by Mark Silva
Despite whatever "signals'' the White House may have given about giving up on the so-called "public option'' in health-care reform, the White House has not given up, the White House says.
Nevertheless, the signal has been sent that the White House is open to other options -- perhaps paving an easier path for the health-care insurance overhaul that the president is seeking, while alienating many allies who want a stronger government hand.
A public option for people who cannot find insurance in the private market still is the president's "preference,'' White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said last night aboard Air Force One en route home to Washington from a Western weekend of "town-hall'' meetings and national park tours.
The president is "happy to look at'' other options, Gibbs said, but a government plan for those who cannot find coverage privately remains his preference in the overhaul he is seeking.
Despite the fact that Gibbs himself was among the administration people who had spurred weekend stories about the White House backing away from the public option, Gibbs insisted that the administration is not taking the option off the table.
"I got to tell you, this is one of the more curious things I've ever seen in my life,'' Gibbs told reporters. "I was on a Sunday show, I said the same thing about a public option that I've said for I don't know how many weeks. (Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius) reiterated what the president said the day before, and you'd think there was some new policy...
"I think you can go back and find the president saying -- look, the President has said that's his preference, but the president has also said I don't know how many times if the goals are choice and competition, right, the reason you have a public option is because you have an insurance market that doesn't have choice or competition,'' he said. "If somebody is trying to seek private insurance on... on a private market and only has -- because this happens in some areas or in some states where there's one insurance company that does business in that region, that that is -- that doesn't ensure the type of affordability and quality that you'd want to see in a health insurance system.
"So you have some competition that provides some choice, so that if a family of four might have different insurance needs than a single person or a couple that's married with no children or what have you. The goals are choice and competition.
"His preference is a public option,'' Gibbs said. "If there are other ideas, he's happy to look at them.... I think this is true not only for the issue of health care, but for virtually every other issue that he'll ever deal with in public life... He has goals about what he wants to accomplish and he's not necessarily wedded to one -- only one way of getting there. I think he's said that a hundred times.''
See the Tribune Washington bureau's story on the health-care negotiations today in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:
By Peter Nicholas and Janet Hook
By dropping his insistence on a public insurance option, President Obama angered some of his most loyal supporters but sharply improved the odds of passing a far-reaching healthcare overhaul.
Moderate Democratic lawmakers are now more likely to back other parts of the evolving legislation, such as prohibiting insurers from denying coverage because of preexisting conditions or cutting off benefits to ill policy-holders, as well as making it easier for small businesses to cover workers.
At the same time, the White House appeared to be making a calculation that liberals would go along with the legislation even if it lacked a provision they deemed indispensable.
The White House expressed Obama's position in calibrated language, making clear that though he preferred to include a government-run healthcare plan in legislation, its absence would not be a deal-breaker.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said there had been no change in White House policy with respect to a government-run plan. Obama wants an insurance market that does a better job of serving consumers, he said, and doesn't consider a public option the only means of accomplishing that.
"The goals are choice and competition," Gibbs said. "His preference is a public option. If there are other ideas, he's happy to look at them. I think this is true not only for the issue of healthcare, but for virtually every other issue that he'll ever deal with in public life."
Many congressional analysts expect the House to approve some form of public plan and the Senate to reject it, setting up a showdown in the final round of negotiations -- probably late this fall.
But the political gain for Obama was clear Monday in the reaction of Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia, one of five Democrats who opposed the bill when it cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July.
Boucher said Obama's willingness to compromise on the public option had strengthened the president's hand among conservative Democrats and other skeptics without harming the basic goal of lowering healthcare costs and insuring more people.
Dropping that option, Boucher said, "creates the opportunity to pass the healthcare bill. . . . A government- operated healthcare plan is not essential" to reform.
Throughout the healthcare debate, there has been a push for a more competitive insurance marketplace -- either through the creation of cooperatives or a government plan -- that would drive prices down.
Polls have shown that a large majority of Americans favor a public option. But a vocal group of opponents, who fear an expanded federal influence in people's healthcare, have taken their case to town halls around the country during the August congressional recess. They have argued that a government-run plan would have an unfair advantage and ultimately drive private insurers out of business.
The opposition reached such a pitch, dominating news reports, that the president held three town halls of his own in recent days to rebut what he has called misinformation about his healthcare plan.
And in making clear that the public option was merely a "means to an end" -- in the words of a senior Obama official who requested anonymity when discussing administration thinking -- the president may be able to blunt some of the criticism.
Centrist Democrats on Monday said they welcomed the new White House flexibility.
Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), a second-term lawmaker from a swing district, said: "It's going to bring votes." Altmire, who was one of three Democrats to vote against the bill in the House Education and Labor Committee, said that the government plan had "become a flash point."
Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack, a leading consumer advocate who has been pushing a healthcare overhaul for decades, said his group had been distributing a memo touting the "10 Reasons to Support the Health Care Reform Bills." A government plan was only one of them.
"The health reform bills have many critical factors designed to make healthcare more accessible and more affordable," Pollack said in an interview. He and others noted that the bills working their way through the House and Senate included provisions that would transform the way Americans get health insurance -- even without a government plan.
"The public plan is not the essential element of reform," said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank in Washington.
When it comes to strategy, many lawmakers long have seen a concession on the government-run plan as essential to getting any healthcare bill through the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to ensure passage.
All 40 Senate Republicans oppose the public option, as do some Democrats. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been working to overcome political obstacles in the Senate, where a small bipartisan group of lawmakers has been trying to reach a compromise.
"While Sen. Reid supports a public option, he also supports bipartisan compromise healthcare reform that cuts cost and provides coverage for all Americans," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. "There are different proposals on the table that can accomplish that goal."
Obama's willingness to jettison the public option if necessary risks alienating some in his liberal base.
Jed Lewison, a liberal blogger, said that if a healthcare bill passed without a government-run program, grass-roots support for future Obama objectives may be more tepid.
"People's intensity will definitely diminish," Lewison said. "People have been listening to strong arguments for the public option coming from the administration. And they believe those arguments. If it comes down to where people feel like in the last few yards of the field, the rug was pulled out from underneath them, they may not be as willing to work hard the next time around."
Noam N. Levey in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
Comments
Just another rehash of Dem talking points, with 7 Democrats quoted versus 0 Independents or Republicans.
The exclusion of dissenting voices shows how afraid the Democrats (inside and outside the media) are.
Posted by: Bruce | August 18, 2009 8:47 AM
This is going to end up like the TARP fiasco.
Paulson decided to create a panic and collapse the bubble, taking care to see that Goldman Sachs and its counterparty AIG were saved while their competitors went down the drain.
Here, the insurance companies are still going to come out on top. And you'll find Goldman Sachs is their counterparty in many transactions.
There won't be any "coops" and there won't be any "public option".
The health insurance companies will be the chief beneficiary of any health care "reform" bill, if one actually is enacted.
Taxpayers will end up subsidizing them just as surely as the TARP funds were diverted to prop up the Wall Street banks.
Obama will end up sandbagged.
Not by the Republicans.
By the double agents in his own administration whose real loyalty is not to him, but to Wall Street.
Simple as that.
Summers.
Geithner.
Emanuel.
Etc.
Posted by: Milton Friedman | August 18, 2009 8:57 AM
The White House is willing to embrace anything that gets a reform bill passed in the Senate. House liberals and the net roots will deal with it - eventually.
But the decidedly free-market co-ops will help by snuffing out the already shaky accusations of a "government takeover" from the mobs. They'll still go berserk, but it's an easier sell without a true public option.
http://www.political-buzz.com/
Posted by: matt | August 18, 2009 9:03 AM
Bruce....I believe Mark has written on the republican voice. Palin and her "death panel". How funny you need the absolute lies printed. The "death panel" that has been so misrepresented and was also put in by the republican Gov. of Ga. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, but I know truth is not what you seek, just political agenda.
Posted by: bill r. | August 18, 2009 9:17 AM
Just reinforces my belief that the best man lost the election -- and that man happened to be a woman.
I'm sorry, but I voted for Obama primarily for his support for true HC reform, including requiring a true 'public option,' and this is an utter betrayal if the WH compromises on what was already itself a compromise from single-payor.
LBJ would have gone to congress and twisted arms, as he did to pass Medicare. Obama likewise needs to start standing up for his principles and demanding the rebel 'blue dogs' come to heel. Leaders are supposed to lead, not beg. Obama is our president, not some hillbilly Senator who wants make a name for himself and to force his own peculiar new plan on the party.
It's 3 a.m. indeed, Mr. President.
Posted by: Spector | August 18, 2009 9:26 AM
Every possible sign points to putting this healthcare reform on the shelf. The timing is terrible, the extent at which the current system is 'broken' is grossly exagerated and we have a person sitting in the White House that is paralyzed from fear of alienating groups.
As a great president once said...democrats have a lot to say, they just don't know what they are talking about.
Posted by: Mr Tubbs | August 18, 2009 9:28 AM
Since the above article mentions, but does not cite, polls on ObamaCAre, here's the factson another poll The Swamp ignores. First Gallup/USA Today, now Rasmussen:
"Lost in the uproar over a comment in USA Today by the top two House Democrats that those protesting health care reform are “un-American” were several statements aimed at assuring Americans that their access to quality care will be even greater. But new national surveying by Rasmussen Reports finds that voters are far from assured by the comments of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in the same article.
Forty-five percent (45%) of voters nationwide think Pelosi and Hoyer are wrong when they say the passage of health care reform will mean more affordable coverage for all Americans. But 36% share the Democratic Congressional leaders’ view and believe health care will become more affordable if the plan passes. Eighteen percent (18%) are undecided.
Just 27% of all voters agree with the senior House Democrats that if the health care reform being considered by Congress is passed, it will mean more patient choice. Forty-nine percent (49%) disagree and do not believe more patient choice is likely, and 24% are not sure.
Among voters who have health insurance, the majority (52%) says the plan, if passed, will not mean more patient choice, while 25% say it will."
Posted by: Bruce | August 18, 2009 9:34 AM
Taxpayers will end up subsidizing them just as surely as the TARP funds were diverted to prop up the Wall Street banks.
Posted by: Milton Friedman | August 18, 2009 8:57 AM
and maybe you can tell us how on a truley down day on the market yesterday, that cigna, and all the other insurance companies were up dramatically.
Posted by: bill r. | August 18, 2009 9:35 AM
Thank you to Governor Palin for having the courage to speak out against the death panel intentions of Obama's "public option." She has proudly endured the criticism of the left in order to defend the lives of all Americans, no matter how old they are. God Bless you, Governor!
Posted by: Concerned Citizen | August 18, 2009 9:48 AM
Why can't we just temporarily expand Medicaid to cover more people, and then have a national dialogue on reform? Everyone wants reform, but to try to ram change through isn't the way.
Obama wanted to pass this before the August recess, that's the actions of people afraid to confront the american people, not the actions of people wanting the best solution.
He and Pelosi and Frank have stated over and over they want a public option so they can drive private insurance companies out of business. Now he says "oh no it's just an option I don't want to do that" he forgets now there are records on youtube of everything he said.
They have said we can choose our doctor, but they mean only general practitioners, not that we can see any specialist we want when we want, it will be just like the HMO I used to have: I was consistently denied coverage, refused payment if I wanted to see a specialist, even when my GP said I should see a specialist. God help anyone stuck on a single payer plan, we will have no recourse. On single payer, just like an HMO, only the rich will get health care they need.
And the joke is on us: the "selfish greedy" insurance companies all support this bill! They are all in on it and cut deals with the lawmakers. Everyone is out to make out ahead, except the people. The elected representatives are supposed to be on our side, not the side of everyone who's paid them off.
I'm sick of these politicians, both parties, who are angry when we stand up to them. How dare we speak our minds! How dare we act like we know what's best for ourselves and our families! Who are we?
We are the taxpayers and voters. We are the people, the people you're supposed to care about.
Posted by: chrisb | August 18, 2009 10:12 AM
President Obama should look to the antics of the Probate Court of Cook County as an example of governmental interference into health care. The Probate Court of Cook County routinely allows perjured evidence into court hearings, bans family visitations and allows it’s wards to languish in unsanitary nursing homes.
Posted by: Titus Pula | August 18, 2009 10:19 AM
The smoke & mirrors campaigning is not working. The fear mongering is not working. The threats of "Do it now or Die" is not working.
The lack of factual-understandable information and over 1,000 pages of political gobblety goop that hides the intent of this masive legislation will not get it done.
This has become a "Moving Target" and moving targets are not oly hard to aim at and hit but also hard to rope and bring into the corral at the end of the day. This has gotten out of control and the reasons are squarely on the Obama administrations flailing attempts at ramming an unknown entity down the throats of an expanding suspisious public.
The flip flop sound is too much like a tired old horse being led to the barn, only to be brought out again tomorrow.
Posted by: springfield | August 18, 2009 10:28 AM
We are in a suckers' rally this last month.
Now it's going down.
Health insurance stocks are up because smart money sees them as probable beneficiary of any bill that gets passed.
If there is no "public option" whether called a "coop" or something else, guess who is going to set up a subsidiary to deal with the "high risk" "preexisting condition" "previously uninsured" "
"undocumented" and similar risks?
Can you guess who is going to set up a separate set of funds to "help"?
And who is going to rake in subsidies from the Treasury?
Can you venture an itty bitty speculation on that question?
Posted by: ornery | August 18, 2009 10:29 AM
When all this started I kept saying how is Obama going to pay for all this. The current choice is a reduction in Medicare to the elderly. Such as a raise in cost, and a reduction in benefits. If there is anyone out there that thinks a public funded insurance plan to cover millions is not going to cost big bucks either now or down the road is on an Obama high. To do this at a time when the whole country is upside down financially is absurd. If you want to make reforms fine. If you want to have pulic funded insurance aside from Medicare or co-ops which latter become part of the Federal Government is insane.
Posted by: clarence | August 18, 2009 10:32 AM
Yes, it's nice to know I can read a news report with both sides of the story (sarcasm). There's no competition with opposing viewpoints in this story.
Also, Obama says he wants choice and competition. Ah, has anyone told Obama how many health insurance companies there are right now? And, incidentally, these insurance companies numbering in the hundreds, can not compete with each other across state lines because of federal legislation.
Nah, let's just get a public health insurance option. I mean, look how efficiently the federal government runs the Post Office, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.
Posted by: Earnest in Evanston | August 18, 2009 10:37 AM
I am clearly a right wing nut. But I do see a real need for health care reform. Go to any health care provider and tell them that you don't have insurance. You will see a huge discount in price of service. Insurance companies are passing the increas in cost to customers in the form of premiums. In essence, it is a tax on the insured.
.
I would buy into a federal program if it had three things:
.
1. No federal funding for non-US citizens. You must prove citizenship for access to care.
.
2. Unlike the Tennessee plan, I would need to see a finite cap on spending for the program. No chance of infinite tax dollars to keep the program alive and wipe out the private sector.
.
3. The program takes on 100% of the cost for Medicare and Medicaid. No more taxes on private insurers for these programs.
Posted by: Greg | August 18, 2009 11:05 AM
Make no mistake. Obama wants to put as much of the private economy under government control as possible to create his nanny state utopia where he is the boy king. Let's continue to stand strong against Obama in every way and get Congress out of the hand of Pelosi and Reid in 2010. Obama is a smug, smirking con man. Nothing more
Posted by: Derrick | August 18, 2009 11:06 AM
There is no free lunch. The last thing our country needs is another entitlement program. The Medicare Deficit is 27.8 Trillion dollars. The Social Security Deficit is projected at 3.7 Trillion dollars. Politicians refuse to address the real crisis. A tax rate of 100% would not solve our deficit problem, benefits need to be adjusted.
Posted by: Dave | August 18, 2009 11:19 AM
If Obama's public option doesn't include death panels, then why did he back-pedal from it faster than you can say, "goodbye granny!?" Score one for America. Yep, Mr. President, some people actually DO read your health care bills.
Posted by: dave | August 18, 2009 11:23 AM
OMG! "They're trying to destroy the best patchwork system of for-profit health insurance inexplicably linked to employment status in the world!" Tom Tomorrow
Posted by: Michael Connolly | August 18, 2009 11:34 AM
Barry is going to attempt to push and ram some form of socialist health care down the nation's throat, even though more than half of the people do not want another failed program. Of course the illegals want more free health care. That boy is so far over his head it isn't funny.
Posted by: BDD | August 18, 2009 11:42 AM
I didn't vote straight ticket Democrat for the first time in my life only to have Democrats fold on the important issue of the public option for health insurance reform. Stop negotiating with Republicans who only want failure.
Posted by: Quippy | August 18, 2009 11:48 AM
FINALLY...THE $64,000 QUESTION WAS ASKED...
ON "ABC-TV" (BETTER KNOWN AS THE ALL BARRACK CHANNEL) DURING THE "NETWORK SPECIAL ON HEALTH CARE".... OBAMA WAS ASKED:
"MR. PRESIDENT WILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY GIVE UP YOUR CURRENT HEALTH CARE PROGRAM AND JOIN THE NEW 'UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAM' THAT THE REST OF US WILL BE ON ????"..... (BET YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER)...
THERE WAS A STONEY SILENCE AS OBAMA IGNORED THE QUESTION AND CHOSE NOT TO ANSWER IT !!!....
IN ADDITION, A NUMBER OF SENATORS WERE ASKED T HE SAME QUESTION AND THERE RESPONSE WAS..."WE WILL THINK ABOUT IT."
AND THEY DID. IT WAS ANNOUNCED TODAY ON THE NEWS THAT THE "KENNEDY HEALTH CARE BILL" WAS WRITTEN INTO THE NEW HEALTH CARE REFORM INITIATIVE ENSURING THAT CONGRESS WILL BE 100% EXEMPT !
SO, THIS GREAT NEW HEALTH CARE PLAN THAT IS GOOD FOR YOU AND I... IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR OBAMA, HIS FAMILY OR CONGRESS...?? WE (THE AMERICAN PUBLIC) NEED TO STOP THIS PROPOSED DEBACLE ASAP !!!!... THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG !!!!!
Posted by: Kevin | August 18, 2009 11:53 AM
Preventative healthcare is the only reasonable option. Take charge of your health through online tools such as Holosfitness.com. The tools offer the right resources to get in shape, stay in shape, and lead a healthy lifestyle.
Posted by: Greg | August 18, 2009 12:03 PM
How many seniors out there are working solely to have company sponsored insurance? If they were given the public option and could retire wouldn't that open up numerous jobs that could be filled by the unemployed??
Also, I don't hear any of you complaining that the cost of us waging an unnecessary war in Iraq is approaching $1 trillion. We could have already paid for health care if we hadn't gone over there in the first place.
Just sayin'
Posted by: Mark D | August 18, 2009 12:14 PM
Will one of you liberals please tell us why, if it is so necessary to hurry this "reform" through because Barack is tired of hearing from those without health insurance, the bill does not take effect until 2013?!?!?!
Posted by: Matt P | August 18, 2009 1:19 PM
I could not agree more with Titus Pula’s comment regarding government interference into healthcare in the Probate Court of Cook County. My family had a guardian ad litem assigned to our 97 year old disabled relative by a judge in the Probate Court of Cook County. This G.A.L. made the statement, “xxx could cut off xxxx’s arms and legs if she wanted too”. We have obtained a psychiatric profile of this G.A.L., but the judge does not want to hear about it. Must be something going on under the table. Titus, keep up your good work! Lucius V.
Posted by: Lucius Verenus | August 18, 2009 1:24 PM
I am a strong supporter of a government run health care public option. I have been unemployed for some time and I intend to apply for a position on the government “Death Panel” I feel that I have what the government is looking for in a hard working panelist. First, as an atheist I know mankind evolved out pure chance with no spiritual soul therefore I can treat all folks as state assets not gifts from a Supreme Being. Abortions and euthanasia are reasonable methods for thinning the herd. I don’t think seniors should be provided expensive treatments. My motto is “Aspirin for the agers” seems a good way to go. To the portly I say if your BMI is over 30 your healthcare access is over too. Lastly, I am always flexible enough to revise my opinion if I receive a letter or phone call from an appropriate government official like Dick Durbin or Jessie Jackson Jr. Remember, we have an opportunity to have government do for healthcare what it has done for housing, banking and illegal immigration.
Posted by: Mike C | August 18, 2009 1:27 PM
To Mark D: You have a very simplistic way of looking at health care. Read up.
Secondly, how much is Obama's war in Afghanistan going to cost? Where are the war protesters? The silence is deafening, isn't it. BTW, Obama intends to keep us in Iraq for many years. Wake up.
Posted by: JAC | August 18, 2009 1:28 PM
We need options to what we have now. We are getting so screw by the Health Insurance companies, huge premiums, but not paying lots of the medical bills. They run as to what kind of medical care we can get. You talk about the government running out treatment, what about the current insurances companies. They deny some procedures, or treatments, and will not pay for some lab work. We are currently at their mercy, we need choices, so we can say "hell no, no more" to those Health Insurance companies that now run us. Choice is key, whether it is government run or something else. There has to be competition for the current insurance companies.
Posted by: Dave | August 18, 2009 1:29 PM
Many reformers recognized roughly 30 percent of all health-care spending in the U.S. -some $700 billion a year- might be wasted on unnecessary tests and treatments, and payment reform could solve this problem. Is this claim overstatement ? Please not to fear quitting drug !
Provided the American people pay around double the amount of efficient systems, the result is still well below them, the ratio of waste might be estimated to far more than 50% in the U.S.
Let's be conservative regarding the ratio. If 10% of savings apply to the combined Medicare and Medicaid cost of $923.5bn per year, as of July, the savings of $923.5bn over the next decade are possible.
And when these savings add to the already allocated $583 billion, the savings of wastes involving so called "doughnut hole" , the unnecessary subsidies for insurers, abuse, exorbitant costs by the tragic ER visits etc, the concern over revenue might be a thing of the past.
As a matter of fact, with the promising redesign in the pipeline, some patient-focused clinics in 10 regions have already achieved 16% of savings in Medicare while their quality scores are well above average.
Please be 'sure' to visit http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/opinion/13gawande.html?hp for credible evidences !
Thankfully, the provisions in the reform include more expansive, systematic policies including 'a patient's outcome-based payment system' than they have. I for one firmly believe this American innovation, 'a patient's outcome-based payment system' , is capable of turning profit-oriented practices into patient-focused system / value.
Dr. Armadio at Mayo clinic says, "If we got rid of that stuff (waste), we save a third of all that we spend and that is 2.5 trillion dollars on health care. A third of that and that is 700 billion dollars a year. That covers a lot of uninsured people."
Please visit http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=820455&catid=391 for detailed infos
Thank You !
Posted by: hsr0601 | August 18, 2009 1:36 PM
If Obama's public option doesn't include death panels, then why did he back-pedal from it faster than you can say, "goodbye granny!?"
Posted by: Dave | August 18, 2009 11:19 AM
First off Dave....the part of the bill that the right is claiming a "death panel", was put in the bill by a pro-life Republican -- U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia. What? THAT"S RIGHT A REPUBLICAN PUT THIS IN THE BILL. HELLO>>HELLO>>
But you know how the game is played...start a lie (Obama is a Muslum ie:) and it becomes truth to the parrots who can't raise a finger to find the truth themselves when it is easier to believe the red meat thrown to them by the disingenuos.
Posted by: bill r. | August 18, 2009 1:41 PM
Kevin,
You don't get it and probably never will but here goes....The public option sets minimum standards and is meant to a) encourage Private insurers to lower costs and b) offer coverage to those who have been denied care because of pre-existing coverages. It is not a Cadillac style plan. It is a minimum standard. Will there be better plans you can find? Yes. Will they cost more? Absolutely!! Will you find some level of coverage with the public option? As long as it's not for abortion, prohibited by the bill, or elective cosmetic surgery, you will.
Posted by: sensible | August 18, 2009 1:56 PM
we have an opportunity to have government do for healthcare what it has done for housing, banking and illegal immigration.
Posted by: Mike C | August 18, 2009 1:27 PM
I see that not only the ridiculuos claim to "death panels" you are also misled on the banking crisis. Yeper...those evil minorities forced those banks to give them that money. Problem is? CRA doesn't say that and it never happened. Greed is was led the banks to the current problem. The same greed that the insurance companies are fearing fixing the health care problem and have started the ridiculous claims like death panels for the uninformed to parrot.
Ps....Bet you didn't know (or care) that the section you claim is "death panel" was put in by the good republican from GA.
Posted by: bill r. | August 18, 2009 1:59 PM
Obamacare does not bring more “choice” to anything. Government involvement inevitably reduces choices, as bureaucrats design the limited menu of options they think should be available, and foreclose attempts to act outside their system.
The “public option” in the Obama plan uses titanic amounts of government money - extracted from taxpayers on a progressive scale, which forces the people least likely to be interested in the public option to pay most of its cost - to create a heavily subsidized federal insurance “company.” The government will offer plans that would be impossible for legitimate private insurance companies to compete with, since they don’t have bottomless pits of taxpayer cash to cover their losses.
Obama’s proposed legislation includes clauses specifically designed to force private insurance companies out of business, and funnel more of the population into the public plan. Anyone who tries to offer “choices” outside of Obama’s blueprint will be prosecuted with the full intensity of the law. You’ll have “choice,” all right - one choice, and you’re making it right now, if you don’t do everything in your power to oppose Obama’s agenda.
Government cannot make anything “more affordable.” This idea comes from the delusion that prices are arbitrarily assigned by greedy fat-cat executives, who ignore the laws of economics to charge the highest price they think they can squeeze from their victims. It doesn’t work that way, and it also doesn’t work when government tries to ignore the laws of economics, to set prices according to a political agenda. The history of price controls and government subsidies is an unbroken tale of misery and failure. Applying price controls to a complex product, such as medicine, is like trying to clutch a fist full of water. The only predictable result will be the dumb amazement of the politicians, when they find themselves trapped in the Jurassic Park of inevitable statist failure, with the laws of supply and demand coming at them like hungry velociraptors.
We might have avoided this whole costly debate if the President understood the meaning of the word “insurance.” He clearly does not.
“Insurance” is sold according to actuarial tables. The insurance company sells inexpensive policies to a large number of customers, most of whom will never file a major claim. The customers voluntarily participate in this transaction, paying a small premium to gain protection against the possibility of catastrophic future expenses. The company makes money, because the amount paid out in claims is less than the income from premiums. A customer who anticipates no catastrophic expenses might choose to buy minimal coverage, or decline to purchase insurance at all. Using the force of law to compel universal coverage for the same price, regardless of existing conditions and risk factors, is not “insurance,” and the captive providers are not “insurance companies.” Orwellian distortions of terms like “insurance” and “premiums” cloud the health-care debate, and make meaningful discussion difficult.
This seems to be a feature of Obama’s agenda, rather than a bug, based on the panicked, authoritarian way he pushes it. For example, later in his editorial, he says “Despite what we’ve seen on television, I believe that serious debate is taking place at kitchen tables all across America..” What have we been seeing on television that suggests serious debate has not been taking place at kitchen tables? This is just another backhanded slap at the grass-roots inferno of resistance that has erupted against the Obama agenda, implying those angry town-hall protesters are actors in some sort of scripted television production, designed to intimidate your family into nursing its corn flakes and pre-existing illnesses around the kitchen table in bitter silence.
The President writes in praise of “vigorous debate,” which is the same phrase he used to describe the Iranian government dispatching thugs to murder demonstrators. The rest of his editorial is a stern warning to keep that debate from getting too vigorous, coupled with an alphabet soup of professional associations and lobbies that feel the debate is already over. Obama could have expressed his love of vigorous debate by allowing ample time for it to occur, instead of trying to ram his bill through Congress in July.
Americans should vigorously resist the Left’s attempt to equate resistance to government spending with “doing nothing.” They should never be allowed to get away with pulling that card out of their boots. Wow, the only choices are total government control of the medical industry, or “doing nothing?” Is that the kind of “choice” he boasts about giving Americans with his health-care plan - the false choice between blind obedience and paralyzed decay? I love the way he tosses in the line about the deficit continuing to grow. Another couple trillion dollars in spending, on a half-written socialized medicine bill, should be just the thing to rein in those rascally deficits!
Allowing the Left to control the language of public debate gives their harebrained schemes a dangerous head start. Examples about beyond Obama’s editorial in the New York Times. Government does not “invest” in anything - investment is a conscious decision to risk your own money, in pursuit of reward. Government is not a “partner” in anything - partnership involves equals working together for a common goal.
No one willingly chooses a gigantic, emotionally unstable “partner” who puts chains on your wrists, and a gun in your back. Government cannot “guarantee” anything, because the political winds of the future can blow today’s promises down the memory hole. The benefits a group secures through government pressure will only last until a larger, louder, hungrier group comes along.
My advice to conservatives, and the politicians who would represent them, is to deconstruct the language of the Left at every opportunity. Take back the language… then take back Congress, the White House, and the country.
Posted by: Chris | August 18, 2009 2:10 PM
Those of you worrying about costs should consider how we are being over-charged and under cared for under our current system.
We currently spend 16 percent of our GDP on health care, but it's just 9-10 percent in the other top democracies (Japan, UK, France, Germany) with their government/universal health care. We spend far more, yet live shorter, less healthy lives with millions of uninsured, medical bankruptcies, job decisions based soley on health care, and even rationing - many uninsured don't get treatments they can't afford.
So much for our system and our wondrous insurance companies and arrogant AMA.
Posted by: KAG | August 18, 2009 2:17 PM
Hey, Titus Pula and Lucius Verenus, you guys want to see corruption - Read Doug Preston’s book “The Monster of Florence”. We had 14 people murdered by a serial killer and the police won’t arrest the murderer because it would “offend” the chief prosecutor who flubbed the case. Now that is corruption! Your Probate Court of Cook County petty crooks are child’s play compared to real crooks we have in Florence. Your philosopher, CATO
Posted by: Cato from Rome | August 18, 2009 2:21 PM
Can anyone give even one example of a major government run program that is efficient, well- run, and meeting its objectives?? Anyone?
Social Security- not
Welfare- nope
Military Procurement- not there
Medicare or Medicaid- hardly
Post office- bankrupt
Amtrack- failure
Education- a joke
The fact is that the US government cannot run anything well and yet there are people screaming for it to take over 17% of the economy. What gives you any confidence that it can run our health care system? Would you hire someone to work for you with the track record of the US Government?
Posted by: Jim | August 18, 2009 2:25 PM
JAC, you and your kind keep forgetting that Afghanistan was a sanctuary for terrorists, not Iraq. So when we invaded Iraq, leaving Afghanistan in the hands of an ex-employee of Haliburton, we played right into the hands of the terrorists.
BDD, its not Barry it's pres. Obama. Your lack of courtesy shows your lack of up bringing.
DERRICK by all means just blindly oppose everything that pres. Obama proposes because that's exactly what your masters want you to do. It doesn't matter to them the state of this country (why else did they support bush) all that matters is that they get their boys back "in" so they can contiue their looting.
MR TUBBS the time was yesterday for this HC plan. Millions of people are sick because they cannot afford HC much less access to preventative HC.
Posted by: Fed Up with Righties | August 18, 2009 2:27 PM
Look Cato, the subject is healthcare not the crooks in Cook County Courts! Pula and Verenus have valid gripes how care is administered by governments. Here in Rome A.D. 30 the average age is 35 years for a Roman citizen and we don’t have medicare. Our Roman Veterans Hospitals are the very model of governmental control of a health system. Caesar, himself supervises the selection of medicinal leaches which are the hallmark of our modern medicine. Does he not provide our citizenry with fresh water from the mountains into our system of lead pipes? President Obama can learn much from us rustics. Your orator, Cicero
Posted by: Cicero from Rome | August 18, 2009 2:43 PM
Sensible, how about you lower your over-inflated self esteem a little bit. Perhaps Oblah-blah-blah's plan will provide psychiatric care you can take advantage of as you obviously need to get over yourself!
Posted by: Kevin | August 18, 2009 2:51 PM
If the government is going to offer health care, why should employers? Why would ANY employer continue to pay premiums for his or her employees when those same employees can get health care from Obama?
KISS YOUR EMPLOYER-PROVIDED HEALTH CARE BENEFITS GOOD-BYE IF OBAMA'S PLAN IS IMPLEMENTED!
Posted by: McV | August 18, 2009 2:54 PM
Obama’s health-care promises are being exposed by the details of the actual legislation, and we WILL see costs rise. Support the goal of covering all individuals through private health insurance! http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/issues/index.cfm?ID=300
Posted by: mld | August 18, 2009 3:04 PM
Can't wait til the 2010 mid-term elections -- all these nut-jobs politicians ramming this healthcare abomination upon us -- instead of for us -- will be voted voted of office, thank God. Conservatives are not alone in resenting the pompus & arrogant manner that the far left in the Democratic party are forcing through legislation without at least the time to read and reflect on the 1017 pages of this convoluted socialized medicine plan (see: http://nationalhealthcarelegislationhr3200.blogspot.com/ )
Posted by: Shamus | August 18, 2009 3:26 PM
If the government is going to offer health care, why should employers?
Posted by: McV | August 18, 2009 2:54 PM
One main reason is that most companies will not be allowed to. There are safeguards written in the bill. Small business owners are allowed, but what is wrong with a hand up to small business owners?
Posted by: bill r. | August 18, 2009 3:45 PM
Fellow Romans, I Miles Letigius, an attorney and guardian ad litem for the dead, the dying and the disabled must vociferously object to the defamation of the Cook County Probate Court. We in the legal profession must be given our share of the spoils of the mortality court system. The Catonian premise which requires honesty and integrity for our profession is an antiquated relic which must be discarded. Let us, the knowledgeable determine who will receive health care. Pula, Verenus, Cato and Cicero must be silenced or relegated to cable channels. Yours in theft, Miles Letigious of Rome
Posted by: Miles Letigius attorney from Rome | August 18, 2009 3:54 PM
Public option is must.......
Posted by: middlesex | August 18, 2009 11:52 PM
Why can't just those why pay taxes get health benefits...how b'out that Obama and the rest of the health care reform starters??? NO seriously, this I could be in favor of, but not just letting any old person that comes to America, even the illegal’s to get healthcare and our taxes go up the roof???? No, sure, I will cont. to fight this...
Posted by: henryyoung | August 19, 2009 1:56 PM
standwithdrdean.com
Posted by: Melissa | September 23, 2009 11:13 AM