harvey Gantt, Charlotte’s black mayor. The ad showed a white man’s hands crumpling up a job rejection letter. “You needed that job and you were the best qualified, but they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota,” the voiceover said. Helms won his re-election bid.

Helms, unlike Strom Thurmond and Wallace, never recanted or apologized for his use of racism as a political tactic.

In the 21^st century, America needs to move forward, not back. We can’t afford to listen to rhetoric from the bad old days, whether we call it racially tinged or racist.  

© 2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Obama and the Velcro presidency -- Sept. 19, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Thirty years ago, Democratic Rep. Patricia Schroeder of Colorado said President Ronald Reagan had perfected the “Teflon-coated presidency.”

Reagan could shed scandal the way Teflon allows eggs to slide from a frying pan, she griped.

It was a great line but a bit of a stretch. Reagan wasn’t as popular in office as all that. He became a conservative icon only in retirement. Once, in a period of high unemployment in 1983, his job approval rating dropped to 35 percent.

But he bounced back. Reagan’s genial manner connected with voters even when corruption and other misdeeds afflicted his administration. At this point in Reagan’s second term -- September 1985 -- 60 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing, according to the Gallup presidential tracking poll.

Sixty percent is hardly stellar, but it would be a welcome gain for President Barack Obama, whose job approval rating hovers around 45 percent, roughly the same as his predecessor, George W. Bush, in the first September of his second term.

Reagan  may have had a Teflon coat, but later presidents have seemed wrapped in Velcro. In these hyper-partisan times, both Obama and Bush have faced blame no matter what they did. Just last Monday, when a gunman killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard, Obama went forward with a speech criticizing Republicans on the economy.

The extent of the carnage wasn’t known when Obama, at the Old Executive Office Building, said, “We are confronting yet another mass shooting.” After speaking for about two minutes on the tragic event, he turned to his prepared remarks and criticized Republicans for threatening a government shutdown that could imperil the economy.

Republicans blasted the president as callous, but had he scrapped his planned remarks and focused on, say, tougher gun control measures, he would have been accused of using the massacre for political advantage. He can’t win.

Reagan never had to worry about opponents wielding lightning-fast tweets. Even before Obama was criticized for keeping to his schedule during a tragedy, critics raked him over the blogosphere for his handling of Syria. Before that, opponents eviscerated him for his health care plan. It stops insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions and helps millions of Americans get affordable health insurance, but most people don’t know that.   

A majority of people still disapprove of Obamacare, and about one in four say lawmakers should do whatever they can to make it fail, according to the latest Pew Research Center and USA Today poll.

Obama seems to think that Americans are reasonable people and will see the advantages of his plan. He has never yet used the most power piece of real estate he controls – the Oval Office – for a televised address to the nation on health care. Why not?

It’s hard to imagine Great Communicator Reagan missing that opportunity. Reagan set the record for televised Oval Office addresses, speaking to the nation from the big desk 34 times. By this time in his presidency, he had spoken two dozen times from the Oval Office.

The Obama team has no shortage of tweeters who tweet, but the boss has given only two prime-time, Oval Office addresses. They were three years ago, one about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and one on the end of combat operations in Iraq.

Obama’s predecessor also was no fan of the Oval Office address. Bush gave six major Oval Office addresses during his two terms.

Some Obama advisers dismiss the Oval Office address as a relic of the last century. Yes, times have changed since Reagan could announce a prime-time speech, assured that the three major TV networks would carry it and that his message would dominate the next day’s news.

But the Oval Office is still the most powerful room in America. Obama apparently prefers walking down the hall and standing at the lectern in the East Room, as if he’s at a news conference when he isn’t.

My guess is Obama may yet resort to another Oval Office speech, but his delay has cost him. He gets zero credit for slowing the rate of health care cost inflation and all the blame for businesses’ deciding to stop providing health insurance to employees.

He promised people who get insurance through their jobs that they’d be able to keep their plans. He apparently did not foresee that some big companies would use the changing insurance landscape as an opportunity to cut back on benefits.

Obama doesn’t have a Teflon presidency, and it will take more than tweets to unwrap his Velcro coat. The Oval Office is waiting.

© 2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Camp Hoover tells a presidential tale -- Sept. 12, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Before the ranger started a tour of Camp Hoover in Shenandoah National Park the other day, she asked visitors: What do you think of when you hear the name Hoover? 

For a moment, all you heard was birdsong. Then a woman ventured, “FBI?”

That would be J. Edgar Hoover. Ranger Danielle Yoder gently explained that Camp Hoover was President Herbert Hoover’s summer White House.

Today, many people might find it hard to place the 31^st president. Hoover won the 1928 election in a landslide, only to see his popularity and prestige evaporate as the economy collapsed in the Great Depression.  His name became synonymous with misery.

Hoovervilles were the shantytowns that sprang up when the homeless sought refuge in cardboard and scrap metal shacks. Hoover blankets were newspapers stuffed inside coats to keep out the cold; Hoover Pullmans were the rail boxcars that desperate people rode to start life anew.  

Hoover blamed congressional foes for refusing to enact his programs to deal with the crisis, although he arguably worsened the Depression by signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff bill in 1930. Aimed at protecting American farmers and businesses, the law raised the average import tax to about 40 percent.

In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt easily defeated Hoover. Historians mark Hoover as a brilliant, compassionate humanitarian -- and a failure as president.

A visit to the presidential retreat provides a sympathetic, personal portrait of a beleaguered president and his independent wife.  Byrd Visitors Center has a first-rate exhibit about the history of the park and the Hoovers’ getaway. The park service’s free bus tours start from the center. There I met Bill Jones, a newly retired teacher who, in his first summer as a seasonal naturalist park ranger, became intrigued by the Hoovers and started reading everything he could find on them.

Hoover’s life is a classic American success story, says Jones, whose enthusiasm is infectious. Hoover, the son of a Quaker blacksmith in Iowa, was orphaned by age 10 and was sent to live with relatives in Oregon. He was graduated in the first class at Stanford, where he met his future wife, Lou Henry, the university’s first woman geology graduate. She, like Hoover, loved the outdoors. 

Hoover made a fortune as a mining engineer and became known as a humanitarian during and after World War I, leading U.S. food relief efforts in Europe that fed more than 300 million people. 

Hoover’s program cut Americans’ food consumption 15 percent without rationing, through such voluntary efforts as wheatless, meatless and porkless meals and days every week.

Even before his 1929 inauguration, then in March, Hoover realized he’d need to escape the “pneumatic hammer” of the nation’s capital. He wanted a rustic place within 100 miles of Washington, at an elevation above 2,500 feet to be free of disease-carrying mosquitoes and the capital’s sweltering heat and humidity in those pre-air conditioning days, and a good trout stream to satisfy his passion for fishing. He found it at the headwaters of the Rapidan River in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

Hoover, who refused a salary as president, paid for the 164 acres and the furnishings himself, and the Marines built the 13 buildings as a training assignment. The presidential hideaway had a mess hall to serve 20, horse stables, a trout hatchery, a town hall and guest cabins. Building Camp Rapidan, as the Hoovers called it, meant more roads, electricity and telephone lines into the remote mountains. They entertained frequently, and their guest list was a “who’s who” of American business and government. 

“I have discovered that even the work of government can be improved by leisurely discussions of its problems out under the trees where no bells or callers jar one’s thoughts,” Hoover said.

After using the camp from 1929 to 1933, the Hoovers gave it to the federal government, with the idea that it would be used by future presidents. FDR visited once and found the terrain too challenging. He built his presidential retreat, Shangri-la, in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains. President Dwight Eisenhower renamed it Camp David.

Visitors today can go inside two of the three buildings still standing at Camp Hoover, including the Hoovers’ simple cottage, which they had painted brown to contrast with the ornate White House and its political noise, worries and cares. The camp remains as secluded in the mountains as Hoover’s life is in the public memory.

©2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Obama, Congress and the big stick -- Sept. 5, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President Theodore Roosevelt’s 20^th century admonition that in foreign affairs it’s best to “speak softly but carry a big stick” is getting a 21^st century makeover.

President Barack Obama speaks softly but he wants Congress to help wield the stick.

On the verge of authorizing limited military strikes against Syria, the president pivoted when expected support disappeared. The United Nations is “paralyzed,” he said, and even ally Great Britain declined to get involved after a negative vote in Parliament. More than 200 members of Congress had signed letters urging Obama to seek congressional approval before taking action.

And so he paused the march to war, or missile strikes, and launched a campaign to win congressional and international approval to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his people. 

“Our democracy is stronger when the president and the people’s representatives stand together,” Obama said.

For the president, the move is as risky as it was surprising. Congress and the president rarely stand or even sit together, and approval is far from assured. So while the Senate convened hearings, Obama and his team tried to marshal the power of persuasion on TV and in closed-door meetings.

In a sign of the showdown looming on Capitol Hill this week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10 to 7 Wednesday to support the limited use fo force. Obama faces opposition from progressive Democrats as well as from isolationist Republicans. 

U.S. officials say conclusive evidence shows that about 2:30 in the morning of Aug. 21, rockets carrying sarin nerve gas blasted the sleeping suburbs of Damascus. Among the more than 1,400 people killed were 426 children.

Obama conceded that Americans are war weary, but he asked: “What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?”

What, indeed? Once again, though, the age-old debate between intervention and isolation is playing out on Capitol Hill.

Since President George Washington warned against permanent alliances with foreign countries, Americans have been leery of taking a role in foreign conflicts.

World War I was supposed to be an exception. President Woodrow Wilson argued that it was in our national interest to maintain a peaceful world order. After the war to end all wars, memories of horrific casualties sent us back to the anti-intervention corner.

In the 1940s, it took the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to galvanize Americans behind the war. And only after 9/11 did we take the plunge in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This time? Questions abound about the goals and consequences of air strikes and an exit strategy, but Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says he believes Congress ultimately will rise to the occasion.

“This isn’t about Barack Obama vs. the Congress,” Rogers told CNN. “This isn’t about Republicans vs. Democrats. This has a very important worldwide reach in this decision.”

But Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and others say military action in Syria would be a mistake. Paul predicted the Senate will back Obama but on NBC’s “Meet the Press” gave the odds of “at least 50-50 whether the House will vote down involvement in the Syrian war.”

Obama needs Congress’ blessing now in the event future crises require military intervention. He’s caught between the rock and hard place of his own words. His assertion that the use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that demanded retaliation had forced his hand while his remarks as a presidential candidate held him back:

“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” he told the Boston Globe in 2007.

Obama surely has learned through experience how much easier it is to campaign than to govern. Governing requires hard choices and speaking softly. It’s time for Congress to back the president on use of the big stick.

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