Post by Tim Collins on Jul 1, 2009 15:48:19 GMT -7
This story just reinforces what I have written regarding the confusion over priorities that our government is operating under. Please accept my comments in bold as non-partisan I would make these comments no matter who was making the statements debated.
online.wsj.com/article/SB124646258495480623.html?mod=rss_com_mostcommentart
JULY 1, 2009, 4:47 P.M. ET
Obama Makes Case for Health-Care Overhaul
By JANET ADAMY and LAURA MECKLER
The Wall Street Journal
ANNANDALE, Va. -- President Barack Obama promised an uninsured woman struggling with kidney cancer that his health-care plan would help her and millions of Americans as he pressed his case for fixing the nation's health system.
It was an emotional moment in a debate that has been dominated by discussion of industry spending cuts, cost estimates and political maneuvering.
Mr. Obama, in his second town hall meeting in two weeks, again made the case for controlling health-care spending, and he called the effort to provide affordable health insurance a moral (providing health insurance is not the core issue - providing health care is the core issue, insurance is just a piece of the puzzle) and economic imperative that cannot wait another year.
"It's ... time to provide Americans who can't afford health insurance with more affordable options," (NO PROVIDING CARE IS THE ISSUE, insurance is but one means of funding the care) he said. "I believe this is a moral imperative. And it is an economic imperative."
It was the latest effort by the White House to build support among Americans as Congress prepares to tackle several sweeping health bills when it returns from recess next week. In recent weeks, lawmakers have voiced stronger concerns about passing a health overhaul that's estimated to cost at least $1 trillion over a decade (Redirecting the cash currently in the system would make this spending almost unnecessary) , and self-imposed deadlines (operating on afterburner for a problem that has been around for decades) for unveiling the legislation have slipped.
The White House reached into its electronic toolbox to stage a town hall meeting that pulled questions from the Internet as well as from the audience of about 200 at Northern Virginia Community College just outside Washington.
He opened the forum with a long address and many of his answers were lengthy as well, allowing for just seven questions in about 75 minutes. Three came from people in the auditorium, three were video questions submitted to the White House Web site and one came via Twitter.
Like The president cited the cooperation of the health industry in pledging to reduce costs as a sign that the country can help bring down high health spending. But he also argued that the health industry was at the table largely because it knows the health overhaul is likely to happen this year. (Can you say self preservation forced by extortion?)
He pointed to a recent agreement with brand-name drug makers, who agreed to about $50 billion over 10 years in cuts to federal reimbursements and to forgo about another $30 billion by offering certain Medicare participants discounted drugs. (shows the artificiality of current drug pricing, and yet does not address how these companies will make sure they maintain their profitability - will R&D go away?)
"Were it not for the prospect of serious health-care reform I don't think they would have given up that money. That's just my guess," Mr. Obama said. (Sounds like a protection racket - "Hey listen Luigi, you got a nice little vegetable market here, it be a shame if a lightening strike burned it down. You know for just 5 large a week I can guarantee the lightning doesn't strike - said in my best Sopranos voice)
He predicted similar progress with other industries. Using the same tactics I assume
"As a consequence of us pushing, suddenly the drug companies and the insurance companies and the hospitals -- all of them -- are starting to realize, this train's leaving the station, we'd better get onboard," he said.
The event's emotional high point came when Mr. Obama took a question from Debby Smith, a 53-year-old from Appalachia, Va., who was in the audience. The former accountant choked up when she described how radiation treatments to kill a tumor on her kidney had left her in pain and unable to work since 2006. With no children and because she is not officially disabled, she said, she does not qualify for Medicaid, the health program for the poor. She said she has been unable to get insurance coverage, and now has been diagnosed with another tumor on her kidney. "I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to make it nine years till I'm qualified to get my regular Social Security," she told the president.
After hearing her story, Mr. Obama asked her to step forward and offered a hug.
"I don't want you to feel all like you're alone on this," he told Ms. Smith. "Debby is a perfect example of somebody who we should, in a country this wealthy, be able to provide coverage for." No we need to provide her medical care - not medical insurance
He asked his staff to look into her case and see if any help was available. Why not just direct Bethesda to treat her?
And he promised that his plan would help her once it becomes law. Under the legislation moving through Congress, insurance companies could not reject or inflate premiums for applicants just because they are already sick, as they do now. And subsidies would be available based on income. Medicaid might also be expanded to include adults without children.
(and so we perpetuate the same problems we have now!)
Ahead of the event, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was grilled about the prescreened nature of the questioning, but as it turned out, the preselected video and Twitter questions were generally tougher than those posed live. All three of the live questioners said that they worked with organizations that support the health overhaul effort: Ms. Smith works with Organizing for America, Mr. Obama's political arm; the others worked for Health Care for America Now and the Service Employees International Union.
Mr. Obama broke little new ground in his responses. He defended his decision to stay open to taxing health-care benefits, even after criticizing a plan to do that put forth by his 2008 opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain. Sen. McCain, he noted, would have eliminated the tax break for employer-sponsored benefits, where proposals under consideration in Congress would only tax particularly generous plans. (Who defines generous)
In response to a video question, he said he appreciates the successes of countries with single-payer health-care systems, but said it would be too disruptive to create a similar system here, which relies heavily on employer-sponsored coverage. There is a middle ground
"This is one-sixth of our economy, and we're not suddenly going to upend the system," he said. Nonsense, what exactly does he think the extortion approach is doing? This is just a way to explain away why they are working so hard to preserve the Health Insurance Industry.
Write to Janet Adamy at janet.adamy@wsj.com and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com
online.wsj.com/article/SB124646258495480623.html?mod=rss_com_mostcommentart
JULY 1, 2009, 4:47 P.M. ET
Obama Makes Case for Health-Care Overhaul
By JANET ADAMY and LAURA MECKLER
The Wall Street Journal
ANNANDALE, Va. -- President Barack Obama promised an uninsured woman struggling with kidney cancer that his health-care plan would help her and millions of Americans as he pressed his case for fixing the nation's health system.
It was an emotional moment in a debate that has been dominated by discussion of industry spending cuts, cost estimates and political maneuvering.
Mr. Obama, in his second town hall meeting in two weeks, again made the case for controlling health-care spending, and he called the effort to provide affordable health insurance a moral (providing health insurance is not the core issue - providing health care is the core issue, insurance is just a piece of the puzzle) and economic imperative that cannot wait another year.
"It's ... time to provide Americans who can't afford health insurance with more affordable options," (NO PROVIDING CARE IS THE ISSUE, insurance is but one means of funding the care) he said. "I believe this is a moral imperative. And it is an economic imperative."
It was the latest effort by the White House to build support among Americans as Congress prepares to tackle several sweeping health bills when it returns from recess next week. In recent weeks, lawmakers have voiced stronger concerns about passing a health overhaul that's estimated to cost at least $1 trillion over a decade (Redirecting the cash currently in the system would make this spending almost unnecessary) , and self-imposed deadlines (operating on afterburner for a problem that has been around for decades) for unveiling the legislation have slipped.
The White House reached into its electronic toolbox to stage a town hall meeting that pulled questions from the Internet as well as from the audience of about 200 at Northern Virginia Community College just outside Washington.
He opened the forum with a long address and many of his answers were lengthy as well, allowing for just seven questions in about 75 minutes. Three came from people in the auditorium, three were video questions submitted to the White House Web site and one came via Twitter.
Like The president cited the cooperation of the health industry in pledging to reduce costs as a sign that the country can help bring down high health spending. But he also argued that the health industry was at the table largely because it knows the health overhaul is likely to happen this year. (Can you say self preservation forced by extortion?)
He pointed to a recent agreement with brand-name drug makers, who agreed to about $50 billion over 10 years in cuts to federal reimbursements and to forgo about another $30 billion by offering certain Medicare participants discounted drugs. (shows the artificiality of current drug pricing, and yet does not address how these companies will make sure they maintain their profitability - will R&D go away?)
"Were it not for the prospect of serious health-care reform I don't think they would have given up that money. That's just my guess," Mr. Obama said. (Sounds like a protection racket - "Hey listen Luigi, you got a nice little vegetable market here, it be a shame if a lightening strike burned it down. You know for just 5 large a week I can guarantee the lightning doesn't strike - said in my best Sopranos voice)
He predicted similar progress with other industries. Using the same tactics I assume
"As a consequence of us pushing, suddenly the drug companies and the insurance companies and the hospitals -- all of them -- are starting to realize, this train's leaving the station, we'd better get onboard," he said.
The event's emotional high point came when Mr. Obama took a question from Debby Smith, a 53-year-old from Appalachia, Va., who was in the audience. The former accountant choked up when she described how radiation treatments to kill a tumor on her kidney had left her in pain and unable to work since 2006. With no children and because she is not officially disabled, she said, she does not qualify for Medicaid, the health program for the poor. She said she has been unable to get insurance coverage, and now has been diagnosed with another tumor on her kidney. "I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to make it nine years till I'm qualified to get my regular Social Security," she told the president.
After hearing her story, Mr. Obama asked her to step forward and offered a hug.
"I don't want you to feel all like you're alone on this," he told Ms. Smith. "Debby is a perfect example of somebody who we should, in a country this wealthy, be able to provide coverage for." No we need to provide her medical care - not medical insurance
He asked his staff to look into her case and see if any help was available. Why not just direct Bethesda to treat her?
And he promised that his plan would help her once it becomes law. Under the legislation moving through Congress, insurance companies could not reject or inflate premiums for applicants just because they are already sick, as they do now. And subsidies would be available based on income. Medicaid might also be expanded to include adults without children.
(and so we perpetuate the same problems we have now!)
Ahead of the event, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was grilled about the prescreened nature of the questioning, but as it turned out, the preselected video and Twitter questions were generally tougher than those posed live. All three of the live questioners said that they worked with organizations that support the health overhaul effort: Ms. Smith works with Organizing for America, Mr. Obama's political arm; the others worked for Health Care for America Now and the Service Employees International Union.
Mr. Obama broke little new ground in his responses. He defended his decision to stay open to taxing health-care benefits, even after criticizing a plan to do that put forth by his 2008 opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain. Sen. McCain, he noted, would have eliminated the tax break for employer-sponsored benefits, where proposals under consideration in Congress would only tax particularly generous plans. (Who defines generous)
In response to a video question, he said he appreciates the successes of countries with single-payer health-care systems, but said it would be too disruptive to create a similar system here, which relies heavily on employer-sponsored coverage. There is a middle ground
"This is one-sixth of our economy, and we're not suddenly going to upend the system," he said. Nonsense, what exactly does he think the extortion approach is doing? This is just a way to explain away why they are working so hard to preserve the Health Insurance Industry.
Write to Janet Adamy at janet.adamy@wsj.com and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com