by Mark Silva
President Barack Obama, who will deliver an East Room address on healthcare this afternoon, maintains that his final push for legislation offering insurance to the uninsured and better coverage for the insured contains "the best ideas'' from both parties.
However, it will likely take the power of the president's own party to pass the plan that the president is outlining today, in his White House appearance at 1:45 pm EST.
Obama will rebut the Republican Party's contention that he is engineering a "government takeover'' of healthcare. And he will maintain that there is more at stake in the final vote on healthcare than the issue itself -- that the ability of Congress to solve any major problem is on the line in the healthcare vote.
"I don't believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America,'' Obama plans to say. "I believe it's time to give the American people more control over their own health insurance.
"I don't believe we can afford to leave life-and-death decisions about health care to the discretion of insurance company executives alone,'' he will say, with an audience of medical professionals attending his East Room speech. "I believe that doctors and nurses like the ones in this room should be free to decide what's best for their patients.
"The proposal I've put forward gives Americans more control over their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable,'' the president will maintain, according to excerpts of the speech released just now by the White House. "It builds on the current system where most Americans get their health insurance from their employer.
" If you like your plan, you can keep your plan,'' he will say. "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Because I can tell you that as the father of two young girls, I wouldn't want any plan that interferes with the relationship between a family and their doctor."
The White House says that is has incorporated several issues identified by Republicans at last week's bipartisan summit on healthcare in its proposal:
• "Combating waste, fraud, and abuse by engaging medical professionals to conduct random undercover investigations of health care providers who receive taxpayer money.
• "More funding for demonstration projects of alternatives for resolving medical malpractice disputes, including health courts.
• "Increasing Medicaid reimbursements for doctors.
• "Ensuring Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are in the Exchange.''
The president will say that, after nearly a year of debate, "this is where we've ended up. It's an approach that has been debated and changed and I believe improved over the last year. It incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans - including some of the ideas that Republicans offered during the health care summit, like funding state grants on medical malpractice reform and curbing waste, fraud, and abuse in the health care system. My proposal also gets rid of many of the provisions that had no place in health care reform - provisions that were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans.
"At stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem,'' Obama will say. "The American people want to know if it's still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future.
"They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don't know how this plays politically, but I know it's right. And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law."
Comments
Election 2010: Making it all about Obama and his upside-down approval numbers
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Election-2010-Making-it-about-Obama-85954522.html
Posted by: Jim Flannigan | March 3, 2010 12:38 PM
I believe that only government can decide what doctors should be paid. I believe that only government can decide whether insurance company rates are just. I believe that people should pay 10 yrs worth of taxes for 5 years of health care. I believe that after 40 yrs of fraud in government run healthcare my hand picked tax cheats will find enough to pay for health care. I believe that government should pay to kill off poor black babies. I believe that 50% of Americans should pay for the healthcare of the other 50%. I believe that union workers should be exempt from taxes levied on people doing the same work that aren't in a union. I believe that burdening the country with another trillion dollars of deficit spending will be good for all Americans. I believe that anyone lucky enough to enter this country illegally should get all the benefits of citizens without having to prove citizenship.
I believe that dems should vote for this bill even though they will be thrown out of office in the fall because I will still have 2 more years to run this country into the ground. I believe that all Americans should sacrifice for the good of the country, 50% pay more taxes and the other 50% be forced to accept subsidies.
I believe that if someone buys a house they can't afford, the banks should be forbidden from foreclosing. I believe that all people too stupid, too lazy or ignorant should benefit from those that have sacrificed to improve the lives of their own children.
I believe that I and my small band of tax evading thugs know better how to run your life that you do. Thank you Kool aid driinkers everywhere for being too lazy to think for yourselves....government is here to wipe your nose.
Posted by: Hans | March 3, 2010 1:00 PM
No, we're waiting for November.
Posted by: Free to Watch Liberals Meltdown | March 3, 2010 1:08 PM
Obama's and the Democrats' mantra: "The public be darned, full speed in reverse!" All -- ALL -- polls and the recent elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts show that
the public DOES NOT want this Obama-Pelosi-Reid monstrosity. Yet, they plan to bull their way through. The U.S. a representative republic? Apparently not any more.
Posted by: Montrose | March 3, 2010 1:13 PM
RAHMING SPEED DEAD AHEAD!!!!!
Rasmussen: Growing Majority Reject Obama's Policies
The latest Rasmussen poll found that only 44 percent of Americans favor the healthcare reform plan, and those who strongly oppose it outnumber those who strongly favor it by a margin of nearly 2 to 1.
“The numbers have been so steady for month after month,” Rasmussen said in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV.
“We find that somewhere from the high 30s to the low 40s support the plan. The majority consistently oppose it.
“Democrats love it, Republicans and independents don’t. The healthcare summit [on Feb. 25] did nothing to change those basic fundamentals of public opinion.
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/rasmussen-polls-healthcare-obama/2010/03/01/id/351302
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | March 3, 2010 1:19 PM
More than half the country is waiting for these bozo's to go away. Some in November - the rest in 2012. These citizens don't want these incompetent, corrupt scumbags to act, for everything they do just raises the debt and taxes.
Good thing is that in the future it'll only take 51 votes to repeal all the disasters obama is creating.
Posted by: worsethanbefore | March 3, 2010 2:03 PM
Obama is now showing himself to be one of the biggest hypocrites and liars in DC. Here he is in his own words;
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-american-agenda-flashback-dems-should-not-pass-healthcare-with-a-50-plus-1-strategy
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | March 3, 2010 2:09 PM
What happened to job creation now being the #1 concern? It appears to be healthcare, healthcare, & more healthcare. Why not just go after the insurance companies first & see what that does? These giant spending packages are going to bankrupt the whole country! At least the TARP money is going to be paid back. Where is the payback here? It's all debt.
Posted by: wingnut master | March 3, 2010 2:24 PM
Hey, wasn't healthcare reform dead when Brown won in Mass? We were celebrating and patting ourselves on the back for how well our strategy of distortions, lies and fear-mongering worked. Wait, it's not dead? Wait - he can't do that. He can't still get it passed. That's not fair. That's cheating. We won fair and square. Ok, maybe not fair and square, but we got the majority of Americans to think it's a bad idea. This is ridiculous - how can he stand up there with a straight face and pretend he's going to win? Quick, we need to make up some more bad stuff about healthcare reform. We can't let this pass - it's just not fair.
Posted by: Frustrated Repub | March 3, 2010 2:51 PM
The current ReidPelosiObamaCare bill creates no less than 159 new programs, boards and bureaucracies.
Including the "FDA Office of Minority Health" (sec. 10334), the "Indian youth life skills demonstration project", and the "Office of Direct Service Tribes" (??).
In other words, the 2500 page bill is just more spending, more red tape, more bureaucracy.
Posted by: Equal time | March 3, 2010 3:59 PM