Government Healthcare

[CityOfChicago]

Obama Plans More Active Role in Health Care Legislation
Obama is reportedly preparing an intense push for legislation that will include speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers.

FOXNews.com

Sunday, June 07, 2009

WASHINGTON – The White House, backing away from President Barack Obama's "it's-all-on-the-table" approach initially advocated, prepared to get louder and more involved in the details of a health care overhaul that officials once were content to leave to Congress, administration officials said Saturday.

Obama is preparing an intense push for legislation that will include speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers, the New York Times reported.

The White House's attention increases as Congress turns to a priority that officials watched in recent weeks drift off what has otherwise been a precise pathway. Even with an Obama-imposed August deadline, many administration aides weren't sure just how much they would be able to accomplish before Congress left for the summer, and Obama has turned to his grassroots supporters to pressure Congress to find a solution.

Covering 50 million uninsured Americans could cost as much as $1.5 trillion over a decade, but Obama has cited the crippling impact on the economy of soaring health care costs and society's long-standing need to resolve the problem. Obama and lawmakers say they want to lower costs, ensure choice and provide coverage to those who are uninsured. Obama and his advisers initially let Congress take the lead, remembering what happened when President Bill Clinton took to Congress a plan deemed too detailed and too prescriptive.

Draft legislation from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would require employers to cover their employees or pay a penalty and would guarantee coverage for all.

But Obama supports a new public insurance plan that would give all Americans the opportunity of getting government-sponsored care. Private insurers are adamantly opposed, fearing they'd be driven out of business, as are most Republicans. And Obama's team has grown more willing to take the lead.

"If we do nothing, everyone's health care will be put in jeopardy," said the president, in his prerecorded Saturday radio and Internet address, aired while he attended D-Day ceremonies in France. "Fixing what's wrong with our health care system is no longer a luxury we hope to achieve — it's a necessity we cannot postpone any longer."

Congress still hasn't figured out how to pay for the health care overhaul. Obama has put forward some ideas, including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Others he's suggested, including limiting some high-income tax deductions, have already gotten shot down on Capitol Hill.

Obama has stated a preference for a bipartisan solution, but that's looking harder to achieve.

A long-planned grassroots effort is meant to illustrate power and, at the same time, to intimidate opposition. It is coming with Obama's explicit blessing, according to officials, who spoke anonymously to discuss private conversations.

Aides at Organizing for America — as Obama's political arm is known — said tens of thousands of supporters participated in thousands of events for health care overhaul on Saturday.

With some 14 million e-mail addresses and an Internet-based advocacy machine that helped him win an election, Obama's political arm sought to deliver changes to the health system similar to the ones Obama talked about during the campaign — not one that was mauled through endless compromise or one far different from the one that motivated thousands of volunteers last fall.

Obama has indicated he wanted to hear Democrats' and Republicans' ideas, but has also told them that he's the president and they are among many elected members of Congress. They also were warned that the re-election campaign-in-waiting was revving its engines.

That part of the message was clear, even if other pieces were not.

After Senate Democrats met with Obama and his top aides in the State Dining Room, one of the president's fellow Democrats marched to a White House microphone and declared that the administration was open to taxing health care benefits — something Obama opposed during campaign and remains personally against.

"It's on the table. It's an option," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

The problem, Obama aides later reluctantly acknowledged: Obama had said exactly what the powerful chairman said.

Obama had refused to declare any provision "a sacred cow," according to an official familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal meetings. Although Obama's personal position on the tax is clear, he had sought to let lawmakers fashion the exact language.

No more, Obama's team said. If the president wants health care overhaul, the White House needs to control what's being said, not its allies — or, worse, its rivals.

"This issue, health care reform, is not a luxury," Obama said in his radio and Internet address. "It's not something that I want to do because of campaign promises or politics. This is a necessity. This is something that has to be done."

Obama summed up his message with a simple declaration: "It's time to deliver."



Government controlled banking, government controlled business, government oversight of business, government controlled healthcare. Does this sound like the America you know?

[ChevySSP]

Quote: "Obama has indicated he wanted to hear Democrats' and Republicans' ideas, but has also told them that he's the president and they are among many elected members of Congress. They also were warned that the re-election campaign-in-waiting was revving its engines."


That sounds an awful lot like a political muscle flex....a tyrant in the making.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Vying for the "Czar of czar" position, is he? It's all tyrannical. Have you noticed how everyone of his cabinet members (and let us not forget his nominee for the Supreme Court) he has pushed for "quick" confirmations. Nope. Let's not be "thorough" in vetting the people running the country, let's just hurry up and get them in position for the final debilitating blows to our country.

Jeeze, I need a drink...

[ChevySSP]

Guess this would signify the Republican's side of things:

GOP senator irked at Obama over heath care - Capitol Hill- msnbc.com

WASHINGTON - A Republican Senate chairman whose involvement is key if there's going to be a bipartisan health care deal is responding angrily to President Barack Obama's latest comments on the issue.

Obama, after months of standing back and leaving the details of health care legislation to Congress, inserted himself firmly into the debate in recent days, including using his weekly radio address Saturday to declare "it's time to deliver" on health reform.

That didn't sit well with the Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, which has been laboring to come up with a health care bill that Democrats and Republicans can support.

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Frequent user of Twitter
Grassley is a frequent user of Twitter — the Internet-based social connection service allows users to send mass text messages called "tweets" — and he directed two angry "tweets" Sunday morning at Obama. The president was wrapping up an overseas trip with some time in Paris with his family.

Grassley's first tweet: "Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

A short time later: "Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."

A Grassley spokeswoman verified that Grassley was the author of the messages. A White House spokesman had no immediate response Sunday to Grassley's twitter commentary.

Grassley's attitude is significant because any hope for bipartisan consensus on health care rests on an alliance between Grassley and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Despite strong opposition from most Republicans to one of Obama's key goals for a health care bill — the inclusion of a new government insurance plan to compete with private insurers — Baucus and Grassley have continued to hold out hope that they can find a solution that could garner bipartisan support.

Legislation ready to sign in the fall?
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod cited Grassley in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday morning as a reason there's hope for a health overhaul deal. Obama wants to sign legislation in the fall that would hold down costs and extend coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans.

"I would hope people of both parties would get together. I was encouraged by Sen. Grassley's comments in the last few days suggesting that he thought we could get there," Axelrod said. "So I think we'll be able to build a bipartisan support for it. But we have to move forward with it, I think it is a critical situation for the country and our economy and our future."

Obama has said repeatedly he wants a bipartisan bill. Although the Democratic-controlled Congress might be able to pass health care legislation with little or no Republican support, such a measure would be less widely accepted and less sustainable over time, Baucus and others have said.


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NYT: Obama to take a greater role on health care

But Obama's increased involvement appears to be diminishing chances for bipartisanship, not improving them. Grassley and other Republicans were also angered when Obama released a letter last week coming down strongly in favor of a new public insurance plan.

The next few weeks will be critical to the health care debate, with the Finance Committee to finalize legislation and begin voting in late June. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has circulated draft legislation that is unlikely to garner GOP support because of the greatly expanded role it gives to government. The Finance Committee has been expected to produce a bill with a narrower role for government.

[Nole795]

I will probably get flamed for this but I wanted to express my support for Obama's attention to reforming the Health Care industry. I didnt vote for the guy, but I applaud his efforts in confronting the issue. I look forward to the day where the U.S. may one day get universal health care like the rest of the western civilization that has it today.

I find it interesting that critics of the plan call it an affront to communism, but almost every western civilization has some type of universal healthcare, England, France, Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany, are just a few to name. These countries are very far from being a "socialist" government.

Do some investigation on the method of the U.S. programs such as HMO's. HMO works on the principle that you have a primary physician. Dr. X is paid a flat monthly fee for each policy holder. The best patient is one that is healthy because Dr. X get paid whether you see him or not. Now if you have a medical ordeal and see Dr. X, he now has to do certain tests or defer you to a specialist. This cuts into the HMO bottom line of expenditures because money is being spent. The less money Dr. X spends on a patient, the higher his "bonus" may be (dependant on the insurance company). Getting an MRI done almost takes an act of congress because it is an expensive test. To see a specialist would take a referral from Dr. X, again this is a way to make sure the insurance companies has some type of control over the expenditures spent. It is a profit market that has no business in today's healthcare.

I have friends who operate several Physical Therapy (PT) clinics. Believe it or not, there are some private insurance companies that have limit to the visits of PT sessions. It is not patient dependant, so if Patient X is at the PT clinic, and the insurance company will only pay for 3 visits then the clinic has to abide by the contract. Now here is the kicker, the clinic is not allowed to tell the patient that the insurance company will only pay for the 3 visits. The PT clinic will tell the patient on what he/she needs to do after the 3 visits and tell them to go home.

When our elderly are crossing the border in order to buy their presciptions at a fraction of the costs, then we need to be looking at reforms in our own country.

While vacationing in Europe, one of the girls in my travel group became deathly sick in Venice, Italy and had to be taken to an ER and housed overnight. She was given medication, and antibiotics to recover from her throat infection. Her out of pocket was zero. She waited about 20 minutes before being seen, and received just as good of care as she would have gotten in the states.

Think about this, the majority of bankruptices in this country are tied to medical bills. Get sick, go to hospital, if you lose your job due to the illness, you lose your medical coverage, so now there is even more money to spend on a COBRA, or the full share of the medical coverage. In countries where Universal health care is practiced, bankruptcy via medical reasons is practically non-existant.

I am not a fan of Michael Moore, but his movie "SICKO" had a lot of good points that shows how flawed our society is when it comes to private health companies.

I'm a realist, and I know the only way we could have universal health care is to raise taxes. I cant see another way to achieve this goal, but I would embrace this option as opposed to the plans offered now.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

The Federal government's job is not to run healthcare and medical insurance. In many instances, they have proven themselves inadequate at taking care of our military veterans through the VA medical program. My grandmother was a victim (yes, I said "victim") of the Medicare program. If the government can't get it right for such a small segment of the American populace, what makes you think they can get it right for the entire nation?

The U.S. Healthcare system would have a MONUMENTAL expenditure for buildings, equipment and personnel outlay. Remember, it would have to cover ALL 50 states and probably our Territories as well.

It would have to be accessible to all citizens. You couldn't have only one hospital in the capital city of each state. Many existing hospitals would have to be bought out by the taxpayers.

This does not equate to paying "a little more" money in your taxes. This would be our largest expenditure on a yearly basis, far surpassing budgeted military spending.

You wanna pay for the hypocondriacs who would damn near live in the hospital? How about all the mental cases that would LOVE 3 hots and a cot at your local government center free of charge? Do you want to pay for people's lack of exercise and eating basically healthy food? Or should we let people gorge themselves at Mickey D's and then run to the new gub-ment hospital to get their stomachs stapled in an attempt to lose weight. Thousands are already of government assistance and in this job we run across people who will have more kids simply to get more cash assistance. Wanna help pay for them to deliver their babies free of charge, then continue to pay the mom and give food stamps to keep food on the table?

If you want to do that, I'm sure those other countries would be happy to have you contribute to their tax base.

[retdetsgt]

The government can't run anything efficiently. I've worked for one government entity or another almost all my adult life and witnessed horrible waste the whole time.

Everything costs at least 40% more when the government does it because they always have high administrative cost. And when someone in the private sector writes a check, someone is watching to make sure the money is spent the way it should be. In government, the guy writing the check couldn't care less. The primary job of his bosses is make sure they look good and that the money flow doesn't stop.

The ONLY time the government worries about money is when they run out. Otherwise, cost for anything is immaterial. How many times have you government workers heard the statement, "We have to spend this money by the end of the (year, month, week) or we'll lose it"?

I do have to say the VA around here gives good care. But it's more expensive than what a private facility could do. Medicare is full of fraud. When Reagan was President, you occasionally read about some doctor or hospital getting nailed for defrauding Medicare. Now it's hardly ever. They continue to pay money to anyone who asks for it and you know the fraud is no doubt worse.

[bhanson]

I really can't believe anyone wants the kind of health care provided in Europe, UK or Canada. At best it is reported to be horrible. The only thing people like is it is free (when you can get it). :(

[cjcrew022000]

I really can't believe anyone wants the kind of health care provided in Europe, UK or Canada. At best it is reported to be horrible. The only thing people like is it is free (when you can get it). :(

I can tell you, from experience, that it is far from horrible. Wait times are an issue but I personally do not know anyone who has had to wait an absurd amount of time for a procedure. Of course our health care system it is not as perfect as Michael Moore make it out to be, but overall I think it is a great system.

[Brendon]

I'm a fan of how they do it in Australia. There's also private practice for those who can afford it, and then there is a more socialistic style for those who cannot.

American Government has had a harder time adapting to Societal changes than other Western Governments it seems sometimes. I can agree with one thing, a lot of it has to do with us being too scared to say 'no'. We keep giving that welfare check to the chick that pops babies out like she needs to meet a quota and drives a BMW.

There needs to be a better safety net, and other Governments have better ideas than ours when it comes to some parts. Can we do it effectively? Probably not. Frivolous lawsuits are a good example of why our country is going down the hole.

[Norm357]

I just reread my copy of the Constitution, and damnitt, I cannot find anything about healthcare for all.

American Government has had a harder time adapting to Societal changes than other Western Governments it seems sometimes.

What is this supposed to mean?

[Creeker]

I just reread my copy of the Constitution, and damnitt, I cannot find anything about healthcare for all.



...

Exactly.

Health care is not a Right.

...and there is something seriously wrong with all of these Un-Constitutional Czar's, Nationalising the Auto Industry, Financial Industry... next up: Healthcare.

Sounds like... Socialism.

Its enough to make a man want to get off his A$$ & ...go fly a flag at a Tea Party or something... :mad:

[oscarmitre]

I really can't believe anyone wants the kind of health care provided in Europe, UK or Canada. At best it is reported to be horrible. The only thing people like is it is free (when you can get it). :(

I'd love the French system here in my country, even though ours is damn good the French one is apparently much better even than ours. As for the US system, just the thought of it makes me unwell. Every time I visit I load up with travel insurance, top tables. You folks are nuts if you reckon your system is half decent. It's actually really bloody stupid, having people go bankrupt because of medical bills, lose their job and bang goes their health insurance and look at it, bankrupting GM. You can do better ;)

[Creeker]

I'd love the French system here in my country, even though ours is damn good the French one is apparently much better even than ours. As for the US system, just the thought of it makes me unwell. Every time I visit I load up with travel insurance, top tables. You folks are nuts if you reckon your system is half decent. It's actually really bloody stupid, having people go bankrupt because of medical bills, lose their job and bang goes their health insurance and look at it, bankrupting GM. You can do better ;)

Don't let Obama's lies propagated by the Media fool you. The Unions and Government Regulations along with weak Management are most of what did GM in.

People who lose their jobs are still covered by Medicaid, which ain't the best but they are far from uninsured. Why, ask an Illegal how much he's been Bankrupted... thats who live in most of our E.R.'s :rolleyes:

[ChevySSP]

I'd love the French system here in my country, even though ours is damn good the French one is apparently much better even than ours. As for the US system, just the thought of it makes me unwell. Every time I visit I load up with travel insurance, top tables. You folks are nuts if you reckon your system is half decent. It's actually really bloody stupid, having people go bankrupt because of medical bills, lose their job and bang goes their health insurance and look at it, bankrupting GM. You can do better ;)

Here in America, our Constitution is written with the blood of Patriots, and has been earned and has survived by several generations of Americans who have fought and died for the freedoms that myself and all other American Citizens have grown accustomed to.

Our Constitution defines our government. It distinctly seperates the powers of the Judiciary, Executive and Legislation and keeps them from growing too powerful over one another.

For many Americans, the current debate over Healthcare is basically an argument over how much power the American government should have. We are a Republic and a Capitalist nation, and many Americans have fought and died for the right for us as a people to remain free. Free from any discrimination amongst ourselves. Free to do as we please everyday.

Free from a large central government.

Right now our crisis is that Obama and the Congress are trying to force their will unto Americans. BO has undermined the confidence in ourselves as a country and has belittled the USA to all foreign countries, hostile or Ally. He has shown very little faith in the powers and history that has allowed someone like him to become a President. If our Guardians who earned our Country with their blood had him as president, you can bet your bottom euro that they would kick his ass.

That being said, Personal Bankruptcies do not occur solely because of health bills. GM went bankrupt because of the UAW and because Obama single-handedly dismantled the largest auto maker the US has to offer with his "regulation." He has acted very much like a dictator in handling the GM issue and has had Detroit bow to his will. He has exercised too much power in handling this IMO.

Medical bills are not all that large, and I'm sorry to say this but most older Americans drive their BMWs and Mercedes to the Borders to get cheap pills because they are cheap. Take a look at the border crossings here in Texas, for example. I see mostly cars newer then my truck.

I was laid off from my job. I had medical coverage and I chose not to maintain it, but my father did maintain his. And he used it too, and has paid all of $12 for some treatments while he found a job.

Look, I love French toast, I love French fries, and I love french bread. BUt I do not want anything modeled after the French in my government. WHy? Because I do not want them to roll over and surrender each time somebody fights with them ;)