Obama: 'Time To Deliver' On Health Care (VIDEO)

AP: WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama pleaded for action on his health care agenda, using his weekly radio and Internet address to focus on his domestic priority even while traveling overseas.

"It's time to deliver," Obama said Saturday.

His remarks were timed to gatherings in living rooms and coffee shops around the country by tens of thousands of people to discuss health care. The weekend events, organized by his campaign, were intended to try to build a groundswell of support for congressional action.

"If we do nothing, everyone's health care will be put in jeopardy," Obama said.

"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," said the president, who attended D-Day ceremonies in France on Saturday.

The first bill containing language to put in place his health care goals has begun circulating on Capitol Hill. 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.

That parallels Obama's goals of lowering costs, ensuring choice, and providing coverage to some 50 million uninsured Americans.

Obama articulated those goals again in his radio address and in a videotaped message prepared for supporters at the community meetings.

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"Any health care reform must be built around fundamental reforms that lower costs, improve quality and coverage and also protect consumer choice," Obama said in the radio address.

He said he supports a plan that would not add to the budget deficit, touching on a major issue that remains unresolved little more than a week away from the first scheduled votes in Senate committees.

Congress still hasn't figured out how to pay for a health overhaul that could cost $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion or even more over a decade. Obama has put forward some ideas, including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Others he's suggested, including limiting some tax deductions rich people can take, have already gotten shot down on Capitol Hill.

And despite Obama's stated preference for a bipartisan solution, that's looking hard to achieve.

Although he didn't mention the issue in his radio address, 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. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke in the Senate almost every day this past week against the concept and reiterated the point in an interview with radio reporters Friday.

"The key to a bipartisan bill is to not have a government plan in the bill, no matter what it's called," said McConnell, R-Ky. "When I say no government plan, I mean no government plan. Not something described some other way, not something that gets us to the same place by indirection. No government plan."

Obama barely mentioned such opposition in his address.

"When you bring together disparate groups with differing views, there will be lively debate. And that's a debate I welcome," the president said. "But what we can't welcome is reform that just invests more money in the status quo _ reform that throws good money after bad habits."

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On the Net:

Video of address: http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Comments

[Flymast]

On my job the last 7 years our insurance companies have come to us every year to ask for an 8% increase and this has totalled now a 58% increase in over 7 years in health care costs and this is ridiculous. There needs to be a "public plan" offered as part of Health Care reform otherwise there will not be reform! also we need to be rid of pre-existing condition restrifctions and health care companies telling who you cannot carry and for how long. They have been so greedy over the years I'm not worried about them going out of business due to a Public Plan which I'm told will be for folks who cannot qualify for Medicare or Medicaid or have employer provided care; this will fill the gap and make us whole and sitll allow folks to select their own doctor.

Get it done!

[MMJones]

We have the same situation. And here's the kicker. As a health-care provider, we are unable to raise our fees (which have to be okayed by the insurance company) and they do not allow a fee increase over 2-3 percent. So while we have to pay, for ourselves, this 8% increase, the provider will not see a comparable increase.

This is just to illustrate insurance companies' control. We serve a community we care about and so, despite our raises in cost of doing business and our own private insurance increases, we haven't raised our fees in four years.

[epiphany1234]

Single payer, universal, public, non-profit health care for every American man, woman and child now.

Any considerations that prevail over this goal is simply more bullcrap.

Support Senator Sanders and others who are fighting to get single payer in place.

[slithers]

yes, require all doctors to work for the government.... that's the liberal thing to do.(sarcasm)

[iblogleft]

Fine slithers.

We will give all doctors free education, room and board. We will flood the market, allow more doctors in from abroad, and mutilate salaries, just like they did to I.T..

Non-profit does not mean they do not make profits, it means they distribute shared profits through the system in the form of advancements, salaries, benefits and collateral.

Non-profit healthcare is common sense, period.

[MMJones]

We would WELCOME that. If you only knew the cost of being in the medical business... And this after $200,000K student loans and equipment loans, setting-up-business loans, and on and on.

Look to the countries that have this in place. The health care providers make a decent living, do not have to deal with insurance companies, overhead -- that is a killer -- and having to provide based on ability to pay.

The result? Better care for the patient, and the health care provider is able to do just that: provide health care. Our country's health care providers are no less at the mercy of insurance companies than anyone else in this country. Probably even more, because we have to deal with the emotional aspect of having to inform the patient that, once again, their care has been disallowed or reduced.

[Samalabear]

How come there are so many physician groups asking for single-payer healthcare?

Here is a great article to read, an interview by one of the "Baucus 16," as she calls herself, a psychiatrist from Montana, Carol Paris. She is proud of that name. She was one of the doctors arrested in Baucus' Congressional hearing.

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/06/06/news/state/41-baucus.txt

Besides, they're not going to be for the government -- get the facts.

[kimleehan]

If its not universal healthcare, than I don't care.

[dagdavid]

Forget a bipartisan bill, Mr. President. You and the dems need to use your voter-granted mandate to PASS REAL HEALTHCARE REFORM! We don't need half measures. Since single payer has already been unnecessarily taken off the table, we need a strong public option WITHOUT a trigger. Anything less will be seen as a failure to deliver on your campaign promise.

Blue dog dems won't go along - do what the republicans do, have the DNC tell them that they either tow the line, or they will be facing well-funded challengers in their next primary.

Don't cave, Mr. President. Please do not cave. We need this. We struggling Americans need this.

[dwright]

Obama said repeatedly that we are the power - We need to vote out those that do not agree with us. It truly is up to us and through our vote we can make that possible. He can only do so much and by the way I believe he is shouldering a lot and accomplishing a great deal.

We need to step-up and put on the pressure.

[hapaglloyd]

agreed ,but how does one vote out people from Alabama,Mississippi,Kentucky. These people are not only low-info voters ,they vote against their self interest. I dont understand them.

[hark]

Sorry, we can't make a difference. There are no candidates who represent the people.

[gale4786]

And there won't be as long as candidates care more about campaign contributions from big corporations than their constituents.

[WWWexler]

"Private insurers are adamantly opposed, fearing they'd be driven out of business, as are most Republicans."

There's the problem, the Party of Greed is trying to hang onto their health care gravy train.

Any solution that doesn't include single payer with a sliding cost scale based on income is a farce.

-Wexler

[fcsakes]

I guess the administration misses, or ignores, the point. The only acceptable resolution is exactly TO PUT INSURANCE COMPANIES OUT OF BUSINESS. They have been sucking the life out of OUR lives for way too long. Let them cover cosmetic or elective procedures only or get into some other business. There is no legitimate reason to allow them to continue making health care decisions too often countermanding the decisions made between the patient and her doctor. They care only about THEIR bottom line and not the best course of care for the patient.

Single-payer health care is the way to go. It will pay for itself over time. Fix that ridiculously stupid part D and assure that big pharma stops cheating the taxpayer. Doctors, dentists, hospitals, drug companies, etc. should not be allowed to advertise in any media. That would take the profit motive out of health care. It is how it once was, which is why health care USED to be affordable. Let's get back to what works and is good for the country. And please, do what you said you were going to do and get the lobbyists OUT OF WASHINGTON.

[Mecheng]

Be careful what you wish for folks!!

[dagdavid]

Gimme a break.

[Mrtnz]

you've got something better?

[hark]

No problem. Our wishes don't stand a chance of ever coming true. It's a perfectly harmless exercise.

[MMJones]

Then stop reading the internet and watching the news. You're just going to keep sinking into despair and defeatism.

The alternative? Well, we've seen eight years of the alternative... and it'd just get work, hark. Grow some and get active! if nothing else, it'll put a spring in your step to be working for something instead of curling into a fetal position!

[Joeblue]

Oh yeah, let's keep going over the cliff, what a dolt.

[LittleSanityLeft]

Ohhh, careful you don't want one of those crazy socialist health care systems like we have here in Canada. Free health care for every man woman and child, that's corporate blasphemy! How's a rich white dude supposed to afford the second mortgage on his house in the Hamptons if they can't arbitrarily raise rates and deny coverage. Corporations making money off the backs of the poor and unfortunate has been the American way for decades.

You want medical coverage without preconditions, that won't put you in the position of choosing your health over your mortgage and that will never deny your coverage? Be careful what you wish for...

[Malkin71]

Time to deliver... more than a photo op yes...

Unless, the plan includes a public option with no "triggers" then it's a sham...

That's the bar.

[justsaynosarahp]

...did hope he would turn his attention to the home values mess first, though.

[iseebs]

Over 70% of private bankruptcy is because the costs for medical treatment.
Health care is priority one.

[justsaynosarahp]

yes, you are right

[dogwatch]

Mideast. He begins to dissolve entrenched positions. Health care. He must begin to dissolve entrenched positions held by the hospital insurance and drug companies. They are the tail that wags the whole country dog.