by Noam N. Levey
Touting a new initiative to reduce waste in Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs, President Barack Obama traveled to suburban St. Louis Wednesday to keep up momentum behind his push to complete work on a health overhaul this month.
Obama redoubled his warning that failing to step up regulation of the insurance industry as part of a broader health overhaul would leave more Americans struggling with rising premiums.
And in a campaign-style speech delivered with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, Obama called for an end to political gamesmanship in Washington and a swift vote on his healthcare plan. "The time for talk is over," Obama told a crowd in St. Charles, Mo. "I'm tired of talking about it."
The president's trip - the second this week outside Washington - came as administration officials and senior Democrats on Capitol Hill work on scheduling a series of votes that will be needed to send Obama healthcare legislation before Congress recesses for its Easter break.
With Republicans opposed to a sweeping overhaul, Democrats are trying to hold the first vote next week in the House, where party leaders hope to pass the healthcare bill that the Senate passed in December.
They then hope to use a process known as budget reconciliation to push a package of changes through the House and Senate.
Budget reconciliation measures require a simple majority in the Senate, rather than the 60-vote supermajority usually necessary to squash a filibuster, something that Democrats could not do now with a 59-41 edge.
But the biggest hurdle confronting Democrats is in the House, where many rank and file lawmakers are leery of voting for the Senate bill, which includes unpopular provisions such as a new tax on high-end "Cadillac" health plans and a special provision providing federal aid to Nebraska.
Further complicating the hunt for votes, congressional rules will likely force the president to sign the Senate bill into law before House and Senate lawmakers can vote on the package of changes, another unsavory prospect for nervous House Democrats worried about being on record as backing the Senate legislation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other senior Democrats were working Wednesday to finalize both the package and the procedure going forward.
Assisted by Obama, they will then begin a final push to convince wavering Democrats to rally behind the finished legislative package.
Elsewhere Wednesday, the Obama administration kept up its criticism of the insurance industry, which Democrats have used as a foil in their final drive to push through a health overhaul.
Speaking to a group of insurance executives gathered in Washington for an industry conference, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned that insurer opposition to the Democratic health overhaul is shortsighted.
"There's another choice," she said. "Instead of spending energy attacking the parts of the proposal that you don't like, come to the table with (proposals) strengthening the parts that are there. ... The second choice really may give up some short-term profits, but we also, working together, could create a sustainable health insurance market where Americans will still be able to buy coverage."
After the speech, Karen Ignagni, president of the industry lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans, promised that insurers would provide the administration with specific suggestions to improve the legislation.
Obama's new fraud initiative builds on a proposal he made ahead of his White House summit last month to woo Republicans, who have long complained about waste in government health programs.
Last year, the Medicare and Medicaid programs for seniors and low-income Americans made $54 billion in unwarranted payments to healthcare providers, according to White House.
To combat the problem, Obama has proposed expanding a program to reward private bounty hunters who find waste by auditing government payments through what are called "payment recapture audits."
The White House reported that a pilot program in California, New York and Texas yielded $900 million in Medicare savings between 2005 and 2009.





Comments
"The time for talk is over"--so shut-up and work on the most important issue facing the country, the economy.
Posted by: Georgio | March 11, 2010 7:32 AM
"I'm tired of talking about it."
And we're tired of hearing you talk about it. We don't want it, you know it, so just stop. It's really easy.
Posted by: Kathy | March 11, 2010 7:41 AM
Of course, President Obama is tired of talking about healthcare reform. He is taking on the Multi-headed Hydra of Corporate America, The Healthcare Corps !! They spare no expense, 10-20 Billion Dollar Kitty, in blunting the will of the people, yet they will deny American citizens coverage, or meaningless coverage, rationing America's healthcare !! Of course, President Obama is tired of having to disprove, all of the lies, distortions and dishonesty these, pillars of the community have covered America with, hoping with the " smear and fear " the American voter will accept the status quo, as we have been forced to do by these Republican-Libertarian-T.Baggers, for the last 100 years. America needs healthcare reform, it wants healthcare reform and it will get healthcare reform, in spite of the Republican-Libertarian-T.Baggers' lies, lies and more lies !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | March 11, 2010 7:44 AM
Medicare fraud will save $54 billion at least that's a start. But why are you Mr. Pres. afraid to include real hard hitting tort reform. Is being estimated that with tort reform savings would be over $200 billion a year because of the practice of defensive medicine. And is your healthcare reform going to cover a estimated 10.8 million illegal aliens in California alone? All I hear from the president and the loony liberals in Congress is talk and we have heard it before. And please none of the DNC's debunk talking points about how the Conservatives have not put any bills up. They are all a matter of public record on the Open Congress website.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | March 11, 2010 7:56 AM
You're tired of talking? From someone who obviously likes to hear himself talk? Please...go ahead and stop talking as we are tired of hearing you talk and not listening to us talk. We don't want this bill as it is written. What needs to be solved in our health care can be done in a lot less than 2700 pages and who knows what else in the 'second bill'.. It's not just the insurance companies. What about the hospitals that have gone on an absolute gluttony of building and spending that only gets passed onto us. A local hospital spent over a million dollar for an open space so their doctors have somewhere to relax. Give me a break. What about the doctors who pass on what they don't make from medicare/medicaid onto us. Blaming the insurance companies for the high cost of premiums is nuts when all they do is try to pay the outlandish bills they get from others. Stop this crazy finger pointing and start listening. You may just learn a thing or two Mr. President!
Posted by: S | March 11, 2010 8:06 AM
Hey, Georgio, where do you think you find healthcare, besides in the Insures' back-pocket !!? Why, you find it in our economic system. So, If we are to straighten out the mess that the Bush&Cheney left in their wake, than we must reform healthcare, exactly what President Obama has been trying to do, single-handedly !! Why single-handedly, because the Republican-Libertarian-T.Baggers are too chicken to stand up to the Healthcare Hydra and demand that they quit blunting the will of the people, by spending Billions of Dollars, in premium money, to lie to the America public, in hopes of maintaining the status quo !! Yes, Georgio, the Healthcare Corps is the 900 pounder T.Bagger, in the room that continues to mess in the room. It has to be dealt with and potty-trained, otherwise, it will continue to mess-up our economy !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | March 11, 2010 9:00 AM
This is, by one accounting, Obama's 44th speech on ReidPelosiObamaCare.
Since he's the one doing most of the talking, if he's tired of talking, he could just stop.
Posted by: Equal time | March 11, 2010 9:14 AM
Obama is right. We need healthcare reform, we want healthcare reform and the time to act is now. It's time for Congress to do the right thing and pass this bill. They need to put aside their differences and do what's best for the country. It's not a perfect bill. It needs to be tweaked with future legislation, but it's far better than doing nothing and staying with the status quo, which is literally killing us.
From a personal standpoint, as a small business owner, I really need reform now. Insurance premiums and deductibles are killing me. The only way we can afford family health insurance is with a policy that has a $5,000 per person deductible per year and they want to raise that to $7,500 per person for the same premium. That means that we pay out-of-pocket for everything and it really adds up when you have a family. The insurance company I use is making billions in yearly profits and they want to raise my premiums and they have yet to pay a penny out for a benefit for anyone in my family..Premiums to cover my employees are ridiculous. We carry the most basic plan they have and every year I cover a larger percentage of the cost because my people would otherwise see their wages go down. This is the stuff that keeps me up at night worrying about whether it's worth it.
It's easy for someone with a job at a big company who gets free or close to free insurance coverage to take shots at this bill and say we don't need it. Trust me, I need it and my employees need it and we need it now. You want the economy to improve? Pass this bill.
Posted by: Mike_from_Chicago | March 11, 2010 9:30 AM
Yep Don, Obama is going to stick it to those big, bad insurance companies by............handing them Billions of dollars(some are saying 400 billion or more). This healthcare scheme does nothing but enrich the insurance companies. This is from the Sun-Times today:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/2096203,CST-EDT-sullum11.article
Insurers gain most from Obama plan
March 11, 2010
'We allow the insurance industry to run wild in this country," President Obama declared Monday. "We can't have a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people."
Yet Obama's plan to tame health insurers would boost their business, protect them from competition and guarantee their profits, all at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. It's not surprising that the insurance companies, while they object to the president's rhetoric and quibble over some of the details, are happy to be domesticated. Here are five ways in which Obama would help insurers while pretending to fight them:
• The individual mandate. What industry wouldn't welcome a law requiring everyone in the country to purchase its product? The insurers' only objection to this edict -- which would force young, healthy people who don't want insurance to subsidize the care of older, sicker people who do -- is that the penalties for failing to comply are not severe enough.
• The employer mandate. Requiring businesses to buy medical coverage for their employees brings the insurers more conscripted customers. It also shores up a perverse system of employer-provided health insurance that insulates consumers from prices, limits their choices and weakens competition.
• Subsidies. Allocating taxpayer money to help individuals and small business buy medical coverage makes customers less price-sensitive, allowing insurers to charge more.
• Regulations. Obama wants to dictate details of what he considers to be minimally acceptable medical coverage, including deductibles and benefits. This policy, which forces people to buy pricier policies than they would choose on their own, is like saying all Americans should buy a Nissan Altima with GPS, a sunroof and leather seats, even if they prefer a Hyundai Accent.
• Limits on competition. Obama pays lip service to the idea of letting health insurers, like other insurers, compete for customers across state lines. But his minimum coverage requirements would undermine a major benefit of such competition: the ability to escape a particular state's restrictions on the policies insurers can offer.
If Obama's plan works as advertised, it will be a huge boon to insurers. As he notes, "They're going to have 30 million new customers," thanks to the government's mandates and subsidies.
To distract us from the favor he is doing for insurers, he claims to get tough by demanding that they take all comers and charge them all the same rates, without regard to health. While abolishing risk-based pricing contradicts a basic principle of the insurance business, the industry has to weigh the loss of that freedom against the gain of government-guaranteed revenue.
Despite Obama's talk about reining in excessive premium increases, his plan commits him to keeping insurers financially sound so they can provide the coverage he is promising. Federal regulators, like their state counterparts, will find that "you can't separate the underlying solvency of companies from the rates they charge," as Wisconsin's insurance commissioner recently told the New York Times.
"From a consumer protection standpoint," Kansas' insurance commissioner agreed, "the most important thing we do is ensure the solvency of companies."
In essence, Obama's plan would use money forcibly extracted from taxpayers and policyholders to keep insurers healthy. He says this arrangement means "insurance companies would finally be held accountable to the American people."
The collectivist language is telling. I don't want insurance companies to be "accountable to the American people" -- I want them to be accountable to me, as a consumer. That situation, also the best way to bring costs under control, can be accomplished only by promoting choice, increasing competition, and removing the barriers that prevent consumers from receiving and responding to price signals.
Insurers may prefer the security of Obama's domestication to the uncertainty of scrounging for customers in a free market. But why should we bear the cost of their care and feeding?
Posted by: Dave | March 11, 2010 9:42 AM
57% Predict Health Care Plan Will Hurt The Economy
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/march_2010/57_predict_health_care_plan_will_hurt_the_economy
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | March 11, 2010 9:44 AM
Obama: I'm tired of talking about healthcare reform so I'm going go to every town I can to talk about how tired of talking about this thing.
Hey Champ, all you ever do is talk. Why not try governing or leading, or accomplishing something other than the destruction of this country?
Solid B+, YOU TOOL!
Posted by: Chris | March 11, 2010 9:48 AM
The teleprompter kid "Tired of talking" That's REALLY RICH. He and his band of incompetents have done nothing other than waste another few trillion dollars in pork projects. Barry' idea of action is to "Vote" present.
Posted by: senator dirksen | March 11, 2010 9:49 AM
From today's Marketwatch, more grim news about Obamanomics:
"The four-week average of initial [jobless] claims -- a better gauge of employment trends than the volatile weekly number - rose by 5,000 to 475,500. That's the highest rate since late November.
Similarly, the number of people continuing to receive regular unemployment checks climbed 37,000 in the week of Feb. 27 to a seasonally adjusted 4.56 million.
Despite the latest weekly decline, jobless claims are 7% higher compared to the end of 2009."
Change you can believe in!
Posted by: Equal time | March 11, 2010 10:21 AM
Hey Obama -- If you're tired of talking, then shut up. He's given nearly 40 long speeches on his horrendous healthcare takeover scam. Hey, Champ, no one is listening. More Americans hate this bill today than a year ago. The only thing Americans hate more is reconciliation, which is why Obama doesn't have the guts to even utter the word "reconciliation." Obama is bad, bad news for America.
Posted by: Jackson | March 11, 2010 10:37 AM
What a fraud. Obama's Endless “Time for Talk is Over” Tour hits Cleveland on Monday. Americans are soooooo tired of this buffoon.
Posted by: Kyle Roget | March 11, 2010 11:27 AM
With the horrendous ObamaCare struggling to survive, Obama has two messages for the American people. First, the time for talk is over. Second … he’s coming to every town he can to talk about how the time for talk is over. Get lost Obama.
Posted by: Larreau TT | March 11, 2010 11:32 AM
Little Donny Fitzgerald likes to be tea bagged!
DRAG THOSE FUZZIES ACROSS DON'S CHIN! WARM AND WHOLE NOW!
How else can you explain his fetish for tea bagging?
Really Donny, if you had a brain and could comprehend the language of the ObamaCare legislation, you would be choking on every putrid word you write.
Posted by: springfield | March 11, 2010 11:44 AM
OBAMA; "TIRED OF TALKING"
Duhhh, unplug the teleprompter.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | March 11, 2010 11:48 AM
Obama is tired of talking? Levey, that could be a headline for the Onion. What exactly is he doing on this trip? What he really means is he wants everyone else to stop talking and agree with him. Daddy knows best. Liberals are so enlightened. I'm glad we have them around to explain things to the rest of us rubes.
Posted by: Herbie H. | March 11, 2010 11:57 AM
Isn’t it odd that a man who likes doing nothing but talking nonstop wants everyone else to shut up? Wake up, folks. Obama is not our friend.
Posted by: David R | March 11, 2010 12:23 PM
Hey Don, lets keep blaming Bush for the next three years--that's all the time Obama has left.
Posted by: Georgio | March 11, 2010 3:09 PM
"I'm tired of talking about it."
And, Nancy is tired of reading the bill, so you have to pass it so she can find out what's in it.
And then there's Harry...How lucky we are; most decks only have two jokers.
They should keep talking and talking. Every time they open their mouths we learn what complete idiots these people are.
Posted by: Free to Watch Liberal Meltdown | March 11, 2010 4:00 PM