by John McCormick
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – Sen. Barack Obama today defended his health care proposal, a key issue with voters and one that has emerged as a dispute between him and his leading Democratic nomination rivals.
"There have been some folks -- some other candidates -- who said that it's not possible to provide universal health care coverage unless there's a mandate," the Illinois Democrat said. "The reason people don't have health insurance isn't because they don't want it. It's because they can't afford it. And if we make health insurance affordable, then people will buy it."
The dispute re-emerged last week during a debate in Las Vegas, when Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York challenged Obama on the fact that his proposal would not require coverage for all.
"When it came time to step up and decide whether or not he would support universal health care coverage, he chose not to do that," Clinton said then.
Obama maintains mandating coverage is not essential and pointed to state requirements for automobile insurance that have failed to translate into universal coverage.
"There may be a few people, mainly young people, who think they are going to live forever, who decide not to get health insurance, even when it is affordable," Obama said. "If we see that people are still not covered, when we've made it affordable, then we will figure out how to make sure that everyone has coverage."
Obama praised Clinton's efforts for trying to get universal health care in the 1990s, but also offered criticism.
"They basically went behind closed doors," he said. "I want to do it the exact opposite...I'm going to have a big table and I'm going to have everyone represented."
Obama said his health care plan is "basically the same" as those offered by Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
"The one difference is, as I said, John Edwards and Hillary, they want to impose a mandate," he said. "They want to say, you've got to buy health insurance."
Clinton's campaign stressed Saturday that there are differences.
"It's unfortunate that Sen. Obama didn’t have the political will to produce a universal health care plan," Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement. "The real difference is that her plan covers every American and Sen. Obama's leaves 15 million without insurance."
Obama also offered a funny riff on all the expensive television advertising offered by drug companies.
"People are running through the fields, and they're all smiling, but you don't know what it's for. You just hear about the side effects," he said. "You know, this may cause diarrhea. If you have shortness of breath. It's like, what is this drug for? I don’t know. Except there's that one you do know, right? The middle-aged couple is all smiling at each other. You know what that one's for."
Obama worked to shed any cobwebs from his campaign trail presentation, following a two-day Thanksgiving break at home in Chicago. "I ate too much," Obama confessed to his first audience of the day.
The stop at a high school here was his first of a two-day swing through western and central Iowa.
Comments
No health care plan offered by any of the candidates is going to have much weight unless it addresses the shortage of health care providers, and develops a plan to get more doctors and nurses trained, and the cost of medical education reduced. Why do so many Americans leave this country to go elsewhere to get a medical education? Tens of thousands go abroad because they cannot get into medical schools in this country. Those who do graduate from American schools end up with so much debt that when go into practice they have to overload their schedules with as many patients as is possible. It's common to have an appointment with a gp and find 30 people have an appointment at the same time. And none of them know anything about nutrition or preventive medicine.
Posted by: GW | November 24, 2007 6:50 PM
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until its free.
Posted by: Terry | November 24, 2007 6:57 PM
I think Obama is right on this. Mandating that everyone gets insurance just so you can say your plan is "universal" doesn't solve any of the major problems with our health care system. I'd prefer a single-payer system, but in lieu of that, Obama seems to understand the problem better than the other frontrunners.
Posted by: Mike | November 24, 2007 7:30 PM
I have a better plan! I'll pay for mine and you pay for yours...if you can't afford it,there's Medicade.
Problem solved or as Al Gore would say,'The debate is over!'
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | November 24, 2007 8:49 PM
Once again, this article and Obama himself confuse health "care" with health "insurance." Flash: They are not the same. Universal health CARE is what the Soviet Union provided...exceedingly poorly as it turned out. Health insurance obviously allows the insured to choose
from a variety of health care options. There are not 47 million people currently denied health CARE. They may not have insurance, but there are multiple avenues to free care, including emergency rooms, free clinics and Stroger Hospital. If a candidate can't get the terminology straight, how is he ever going to develop a cogent proposal? And you can lump Hillary in there, too. She makes the same mistake.
Posted by: Chandra | November 24, 2007 10:00 PM
My heart goes out to Dennis Quaid and his family. And to Kanye West and his family. These are two unfortunate examples of why it is so important to end the Cancer of private for profit health care delivery in America. HR 676 Single Payer Universal Health Care (Medicare For All) is The Way to go. Like all other developed countries did years ago. See sickocure.org
You see, It's not just about the 47 million Americans that have no insurance. Or the 89 million who went without insurance part of the time from 2006-2007. It's about everyone. Private for profit health care delivery is not only highly immoral, and unethical. It is just down right dangerous, and bad medicine. That injures, and kills millions of Americans needlessly. Disgracefully. Shamefully.
These injuries, and deaths should not have happened. We only heard about them because it happened to celebrities. But these tragedies are happening to thousands of Americans every day in this country. But you don't hear about it. These thousands of needless deaths, and injuries of your loved ones are covered up. Under so-called patient confidentiality. Which is just health care industry speak for "don't tell anybody we injured, or killed another one".
See, no one is immune from the Cancer of private for profit health care delivery. Mr. Quaid's children were being cared for at a very renowned hospital. And I am sure Mr. Quaid probably has excellent insurance. And can afford the finest medical care available. But as it turned out. None of that mattered. Hospitals have always been potentially very dangerous places. But under the pressures of greed, and a rush to profit. All US hospitals have become extremely dangerous, deadly places. Like they were in the 18th century. When hospitals were primarily the place you went to DIE!
I don't know exactly how this tragedy to Mr. Quaid's babies happened. But I imagine it was the same scenario that plays out thousands of times every day across America. Driven by greed, and the profit motive hospitals cut corners as much as they can get away with. This means staff that is over worked. And under staffed. It means hiring the least experienced, and cheapest hospital staff you can get. And pushing out the more experienced safer higher paid staff.
They say the pharmacist stocked the wrong meds. And that the hospitals were warned about this problem months ago. After many other perfectly healthy new born babies were killed by this mistake. I wonder how many thousands of perfectly healthy babies were killed this way across America. And how many thousands are still being killed this way across America.
It should not have mattered what concentration of heparin the pharmacist stocked the medicine cabinets with. Because every one who administers drugs is supposed to have been taught to follow the (7 R's).
a. Right drug,
b. Right patient,
c. Right dose,
d. Right time,
e. Right route,
f. Right reason,
g. Right documentation,
This is just basic practice. A experienced person will check additional things. Before giving a patient a potentially deadly drug.
In anticipation of coming changes in our health care system. Thousands of patients are being killed at a fevered pitch. And millions injured, and poisoned with unnecessary medications, medical procedures, and surgery's. In an orgy of greed, and profiteering a head of proposed changes to our current disgraceful health care system.
HR. 676 Single Payer Universal National Health Care For All (Medicare For All) can fix this disgrace. Until then, I advise you to be careful of taking any recommended medical care at this time without doing your home work. And getting a good independent 2nd, or 3rd opinion. Especially if you have so-called good insurance coverage.
And If you have to receive medical care in, or out of a hospital. Try to have a knowledgeable family member or friend to keep an eye on what they are doing to you.
Good Luck...
Posted by: jacksmith | November 25, 2007 10:40 AM
The NY Post just published the results of a Ohio U. poll detailing the constituency Obama and Clinton are trying to appeal to:
"November 24, 2007 -- Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.
And that's not the only conspiracy theory with a huge number of true believers in the United States.
The poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe Washington is concealing the truth about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination - and most everyone is sure the rise in gas prices is one vast oil-industry conspiracy.
Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Only 30 percent said the 9/11 theory was "not likely," according to the Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.
The findings followed a 2006 poll by the same researchers, who found that 36 percent of Americans believe federal government officials "either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action" because they wanted "to go to war in the Middle East."
In that poll, 16 percent said the Twin Towers might have collapsed because of secretly planted explosives - not hijacked passenger jets flown into them.
And what hit the Pentagon? Twelve percent figured it was a US cruise missile.
..."
For the full article, see
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11242007/news/nationalnews/blame_u_s__for_9_11_idiots_in_majority_318165.htm
Comment on this nuttiness is unnecessary.
Posted by: Bruce | November 25, 2007 11:21 AM
The government caused the problem with health care in America by over socializing (with mandates) medicine to the extent it is not completive, and we want to exacerbate the problem? Kids have health care. The needy already have health care. The U.S. is not a socialist state ( see http://tinyurl.com/2znnvl ). No one is entitled to be given a house, car, food or health care, etc. If we want these things, we have to earn them. The government does not earn money. Perhaps some of us should take a civics class and learn about America. We all have to labor for what we want. For those who need help there are the charities and state programs. We need to fix the health care issue but we cannot fix it unless we know how it is broken. For the answer, please see http://www.InteliOrg.com/
Posted by: Dr Coles | November 25, 2007 12:08 PM
My heart goes out to Dennis Quaid and his family. And to Kanye West and his family. These are two unfortunate examples of why it is so important to end the Cancer of private for profit health care delivery in America. HR 676 Single Payer Universal Health Care (Medicare For All) is The Way to go. Like all other developed countries did years ago. See sickocure.org
You see, It's not just about the 47 million Americans that have no insurance. Or the 89 million who went without insurance part of the time from 2006-2007. It's about everyone. Private for profit health care delivery is not only highly immoral, and unethical. It is just down right dangerous, and bad medicine. That injures, and kills millions of Americans needlessly. Disgracefully. Shamefully.
These injuries, and deaths should not have happened. We only heard about them because it happened to celebrities. But these tragedies are happening to thousands of Americans every day in this country. But you don't hear about it. These thousands of needless deaths, and injuries of your loved ones are covered up. Under so-called patient confidentiality. Which is just health care industry speak for "don't tell anybody we injured, or killed another one".
See, no one is immune from the Cancer of private for profit health care delivery. Mr. Quaid's children were being cared for at a very renowned hospital. And I am sure Mr. Quaid probably has excellent insurance. And can afford the finest medical care available. But as it turned out. None of that mattered. Hospitals have always been potentially very dangerous places. But under the pressures of greed, and a rush to profit. All US hospitals have become extremely dangerous, deadly places. Like they were in the 18th century. When hospitals were primarily the place you went to DIE!
I don't know exactly how this tragedy to Mr. Quaid's babies happened. But I imagine it was the same scenario that plays out thousands of times every day across America. Driven by greed, and the profit motive hospitals cut corners as much as they can get away with. This means staff that is over worked. And under staffed. It means hiring the least experienced, and cheapest hospital staff you can get. And pushing out the more experienced safer higher paid staff.
They say the pharmacist stocked the wrong meds. And that the hospitals were warned about this problem months ago. After many other perfectly healthy new born babies were killed by this mistake. I wonder how many thousands of perfectly healthy babies were killed this way across America. And how many thousands are still being killed this way across America.
It should not have mattered what concentration of heparin the pharmacist stocked the medicine cabinets with. Because every one who administers drugs is supposed to have been taught to follow the (7 R's).
a. Right drug,
b. Right patient,
c. Right dose,
d. Right time,
e. Right route,
f. Right reason,
g. Right documentation,
This is just basic practice. A experienced person will check additional things. Before giving a patient a potentially deadly drug.
In anticipation of coming changes in our health care system. Thousands of patients are being killed at a fevered pitch. And millions injured, and poisoned with unnecessary medications, medical procedures, and surgery's. In an orgy of greed, and profiteering a head of proposed changes to our current disgraceful health care system.
HR. 676 Single Payer Universal National Health Care For All (Medicare For All) can fix this disgrace. Until then, I advise you to be careful of taking any recommended medical care at this time without doing your home work. And getting a good independent 2nd, or 3rd opinion. Especially if you have so-called good insurance coverage.
And If you have to receive medical care in, or out of a hospital. Try to have a knowledgeable family member or friend to keep an eye on what they are doing to you.
Good Luck...
Posted by: jacksmith | November 25, 2007 1:34 PM
"Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon."
Well, it is a verifiable fact. Spelled out in the 9/11 Commission. http://www.slate.com/id/2098861/ I guess what Brucie is really appalled about is that fewer and fewer people believe that Saddam Hussein (remember- THE REAL ENEMY!!!) had WMD's when the U.S. invaded.
Let's see, a majority of Americans (according to the poll) believe in something that is verifiably true... now if only we could bring down those Creationist support numbers.
Posted by: Jones | November 26, 2007 11:49 AM
What Obama doesnt tell you is that in order to provide health insurance for most Americans it is going to take a huge increase in taxes. Why should a system that works for 80% of AMericans be altered for the 20% who are not covered. There is Medicare and free County hospitals for poor people already. When are people going to start doing things for themselves instead of relying on the gov to fix their problems.
Posted by: Vinny | November 26, 2007 12:32 PM
My heart goes out to Dennis Quaid and his family. And to Kanye West and his family. These are two unfortunate examples of why it is so important to end the Cancer of private for profit health care delivery in America. HR 676 Single Payer Universal Health Care (Medicare For All) is The Way to go. Like all other developed countries did years ago. See sickocure.org
You see, It's not just about the 47 million Americans that have no insurance. Or the 89 million who went without insurance part of the time from 2006-2007. It's about everyone. Private for profit health care delivery is not only highly immoral, and unethical. It is just down right dangerous, and bad medicine. That injures, and kills millions of Americans needlessly. Disgracefully. Shamefully.
These injuries, and deaths should not have happened. We only heard about them because it happened to celebrities. But these tragedies are happening to thousands of Americans every day in this country. But you don't hear about it. These thousands of needless deaths, and injuries of your loved ones are covered up. Under so-called patient confidentiality. Which is just health care industry speak for "don't tell anybody we injured, or killed another one".
See, no one is immune from the Cancer of private for profit health care delivery. Mr. Quaid's children were being cared for at a very renowned hospital. And I am sure Mr. Quaid probably has excellent insurance. And can afford the finest medical care available. But as it turned out. None of that mattered. Hospitals have always been potentially very dangerous places. But under the pressures of greed, and a rush to profit. All US hospitals have become extremely dangerous, deadly places. Like they were in the 18th century. When hospitals were primarily the place you went to DIE!
I don't know exactly how this tragedy to Mr. Quaid's babies happened. But I imagine it was the same scenario that plays out thousands of times every day across America. Driven by greed, and the profit motive hospitals cut corners as much as they can get away with. This means staff that is over worked. And under staffed. It means hiring the least experienced, and cheapest hospital staff you can get. And pushing out the more experienced safer higher paid staff.
They say the pharmacist stocked the wrong meds. And that the hospitals were warned about this problem months ago. After many other perfectly healthy new born babies were killed by this mistake. I wonder how many thousands of perfectly healthy babies were killed this way across America. And how many thousands are still being killed this way across America.
It should not have mattered what concentration of heparin the pharmacist stocked the medicine cabinets with. Because every one who administers drugs is supposed to have been taught to follow the (7 R's).
a. Right drug,
b. Right patient,
c. Right dose,
d. Right time,
e. Right route,
f. Right reason,
g. Right documentation,
This is just basic practice. A experienced person will check additional things. Before giving a patient a potentially deadly drug.
In anticipation of coming changes in our health care system. Thousands of patients are being killed at a fevered pitch. And millions injured, and poisoned with unnecessary medications, medical procedures, and surgery's. In an orgy of greed, and profiteering a head of proposed changes to our current disgraceful health care system.
HR. 676 Single Payer Universal National Health Care For All (Medicare For All) can fix this disgrace. Until then, I advise you to be careful of taking any recommended medical care at this time without doing your home work. And getting a good independent 2nd, or 3rd opinion. Especially if you have so-called good insurance coverage.
And If you have to receive medical care in, or out of a hospital. Try to have a knowledgeable family member or friend to keep an eye on what they are doing to you.
Good Luck...
Posted by: jacksmith | November 26, 2007 2:58 PM
This is response to GW comment that there is shortage of health care professionals and they need to train more doctors and nurses. But he forgot one important member-Pharmacist. Getting Doctorate Of Pharmacy (Pharm.D) degree after 6 years of hard work and 2 more years of post Pharm.D residency teaches you more than enough to be an independent practitioner to start diabetes clinics, hyperlipidemia clinics, etc. But insurance companies would not compensate for such services provided by pharmacists. To this day these clinics are mainly run on funding provided thru grants and federal aid. There are many independent studies that have shown that patient's blood sugar or cholesterol was better managed by these clinics and it was way cheaper.
Posted by: vishal purohit | June 4, 2008 6:05 PM
Obama wants GP's to treat everything!! Would you want to have a GP treat your cancer, diabetes, etc? I know he wouldn't !!! Oh wait he and congress have their own plans.
I am not knocking the GP, but he is just one cog in the wheel of healthcare. A GP or family doctor is trained in "family medicine". Yes he does a rotation in the other speciality areas but not the intense training the specialist gets.
I spent over 40 years in healthcare in several different disciplines and today's system of the GP treating "everyday" issues and then refering to the specialist has been proven to be the best course to take. As an example the survival rate increase in patient with cancer it has improved their quality of life. Taking healthcare back 40-50 years will INCREASE the cost as GP's will order more diagnostic procedures to assure the correct diagnosis and treatment has been chosen.
Posted by: LT Bob | June 26, 2009 11:25 AM