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Americans And Health Care Reform
Posted by | Posted in Health | Posted on 10-10-2009
Could President Obama be obstructing health care reform? Is it possible? I never imagined writing on these words. Yet, after watching the president deliver his State of the Union address on Wednesday night, this question lingered in my mind. Driven by political orientation, could President Obama now be the one obstructing real patient-centered health care reform?
Without question health care reform lay at the center of the president’s domestic agenda. But with the election of Senator Scott Brown, he no longer has the votes needed to push universal health care reform through the Senate. Driven by pork, pay-offs, and dirty backroom deals the public has lost trust in Washington and their plan for government run health care.
Last week’s Rasmussen poll revealed that 58% of Americans (a record high) now oppose his plan. At this point, it looks like even getting health care legislation through the House is an uphill climb.
Yet, President Obama remains determined to press on with his full agenda.
On Wednesday night we saw no course correction. There was no change in tone or willingness to compromise on smirk measures. There was no acknowledgment that independent voters have swung heavily toward less government and more fiscal responsibility. It seemed as if the president had missed the Massachusetts Senate race and its implications altogether.
This raises the question, if President Obama is unable to pass comprehensive health care reform, will he keep smaller, separate measures (such as letting businesses buy insurance across state lines or ending frivolous litigation) off the table?
Mending Complex Systems
Americans realize our health care system still needs severe reform. Twenty-five percent of the patients in my emergency room do not have coverage. The skyrocketing cost of health care now consumes 17% of our GDP. These concerns clearly need to be addressed.
However, Americans also understand that fixing a system as complex as American health care must be done in small, well defined, fiscally responsible steps. This is where President Obama’s health care reform efforts went seriously wrong.
The president and Congress attempted to revamp the entire system with a single, 2,000+ page bill, the bulk of which was put together behind closed doors. Even more worrisome, the overt pay-to-play deals with Senator Landrieu (D, La.) and Ben Nelson (D, Neb.) permanently tarnished the public’s perception of the legislative process. If the bill was so bad that Senators required bribes for their vote, the public understandably lost assurance in both the policy and in the process.
Reform Status
On Wednesday night President Obama offered an open invitation: “But if anyone from either party has a better plan that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Plans that use free-market solutions to cut health care costs, perk up the economy, and increase jobs already exist. I briefly outlined such a plan last week in the Fox Forum piece earlier this month: “Five Health Care Solutions that Make Sense.”
With competing plans on the table, whoever most clearly outlines a series of common sense, step-wise reforms will own the issue of health care for decades to come. The political stakes could not be higher given the winner takes all nature of the debate.
For example, President Obama never explained how he could cut $500 billion from the program without compromising care for seniors.
Free-market, patient-centered solutions run counter to President Obama’s understanding of effective “health care reform. However, the primary difficulty for these ideas is they threaten the Democratic power base. We saw this in the recent Massachusetts election when independent voters elected a Republican in a deep blue state. Given this, the question becomes, if the We the People choose stepwise, patient centered, fiscally responsible reforms, will President Obama stand in the way?
Watch the video related to health care
www.infowars.com IN A SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN, Alex Jones warns against the Big Government, Big Insurance Health Care Bill being forced down in the Senate despite opposition by members in both parties and an overwhelming majority of Americans. After all the denial, the final version of the bill proves to have in place the so-called death panels, the abortion funding, no public option, cuts in Medicare and forced coverage backed by heavy fines or prison. Outrageously, Senator Reid & co. have added a section to the bill, Section 3403, that prevents any future Congress from changing the Medicare Advisory Boards (ie the ‘death panels’). Section 3403 reads “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” Watch the video for Alex’s full analysis. For more info: Bleak Deficit Numbers Projected Under Obama’s Budget Plan www.pbs.org Poll: Public Disapproval of ‘Obamacare’ Jumps to 52 Percent www.foxnews.com Obamacare: Nightmare before Christmas savannahnow.com Obama’s trillions dwarf Bush’s ‘dangerous’ spending www.washingtonexaminer.com Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents www.foxnews.com ObamaCare Keeps Falling in the Polls online.wsj.com Health Care Bill Is A Huge Tax Heist www.prisonplanet.com Under ObamaCare, Prepare To Wait 18 Months To See A Doctor www.prisonplanet.com Polls: Majority Disapprove of Health Care <b>…</b>
Help answer the question about health care
What does the current health care bill do to reduce cost in health care itself?All you hear are liberals spewing their propaganda about how premiums will supposedly go down. How will premiums go down if the actual cost to provide health care services does not decrease? And if you think that actual health care costs (not insurance premiums) will decrease, how will this bill accomplish that?
Start with things most people would agree with. Medical savings accounts that allow people to save pre-tax money for health care. Ban companies from discriminating against pre-existing conditions. Allow competition across state lines. But a cap on punitive damage awards while allowing full compensation of actual damages.
and yet:
The public’s support for health care reform is rising after a summer slide, according to the latest tracking poll from the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation. The poll, released today, found that 57% of Americans now believe tackling health care reform is more important than ever, compared with 53% in August.
The poll also found that the public overwhelming supports several provisions that are facing stiff opposition in Congress: 68% of Americans back a mandate that all adult citizens be required to buy insurance, 67% want an employer mandate requiring companies to offer insurance to their employees, and 59% would support “having health insurance companies pay a tax for offering very expensive policies.”
@mtb416
Um. I am simply pointing out that rationing is inevitable, whatever system you adopt. You can apply the rationing argument to finding a table at a restaurant – you still have to wait for a waiter to show you to a table. There is always a finite number of waiters.
@ToothbrushMan There most certainly is rationing; it could not exist otherwise. Your argument rests on the tried and true “Americans are wrong” argument? Good one!
We're a military family, so we have a little experience with government run health care. My options are ok because I get to choose the doctors who are in network, but my husband's health care is sub-standard. The clinic on base is terrible. He can't get an appointment when he's truly ill, and we have to drive over an hour to take him to a military treatment facility if he needs a specialist (that's if he can get a referral from the clinic on base to begin with. The poor veteran's have it worse. Veteran's care is an absolute tragedy in this country, and if that's an example of government run health care, then count me out. I'm with some of the other posters. I think it'll equal long waits for appointments and sub-standard care.
@panzerfavst And further more, we should not only ban abortion but we should ban children from getting healthcare unless their parents are in the top 1% income bracket. It’s a waste of rich people’s money to invest in saving those little parasites who feed off of welfare like it’s a host. Now while they must die we can’t abort them because God would smite us for it. So, I propose that we put poor infants in dumpsters and let Jesus do the killing, slowly and methodically of course. Amen.
We want insurance reform, we want a better billing system and we want tort reform. That is what the tea partiers want, and most Americans. It is a all in issue for Obama and it will cost him re-election. The Democrats should not use reconciliation for this process as it sets a very dangerous precent that the Republicans can use in the future for other sweeping legislation. It's a process by which you thwart a debate by sending the bill back to the house to be voted on, with a "fix it" deal coming later.
The problem here is the bill which passed isn't going to reform health-care. Even your question moved from health-care to health-insurance. What is really needed in the USA is health-care pricing reform, not insurance reform.
An example of how this bill is going to harm people. A friend of mine, married, two kids was glad to have the bill pass. That was until he learned that he would have to pay for health-care insurance for him and his family himself (no government assistance because he didn't make the group). He already lives paycheck to paycheck. He cannot afford health-insurance that this bill now says he MUST have.
The bill was rammed through with no debate, no serious questioning of what is wrong, but we were told to bend over and take it while our taxes will go up, a VAT tax will be introduced to help pay for it, and most importantly of all, the government is running it.
I have used Canada's health-care while living there, I have friends who have used Europe's health-care. It is not as great as people make it out to be.
@fywacia i dont fucking care about anyone elses health. lets talk economics here k? stossel is right, you need to pay for it your self. im going to pay through my life, i dont need some nanny govt doing anything for me
@fywacia You sound like such an indoctrinated lefty. I hear the top 1% goes out every Christmas with bats and go house to house, smashing the presents for middle-class children.
@panzerfavst Yep he’s right and the whole industrialized world is wrong. I’m going to go even more conservative than you, that’s why I propose “The Trickle Down Healthcare Plan”. You see only people who are in the top 1% income bracket should be legally allowed to get medical attention. That way the other 99% will eventually die out much faster than before which will eventually close the healthcare gap in America. It also gets rid of poverty, so it’s like killing two children with on stone.
Of course John Mackey knows what he is talking about and is rational, he’s a Texan.
No. The GOP are funded by the insurance companies to fight these reforms. Which is why they spread lies and half truths about it. If more people knew the facts as opposed to the lies, then more would want it to pass.
FACT – Insurance companies in the USA admit to pushing up prices, buying politicians and not paying out claims when they should [a]
FACT – PER PERSON the USA spends more on healthcare than any other nation on the planet [b]
FACT – Obama debated his plans before the election for healthcare [c]
FACT – the chance of a child under five of dying in the USA is greater than industrialised nations with universal health coverage [d]
FACT – Obama was elected to bring in change [e]
FACT – Obama wants to stop insurance companies screwing the American people [f]
FACT – The reforms Obama wants work in the Netherlands and in Switzerland [g]
If anyone can prove the facts above are wrong, e-mail me and let me know.
Most progressives want a public option.
because the majority of americans realize that the current health care bill has nothing to do with reforming health care…
the current bill is nothing more than the largest government take over of the private sector in history
hes completely right europe is stupid we have superior care
interviewing doctors who will stop making as much money under the new system, and not even mentioning that, can not be considered good journalism