First, if you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of high-quality, affordable coverage for yourself and your family — coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job.
I am assuming he means the public plan, although that is not likely to pass nor do we have the money to pay for.
Second, reform will finally bring skyrocketing health care costs under control, which will mean real savings for families, businesses and our government. We’ll cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits.
Total BS. As seen in Massachusetts the costs actually expanded after passage of their health care reform.
As for saving money by streamlining entitlements, does anyone believe that hundreds of billions of dollars in savings can be found or even if they were, cut from these entitlement programs. As for cutting money to insurance companies, I am sure he would try and bankrupt them, it would leave the door open to the single payer the Left so craves.
Third, by making Medicare more efficient, we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies. This will not only help provide today’s seniors with the benefits they’ve been promised; it will also ensure the long-term health of Medicare for tomorrow’s seniors. And our reforms will also reduce the amount our seniors pay for their prescription drugs.
As you can see the 2 minutes hate is saved for the insurance companies.
Lastly, reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable. A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans in the previous three years because they had a pre-existing illness or condition. The companies either refused to cover the person, refused to cover a specific illness or condition or charged a higher premium.
Does the president know most Americans are happy with their health insurance?
Most important, we will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups, preventive care and screening tests like mammograms and colonoscopies. There’s no reason that we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and prostate cancer on the front end. It makes sense, it saves lives and it can also save money.
These aren't bad things but they will likely increase the costs of health care and his argument that preventive options will save enough money to pay for health care is bogus, as explained by the CBO:
CBO-Preventive medical care includes services such as cancer screening, cholesterol management, and vaccines. In making its estimates of the budgetary effects of expanded governmental support for such care, CBO takes into account any estimated savings to the government that would result from greater use of preventive care as well as the estimated costs of that additional care. Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.
Not bad things, but hardly cost savings devices no matter what Obama says.
(Obama) This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies.
Maybe not, as laid out by the Times in a previous piece:
Mr. Obama has said repeatedly, as he told the American Medical Association in June: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.” These assurances reflect an aspiration, but may not be literally true or enforceable.
The legislation does not require insurers or employers to continue offering the health benefits they now provide. The House bill sets detailed standards for “acceptable health care coverage,” which would define “essential benefits” and permissible co-payments. Employers that already offer insurance would have five years to bring their plans into compliance with the new federal standards.The Senate health committee bill goes somewhat further by offering an “option to retain current insurance coverage.”
Government is going to radically change the system, In so doing people can and most likely will lose their current plans, and quite possibly there doctors along with them. The rest of the article the president dances around the subject of town halls and makes a point not to mention Palin or "death panels", but speaks against "wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed." Wild mis-representations have typified Obama on this issue since day one, be it his 2 trillion in savings or his claim that he doesn't support single payer. On the bright side he acknowledges the open secret of his deal with the drug companies:
And we have an agreement from the drug companies to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors.
Of course that assumes Congress will go along with the deal you made in exchange for support from pharma. Oh he did manage to get in another dig on insurance companies as well:
If we maintain the status quo, we will continue to see 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day. Premiums will continue to skyrocket. Our deficit will continue to grow. And insurance companies will continue to profit by discriminating against sick people.
Aren't they so evil for wanting to profit off sick people! This is rhetoric from the President of the United States. Most striking is whats missing, no talk of taxes or any revenues, TORT reform is not mentioned at all, mandated coverage and the ensuing penalties for not purchasing insurance is never mentioned. Business penalties for not providing insurance, not mentioned. Basically its a two page talking point from the President of the United States that provides some broad outlines without any actual policy. No wonder Democrats are divided over this as the President once again failed to lay out what specific policies we should adopt. By the compare his piece to the fact and reason laden article by John Mackey of Whole Food:
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
At least there are proposals here, unlike Obama who offers nothing but resentment and platitudes as a means to win his argument.
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