President Obama gave his health care speech to Congress tonight. Did you see it? If not, read it here. What do you think? Agree or disagree with his assessment of the problems? Agree or disagree with his plan? Which side are you on: free government run health care for all or survival of the wealthiest? Discuss!
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Lasik eye surgery and cosmetic surgery is the CLOSEST thing we have to free market healthcare in this country…guess how much the costs have increased?
Ok, now guess how much the cost of all other health care has increased?
Ok, now guess how much healthcare is going to costs if it’s a “right” and there isn’t any rationing?
Careful, one or all of these question may or may not be trick questions.
All in all, a good speech – to the kool aid drinkers. I admit it had me for a while but it falls apart when you parse his comments later. He smells a bit of desperation. I did feel embarrassed for the Repubs when the good ole boy from SC suddenly thought he was a member of the British Parliament. Of course, that momentary hallucination doesn’t mean he was wrong in his sentiments. Scary that Rahm went looking for him afterward. [Hint to the Republicans: Stop worrying about easy targets like Van Jones. Get some dirt on Rahm. If you can get him out, Obama will fall apart.]
Apparently Joe Wilson has Tourette’s Syndrome.
#34–Animby==”that momentary hallucination doesn’t mean he was wrong in his sentiments.” /// You are right in your equation but nonetheless he was wrong because he was wrong.
Nothing in the proposals would provide health care to illegal aliens. That doesn’t change the current law that they are entitled to emergency room care. ((Healthcare vs ER Care==very different and NOTHING extended to illegals by this legislation!))
What the frack are you “thinking of?”
why do the tv networks give him an hour long free ad? He did not explain one thing. Only promises.
My reactions:
He’s great at making speeches. No denying that.
“The plan I’m announcing tonight…”
He’s finally learning. He’s finally learning that you cannot expect Congress to lead. Congress *can* lead, but you cannot *expect* them to lead; only the President is expected to lead.
RE: Pre-existing conditions, lifetime coverage
Ok. So, our premiums are going to up. You cannot force insurance companies to ignore risk without them increasing premiums to compensate.
RE: Insurance exchange
Sounds promising, but I’ll reserve judgment until I see how its implemented.
> we will provide tax credits
> , the size of which will
> be based on your need
Hmm..here’s starting to go down the slippery slope. Who will determine “need” and on what criteria?
RE: Required coverage
Ok. Again, it means our premiums will go up.
RE: “Non-profit” option
And off the reservation we go. The whole issue with a government option is that it will be able to subsidize cost where private companies cannot. “You don’t *have* to choose the car that is 10K cheaper than the next”. Come on. Seriously.
“In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.”
Is that like the “only 1% of Americans” would be affected by the income tax argument?
“the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects”
You mean like the PO relying only on the revenue it collects? Oh, that’s right, it also gets government subsidies.
“overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers”
A. Even government entities strive to reduce cost and increase revenue and thus maximize profits.
B. Administrative costs and salaries won’t go away with a government plan.
C. Of course it will be a good deal (at first) because the government is going to set the price to make it such.
“First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits”
A: BS
B: If A is false and he’s really serious (which he isn’t), then nothing will get passed.
Notice that in his speech is suggesting that plans to “pay” for the bill can come from “reductions” in “waste”. Translation: as long as you can claim reduction in waste, it’ll get passed.
RE: Ted Kennedy
Good thing he isn’t stooping so low as to use the sympathy vote. Is Ted even cold yet?
As with everything Obama and this Congress says, I’ll wait until I see it on paper.
#37, as much as I dislike Obama, to be fair, they usually give presidential speeches to joint sessions of congress free air time.
That being said, it was his usual “government will solve all the problems of the world”. Really this health care debate should be handled on the state level, you know the like the constitution mandates.
Then again, we stopped following the constitution a long time ago. Its just in recent months, that its become blatantly out in the open.
Now let’s see.
Obama is going to provide free unlimited health care to millions of new people at no extra costs using the money being spent on medicare and medicaid? He’s going to require your insurance company to pay for coverage for people with existing health problems and they are going to do it all for the same money! They can’t refuse anybody. If you can’t afford insurance your taxes,well somebodies taxes, will be used to pay for it at no cost to you! If you can afford it you will pay for it! If you are a full time employee you will have insurance and somebody is going to pay for it. Illegals won’t be covered. He want’s a public option that isn’t a public option.
If Obama won’t sign a bill that isn’t cost neutral then he isn’t going to sign a bill. If they have to cut costs after the fact you will have cost cutting/death panels. Sorry about that but yah gotta die some time. (I do accept that you do have to do this. I don’t like this.)
Huh? No money from medicare? Money from Insurance companies? He’s going to impose a huge bleeping fee, tax, on your insurance! Oh yeah that’s going to cut my medical costs! I’m not going to feel that at all until the bill shows up! Bleep is Obama going to completely tax the insurance companies out of business or just tax me out of insurance?
Dude how can you tax the bleep out of my health care system and I’m not going to be in the septic tank without a boat?
Medicare, Medicade, and SS are either running in the red ink or will be broke soon and he hasn’t done anything to cut costs or stop wastes. Why not? He says he knows how.
The Republicans have offered a lot of ideas starting with Tort reform which would save billions of course most trial layers are Democrats and the head of the Democratic party has said they can’t afford to offend these people no doubt because they donate so much money.
Of course nothing Obama says has anything to do with the bills before Congress. Those are suggesting that costs be limited and that taxes be levied including taxing your coverage. There are panels and they do decide how much money is going to be spent on what and so far as I can see that means health care rationing and “Death Panels.” Otherwise only God can pay for this.
You are free to disagree with me and I support your right to do so but as I add it up what Obama said I am reminded of a line from my elementary school days: Lier, Lier, lier pants on fire!
I wish it were not so. I think there are a lot of things which could have been done to reduce health costs and increase coverage but this isn’t going to get ‘er done.
May God bless you one and all.
I understand the pickle the US is in right now, but just don’t expect government health care so solve all problems. The Swedish system, single-payer, mean people have to wait a long time to get help if it’s not life-threatening.
Also I must object to the liberal use of the phrase “free market”. The US does not have a free market system. A completely free market would mean a market free of governement involvment, in contrast to the system that is in place today, where companies actually use the legal system, politicians and other state employees to get ahead in competition.
#44
It’s always nice to hear a voice of reason. A voice that doesn’t scream and yell the holy gospel of one party or the other.
It would be nice if Obama would take just 1 minute to admit that the healthcare we have now is not provided by our alleged free market. The free market in America has been slowly eroded by government and corporatism over several decades.
It’s no wonder we have so many problems.
“Free Market” is a theoretical construct. It does not now and never has existed. No body wants to get cheated in business and not have the courts to intervene. Get real.
Obama is lying. Any change requiring no denials of coverage based on prior conditions will destroy the insurance model and turn it into a utility. A utility that will not be able to compete against a government provided service.
For all those ranting hysterically about the costs of this program–why do you think everyone else in the world can do it for half the cost the USA does it and we can’t do it??
Will there be rationing and death panels? Of course, every system does right now including ours.
Silly Hoomans.
# 42 krush said, “Surely he … lied about the recovery”
Well, he’s certainly been lying about it so far, don’t see why he wouldn’t continue to lie about it. He’s shown a very strong predilection for assuming we’ll believe something is true simply because he said it was true often enough.
But, I’m no longer worried about the Obama administration. Congress is in such disarray right now I don’t see a chance of anything major being passed before the end of the year. Then, too many of the skunks and weasels that surround him will be busy fighting for their political lives.
After the 2010 elections they will no longer have the discordant majority they now enjoy but can’t seem to use.
Hopefully, the Repubs will find someone far better than McCain and Palin, someone who actually believes in the Constitution and can galvanize the US. Someone who can keep their damned religion out of the campaign. And, finally, someone who knows how to keep promises.
A room full of plutocrats with no concept of how it really is to be middle or lower class applauding each other and smiling that they do not have the same worries as the people they supposedly represent.
Business as usual.
Change will only come by drafting a new constitution and replacing the current government with an entirely new one.
Until that is done, The United States of America will become like Britain and then Spain.
Start over or fade into history.
Cursor_
The future is in the builtinout. When he stated that no one here illegally would benefit from his plan, he was giving us a hint of what is to come – “immigration reform”. And if he grants legal status in some form to all the illegals here now, then they would qualify for free healthcare wouldn’t they?
I just went to bed early. I can’t stand watching that idiot talk. As for for the Republican calling him a liar, well it’s true. Whether you support him or not he has lied about almost everything he promised during his campaign. War, lobbyists, raising taxes and etc etc etc.
As for supporting either the idiot in office now or the last one, I am about 70% against the last one and about 99% against Obomba. The 1% I suport him on is that he hasn’t stopped the war.
He’s a liar and the truth hurts sometime.
#51 Alfred1
You disappoint me. Where the loon-bat laden insane gibbering diatribe that you often deliver in much less relevant threads.
Of course he lied. He’s a politician. If he told the truth his corporate masters would be very angry indeed.
Good article.
And then there were those male, pale and stale Republicans. South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson’s shout in the hall of “liar” showed that the megaphones of misinformation are not isolated to the delusional FOX studios of Glenn Beck or the padded radio chamber of Rush Limbaugh. Obama rightly called the GOP out for their hypocrisy in defending Medicare, a program they have labored hard to cripple.
Apparently Alfred1 also has Tourette’s Syndrome.
The poll is missing “Never watch him read on TV” selection. I would pick that as the dude is a machine.
57,
Attacking the man instead of the idea makes it so easy not to think, sadly.
So Obama said that after this bill is passed, you will be a legal requirement to have Health Insurance. I don’t own a car for this very reason, I can’t afford it!
Now I owe money to some company because I was born? WTF?! Once this bill is passed, unless those Health Care plans are REAL affordable, I guess I’m gonna commit suicide, thanks Obama!
That is one Long Legged Mack-Daddy!
# 24 TJ said, on September 9th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
“OK, so, I suppose you consider Medicare unconstitutional. Public Schools? Highways.
Where does the constitution prohibit social programs, just curious.”
The only thing you mentioned there that meets the Constitutional muster is highways. Something about Congress allowed to build postal roads. (Mail travels on the highways, right?)
The other things you mentioned (Medicare, education are the responsibility or the individual states or individuals as expressed in the Tenth Amendment. Government run health care is against the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.
If it is so important that health care be run by the government, than surely we can get a Constitutional Amendment passed to allow health care to be run by the government.
#60, Benjamin
Why are you so worried about that old piece of paper, and not about providing free health care to everyone?
Feeling so tired of people complaining about having their money stolen and about following their rights, and about the constitution.
I thought it was a good speech. It could have been better.
One thing that I sincerely hope is that mental health issues are covered in any healthcare bill out there.
Maybe then, some people here would be compelled to get a check up from the neck up. Gods know, they need it.
#60 “Where does the constitution prohibit social programs, just curious.””
We have a thing called the 10Th Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”
Social programs are not a power spelled out in the Constitution. So it’s for the states.
Federal Highways were built to move troops and tanks around. That’s how they were original built.
Poor Benji==only a dupe, an idiot, a high schooler, a first year foreigner, a zealot, a stooge, or a propagandist uses the CONSTITUTION standing alone to analyse constitutional issues. That is only the beginning point and NEVER the ending point. People limiting their analysis, readings, understandings, postings to just the CONSTITUTIONS really are maroons.
You HAVE TO add the Supreme Court Cases that have interpreted the Constitution. Once you do that you realize the 10th Amendment has become almost irrelevant and what you need to understand is the Commerce Clause.
You won’t do it because being an idiot is so much more comforting.
So, as Bobo advises, continue to be misdirected.
Ha, ha. Jetfire========you know. Or, maybe you don’t.
Maroon.
Bottom line:
Will the US join the 20th century?
#65 Yes I know about the Commerce Clause and it’s abuse. I also know that some Founding Fathers didn’t want it in there because they feared it would be used as an end run around the limit of power on the Fed. Looks like their fears have come true.
I also know about FDR’s attempt at “Court-packing Plan” when the Supreme Court actually upheld the Constitution.
Food, water and shelter from the elements have far greater immediate importance to most people than whatever services doctors provide. I’d think that granting everybody “free” food and housing would be the priority for the “government is my provider” crowd.