The much awaited health care speech is over.  According to CNN, President Obama got a double digit boost in approval rating from those who watched the speech.  How did he do?  Did he clarify his position?  What assurances does he have that the Democrats will pass his version of health care reform?  Did he compromise?   Was he forceful? 

Now that everyone has had time to digest the speech, does the Obama plan seem like something that will improve American lives?

Highlights of the Obama Plan  

 

Text of the speech: 

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS
ON HEALTH CARE

65 Thoughts to “President Obama’s Health Care Reform Speech”

  1. Starryflights

    It’s about time Obama did this. He needs to start fighting harder for healthcare reform. We need healthcare reform immediately. Although I favor a single payer plan, I will accept a public option. To hell with the Republicans. Once healthcare reform passes, the American people will see immediate beenfits, and the Republicans will spend the nexst 40 years in the doghouse.

  2. GainesvilleResident

    What I see is that it says it won’t add a dime to the deficit, is paid for upfront, but doesn’t say how it accomplishes that. That is one of the big questions, how then is it getting paid for?

  3. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    Watch for this bounce to be temporary.

  4. Rick Bentley

    Not a word in there about reimportation of drugs. That’s bought and paid for. If Obama’s concept of health care comes about, I can expect to pay skyrocketing drug prices, with some of what I pay used to pay for other people’s drugs. The problem in that regard will be worse, magnified.

    “How is it getting paid for” from hidden taxes on the middle class. We will pay more and get less.

    He has the balls to stand and complain that we pay 50% more on health care than other nations but then glosses right past his deal with the drug companies to promulgate this.

    And then outlines a want list that can only make health care MORE EXPENSIVE. 75% more than other countries? He doesn’t speak to containing costs in any real way – just to the rest of us helping the elderly to pay for their prescriptions, and helping the under or uninsured.

    Intellectually and morally vacuous.

  5. Moon-howler

    Gainesville, I haven’t how it will be paid for either. I thought it was just me. I have given up worrying about how things will be paid for.

    Right now, we are paying, ultimately, for the uninsured. If the employer is paying for health care, it seems to me they would be better off paying a tax than huge premiums. $500 bucks (or higher) a month per person is just too much. It is important to me to get real facts rather than the political bs that has been going around. There is absolutely NO reason why we can’t pick the best from various plans nationally and globally and set up our own model. It isn’t like they aren’t there.

    President Obama and others are correct. The health care system is bankrupting us. It is also why jobs go overseas.

  6. Rick Bentley

    And instead of cutting costs, Obama’s “plan” or general approach will (according to every responsible entity) increase them. Have you not caught on to this slight-of-hand?

    Is this about cutting costs, or increasing access?

  7. GainesvilleResident

    Yes, but when he makes the statement “it won’t raise the deficit by a dime” and then doesn’t tell how it’s going to be paid for, that doesn’t sit well with me. Also he says it is all going to be paid upfront. How? That’s what I’d like to know. Someone’s going to have to pay that upfront cost, and I’d like to know who it is. You can’t just make a statement like that – it isn’t going to raise the deficit, without giving me some idea of how that’s going to be done. It doesn’t make much sense to me.

  8. GainesvilleResident

    I doubt making health insurance cheaper is going to prevent jobs from going overseas. It’s the lower wages paid to workers overseas – when you can pay someone in India 10% of what you pay someone in the USA to do the same job – that’s what’s causing jobs to go overseas.

  9. GainesvilleResident

    It also doesn’t square at all with the Congressional Budget Office’s report about how much the deficit would increase under the healthcare reform proposal. They say it will add $1.04 trillion to the deficit in the next 10 years. Their report sayid :“That estimate primarily reflects $438 billion in additional federal outlays for Medicaid and $773 billion in federal subsidies that would be provided to purchase coverage through the new insurance exchanges, the CBO report from July says.”

    In any event, on the one hand we have the CBO saying there will be a big increase in the deficit, and the President saying there won’t be any increase in all. Who are we supposed to believe?

    Again, if there isn’t going to be any addition of 1.04 trillion to the deficit in the next 10 years (Obama says it won’t increase by a dime) then who’s footing the bill for the 1.04 trillion? That’s a lot of money, no matter how it is divided up among increased taxes, fees, whatever that SOMEONE has to pay.

  10. Rick Bentley

    It’s a shell game. What he’s sauing makes no sense. It’s all based on the human trait to believe in heros and to put blind trust in them. even when they’re telling you that 2 + 2 = 5.

    “We spend too much money on health care”
    “We let insurance companies deny coverage, and we have too many uninsured”
    “If you put blind faith in me I can wave my hands and cure both these problems simultaneously.”

  11. Rick Bentley

    “what we need to do is to let my new friends the drug companies do whatever they want and to punish the insurance companies, who have pledged no money to me. As your hero i assure you that we will have a better system if you put your blind faith in me and write a blank check to my friends. Act now, this offer may not be here next week, and we cannot afford not to act”.

    “Ignorance is strength, freedom is slavery, etc. etc.”.

  12. Moon-howler

    So, do you guys want to do nothing? How about the 47 million or however million without health care? Many of those 47 million are the unemployed, restaurant workers, and self employed people who just cant shell out the grand plus a month it costs for health care for a family.

    Where was the health care plan the past 8 years? I am not saying I am 100 % in the prez’s camp on this one but at least he is doing something rather than nothing.

    What if you lose your job? What if you get a disease and can’t work and therefore lose your insurance? what if your company disqualifies you for whatever reason? What if you max out on your plan? There are all things Americans face daily. They don’t plan on it. Things happen.

  13. GainesvilleResident

    I’d just like the answer to the cost question. Until someone can tell me what it really definitively costs, I can’t support it. I also feel like he is being dishonest when he says it won’t raise the deficit by a dime! Does anyone really believe that?

    All these things that are proposed cost money and so far no one wants to say how it is going to get paid for. It’s either because they haven’t figured out how it is going to get paid for, or they don’t want to tell us. I just find the whole “it won’t raise the deficit by a dime” argument very unpersuasive. If it is going to raise the deficit – then let’s admit it already. Either the CBO is wrong or the President is wrong – they both can’t be right.

  14. Rick Bentley

    “How about the 47 million or however million without health care? ”

    To start with the ones who are illegal aliens – i’m sure it’s well over 20% – should go pursue health care in their home country.

    “Where was the health care plan the past 8 years?”bush cut a bogus deal with the drug companies that provided for seniors expenses at the cost of ever-increasing drug prices. Just like Obama’s doing. Same old same old.

    So – what is it you want to do? lower costs, or increase access and coverage? Pick one, but don’t pretend that you can do both simultaneously.

  15. Rick Bentley

    Of those without health care, my understanding is the vast majority are either illegal immigrants or people between jobs.

  16. GainesvilleResident

    It does defy logic that you can both lower costs and increase access and coverage at the same time. All of the things proposed like eliminating pre-existing condition denial, loss of coverage when employment is ended, capping out of pocket costs sound great – but you know those are going to increase cost of insurance. Someone or something has to pay for all of that. I just don’t see where the big savings are coming from yet. One place is the proposed government health plan that will provide competition to the regular insurance plans. One theory is all that will do is cause a lot of those insurance plans to go away.

    It just seems that lowering costs vs. increased coverage are two contradictory goals and it will be very hard to achieve both. If they want to increase coverage that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be trying to say that’s going to somehow magically lower costs. There’s still going to be people without insurance (unless everyone is forced to purchase insurance), or even those with insurance that still won’t afford to pay the hospital bills, so I don’t see that indirect cost really going away in such a great amount as they predict.

  17. Rick Bentley

    The savings will come from Jesus. If we help the poor he will take care of us.

    Or maybe Santa Claus will give it to us for Christmas if we’re good little sheep and do everything that our President tells us to.

  18. Pat.Herve

    You can lower costs by reducing the administration and redundancy. When you are ill, each doctor will perform the same battery of tests, which leads to waste. Sharing of medical information between health providers is essential – imagine if our banking system still depended on paper ( 😉 maybe that would have been a good thing).

    Getting more on board, including the healthy young adults, spreads the risk pool out, and generates more money in the pool, but not a large increase in the risk.

    I would love to go work with a small company that I know, but cannot, as they do not provide converage, and with my pre existing condition, I cannot get an affordable policy.

    How many people do you know who say, well, my wife works for the county, but that is just for the benefits, as I am a small business owner.

    Is the proposal perfect – no, not by any means, but I do not see the Republicans trying to help – and no, I did not see the Democrats tying to help a few years ago either. They are all out for themselves, looking at November 2010 instead of today. If they fixed the problems of today, they would not have to worry about November 2010.

  19. Moon-howler

    I want to increase access and lower costs. I want to make it so companies can’t screw people. I don’t have any answers, just a wish list.

    Even if it is people between jobs, that is horrible. A good friend of mine’s husband discovered he had bladder cancer during a bout of unemployment about 15 years ago. The family still has not recovered from the financial blow of that. Even when people take a job, almost all require a 3 month wait period.

    Costs from illnesses can run into the hundreds of thousands. How many families can afford that kind of hit?

    As for the 20%, I got that figure from Frank Wolf’s tele-town meeting. Call his office and question it. I am not falling on a sword over it.

    I don’t think that the immigration issue needs to be in the health care isssue. I am not willing to put any progress in this country on hold because the illegal immigration issue isn’t solved. That’s an easy fix. Make them all legal and bring them in to the system. I don’t think that is a solution for illegal immigration but it sure solves the health care issue.

  20. Moon-howler

    @ Pat

    Getting a good base of good healthy young adults enrolled is an excellent idea as far as financing a plan. I wish I had thought of that.

  21. Rick Bentley

    I’m not doubting the real issues involved, Moon-howler, and I want to see many of them addressed. I don’t see Obama or Pelosi’s leadership helping to do that in any reasonable way. And whatever way things are addressed, I want to see REAL DIALOGUE, not political posturing.

    Want to reduce costs by stopping incentive for providers to spend inordinate amounts on people already sick or near the end of life? Probably this is the only way forward. Let’s have real dialogue on it, let’s not slip it in under the guise of “magical cost savings”.

    “I don’t think that the immigration issue needs to be in the health care isssue.” they are and have been intrinsically linked. And it is a very big card that opponents of “reform” can and will play.

  22. Rick Bentley

    “Getting a good base of good healthy young adults enrolled is an excellent idea as far as financing a plan”

    Does that make any sense? Aren’t they uninsured because they don;t have money? So where does the money come from to pay for them being in the new “magic bullet” plan? From their own pockets? If so, aren’t they in the same conundrum only you’ve made insurance compulsory for them? From my pockets? If so I don’t see “cost savings” inherent to that.

    Some of you just really don’t seem to expect anything to add up or make sense. Whoever has 80 billion dollars of explanation behind them seems to be able to sell you on anything.

  23. Rick Bentley

    Let me try to speak reason here. We spend 50% more than other countries. Some of that is because our government forbids reimportation of drugs from other countries, enabling pharmaceutical companies to charge us more. Our government props that up by force of law – motivated by lobbyists’ money, as is Obama. Most of the cost is cutting-edge stuff for the sick and at end-of-life.

    The only meaningful ways to cut costs would be to :

    – Get providers to stop spending so much on sick and elderly and terminally ill – presumably through Medicate changes and by allowing insurance companies to stop taking care of the terminally ill as well as they currently have to
    – Socialize medicine; cap costs and inherently put a damper on research and development
    – Allow reimportation of prescription drugs

    Once you embrace reality, you’ll see that Obama is completely full of crap. He’s knocked #3 out of the picture and swears he is not for 31 or #2.

  24. Rick Bentley

    These other things that Obama sprinkles into this (portable health insurance, no denial based on pre-existing conditions, increased access, more preventive care) by any objective measure and analysis INCREASE costs. I’m not saying some or all aren’t worth doing. I am saying that we’re being so blatantly lied to that it makes me sick.

  25. Rick Bentley

    All this from government leaders who sat and watched while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – under their direct oversight – brought the nation towards depression, and who were just telling us a couple of years ago that we needed to provide Amnesty for millions because we needed them to “grow our economy” as we have more jobs than workers (unemployment is now up near 10%).

  26. Rick Bentley

    I trust them all as far as I can spit, divided by 2, minus 10.

  27. Last Best Hope

    I appreciated all the lofty patriotic rhetoric. It is job description number one for the President to remind us that we are “all in this together.” But the most important part of the speech, for me, was that Health Care Reform legislation will require FURTHER budget cuts, outside of health care spending, to keep this program deficit neutral in the future.

    If this measure is in the bill, I think that it will pass.

    Much is made of the fact that Medicare and Medicaid exceeded budget projections. A large portion of the responsibility falls on Congress for failing to regulate insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, and upon those companies for exploiting the government’s laissez faire approach to an industry where so much more than profit is at stake.

    Obama’s most important stance in the speech, at least from a fiscal conservative’s point of view, was his commitment to deficit neutrality. If these long overdue federal regulations fail to control costs to the degree that they are PROJECTED to control costs, then Congress must make commensurate cuts in other parts of federal budget to keep the reform bill deficit neutral.

    I like it.

  28. Rick Bentley

    Wow you’re naive.

  29. Rick Bentley

    You live in some alternate universe where the Congress keeps its commitments.

  30. ShellyB

    @Pat.Herve
    That is a great post Pat Herve. Gainesville do you buy it? It seems to me that if the young kids who are risking their parents’ life savings by not having health insurance are required to have health insurance, THEN it will help control costs because there will be more money in the pool. Most of the kids will stay healthy of course. So they will be putting in more than they take out. But the ones who destroy a knee snowboarding or find out they have bone cancer are not going to drive up costs for others by amassing medical bills they can’t pay.

    I’m sure young people would love to opt out of paying social security. They think they will never get old. Obama is saying to them that they have to pay their share and be responsible citizens, even at a young age. This is a great idea. (And guess what, it was originally Hillary’s.)

  31. ShellyB

    Rick, as Obama pointed out in his speech, Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid were all supposed to lead to “socialize” according to their detractors. And the cost of this reform is less than “The Iraq War For No Reason,” and less that the “Huge Tax Cuts for Super-Wealthy While The Rest of Us Got Screwed.”

    Did you also have only a millimeter of spit for these expensive items when President Bush wasn’t even TRYING to pay for them?

    Did you apply the same healthy skepticism to WMD’s and the “smoking gun that will become a mushroom cloud” unless we spend trillions of dollars creating an unnecessary global disaster?

  32. ShellyB

    Everyone, did you realize the word “social” is in Social Security? It’s a conspiracy!!!!

  33. Rick Bentley

    “Obama is saying to them that they have to pay their share and be responsible citizens”

    He’s also saying to them that we live in a society where the Federal Government makes rules and regulations way beyond the boundaries of the Constitution. And that they need to pay in to take care of the older people who are alrteady in the process of squandering this nation’s wealth and standing.

    But beyond whether that’s good or bad, it certainly doesn’t address Obama’s ostensible core problem that we pay 50% more than other nations for health care. Not even slightly. It’s not really a part of any “comprehensive” approach, it’s something discrete that could be done on its own.

  34. Rick Bentley

    ShellyB, yes I did. I never voted for Bush and have felt since 9/11 that he should have been impeached.

    That doesn’t make Obama any more honest or capable.

  35. Rick Bentley

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/the_real_public_option_start_o.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

    There are a host of normal public policy issues dealing with health care that can be dealt with through the normal political process.

    But that doesn’t suit Obama. He’s decided a big victory on health care is key to his political success. He’s decided we all have to acquiesce in a massive overhaul of our health care system because…he’s decided he wants it.

    He said, “I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” This suggests how grandiloquent his self-understanding is. After all, even if he were to prevail with some form of his legislation, others would come along with further and other reforms. Obama really isn’t our last, best hope for public policy changes in this area — or in any other.

  36. GainesvilleResident

    @ShellyB
    I’d like to see just how many so called “young people without insurance” that there are. At the same time these people are being added in, there’s going to be other people who are less healthy and not insured being added in. I’m not sure it really balances out the way people seem to be thinking it will. One really sick person is going to take more than one healthy person to pay for him, under that theory. Look at it this way – one really sick person can easily run up $100K in bills in a year’s time. One healthy person’s payments into the plan isn’t going to cover that – not by a long shot. This would seem to suggest that a large proportion of the uninsured are “healthy young people”. I’m not so sure that is the case.

    Sharing information between medical providers to eliminate duplication of costs sounds good – but there is going to be an up-front cost of creating such a system that makes that easy to do and is secure – the security part of the system probably incurring the highest percentage of cost in developing it. To make a really secure system is going to be very expensive – and there’s an ongoing cost associated with keeping such a system secure. I know, because I know what both the up-front cost of securing what is a relatively small system I work on, as well as the ongoing cost for keeping such a system secure – and it is very high and the ongoing cost represents 75% of the cost of sustaining the system. I wonder if anyone has factored all of that into this.

    I’m not saying all these things aren’t great things to do – but I think some of the savings are not realistic. And the last thing we need is some surprise down the road when all these hidden costs are revealed. I’ve heard cutbacks in other areas of the federal budget if there are unanticipated costs – well WHAT other areas of the federal budget – no one has said that of course, and I’ll bet no one is willing to.

    This isn’t going to come for free – no matter how much people want to make you believe it will.

  37. GainesvilleResident

    And as far as the cost of this compared to things in the Bush era – remember – last night Obama said “It won’t add a dime to the federal deficit”. So I’m tired of hearing lies and distortions like that – when the CBO says it will add a trillion to it over the next 10 years!

  38. Moon-howler

    Rick, young people often dont buy health care because they think they are immortal. They have other things to spend their money on.

  39. GainesvilleResident

    And by the way, the cost of spending on the Iraq war was $694 billion as of 2008. So it is not accurate to say
    ‘And the cost of this reform is less than “The Iraq War For No Reason”‘. No, it isn’t. Not to mention the usual angry rhetoric spouted in that paragraph.

  40. Moon-howler

    Rick, additionally, most people towards end of life already are on the government plan-Medicare. Certainly no one wants to to shorten their lives.

    The death panel scare tactic just isn’t working.

  41. Rick Bentley

    Most employed young people have health insurance. Those who don’t are typically stuck in a job that doesn’t provide it, or between jobs, or between college and employment.

    Whether they pay in or don’t, it doesn’t result in a “cost savings” overall. The middle-class taxpayer might end up paying for less uninsured people through Medicaid, and the young person pays in. Fine and dandy, but don’t pretend that this somehow lessens the exorbitant price of health care in America.

  42. Rick Bentley

    “The death panel scare tactic just isn’t working.”

    In point of fact the only real way to get rising costs under control is to allow medicare or insurance companies the right to limit treatment on terminally ill, and/or elderly. Instead of a serious discussion we have partisans on both sides of the aisle playing games about political “victory”. President Obama is leading on this issue – leading the spin and BS away from anything real.

  43. Moon-howler

    This link goes to a site that graphs presidential approval ratings since Harry Truman. I was very surprised.

    There are little arrows under the first graph. Go to the right with the arrows to see each individual president:

    http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-presapp0605-31.html

  44. Moon-howler

    Rick, not according to Frank Wolf. He said many young people, considered adults, do not have health care. He spoke very knowledgeably on the subject and even admitted that he and his wife had had to help out his kids who didn’t have it.

    As for Medicare, Americans have gotten used to the fact that more money is spent on older people. That is a fact of life. It will be expensive and it will get more so. If we do nothing, Medicare is still there with an army of baby boomers rapidly coming of age.

    But they are coming, like it or not and Medicare costs will be staggering, regardless of health care reform.

    So…that more or less is a given and should not be part of the health care reform argument other than perhaps if health care reforms are put into place, Medicare can become more manageable.

  45. Rick Bentley

    Everything you say in paragraphs 2 and 3 point towards eventually spending less on the terminally ill and elderly.

  46. Moon-howler

    Not necessarily. How come it hasn’t happened so far?

    I sincerely hope that the state stops putting those who assist terminally ill people who want to make their own end of life decisions in jail. In my opinion, Oregon and Washington are the only 2 civilized states in the union on this subject. Naturally it should be the person or designee making the decision and not the government.

    But that is a discussion for another day. I realize many people do not see things as I do.

  47. Rick Bentley

    I agree with that. It’s great that our sitting President has lead us towards meaningful discussion of important issues.

    Oh wait. He hasn’t. He’s feeding out a line of horse manure.

  48. Smith

    When Obama told the chamber that the “death panel” lie was, in fact, a lie, a Republican member said loudly enough to be heard in the press gallery, “Read the bill” — a common refrain at August’s angry town hall meetings.

    When Obama told the chamber that he had “no interest in putting insurance companies out of business,” a Republican member responded with a loud, “Ha!”

    “Nineteen years, never, never have I seen anything like this,” said a furious Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) after the speech.

    “I thought it was very inappropriate behavior, to hold up signs. None of us ever would have done that,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). “I don’t think in the Congress of the United States there ought to be catcalls, or people standing up and yelling comments or holding up signs.”

    Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the longest serving member in House history, said he was not impressed by the GOP antics. “Well, you’ve got to understand: They’re Republicans. They’re just doing what comes natural,” he told HuffPost.

  49. GainesvilleResident

    This is a bit disingenuous. Democrats acted just as badly at Bush’s State of the Union addresses. Want proof?

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/09/10/flashback_democrats_boo_bush_at_2005_state_of_the_union.html

    There’s plenty more where that came from – this is just one example. Just google bush state union boos and you’ll see what I mean.

    The Republicans aren’t the only ones behaving badly, not by a longshot. But apparently it’s all fine when the Dems do it.

  50. GainesvilleResident

    “Nineteen years, never, never have I seen anything like this,” said a furious Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) after the speech.

    Rep. DeLauro must have been sleeping through Bush’s State of the Union speeches then! Or, subscribes to the idea it’s all OK as long as it’s not the other side doing it!

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