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."

___

On the Net:

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

Comments

[davidwayneosedach]

Better yet - how about delivering on the 3.5 million promised jobs?

[williamg]

Well, before the stimulus we were losing 600,000 - 700,000 jobs a month.

345,000 were lost last month. Things are improving. Be patient.

[Garybot]

Unemployment levels are still increasing

[ObamAtomic]

Are you foolish?
You waited eight years,right ,why you are impatience now?

[donaldw6]

If we at least have a public option to buy national health insurance, that will be a powerful step in the right direction. But we need to remember how inferior that solution is compared to full-fledged, single payer national health insurance. As long as we leave private health insurers in the mix, they'll continue to drive the cost up, and they'll manipulate the more expensive care onto the public health insurance, making it appear non-cost-effective. If we don't do this right now, private health insurers, their lobbyists and their apologists in Washington may undermine our half-measure terminally, and doom real health care reform for another generation or more.

It's very important to get single payer health care passed NOW!

[ChelseaC]

Donald,
Well said.

[williamg]

But you have to remember: Medicare covers 45 million people, and it took 40 years to get to that point.

But adding an additional 255 million people overnight (who will ALL still need to get supplemental insurance to fill the gaps in coverage) will lead to a HUGE beaurocratic mess.

Under a public option, estimates are that 130 million will opt for Medicare at first -- which will be a much smaller shock to the system. If Medicare can prove to be more efficient (which it will) than as many as 85% could switch over over the course of 10 years.

[donaldw6]

We could allow time to handle the bureaucratic side, and the real bureaucratic mess is in the doctors' and hospital offices where they have to deal with many different kinds of insurance providers. A lot of that will balance things out.

[ChelseaC]

William,
You continue to defend the staus quo. You have no idea what you're talking about.
http://www.pnhp.org/change/

[vanmungo]

This Williamg character spends entire days spreading a thick slime of disinformation over this blog--repeatedly; having been corrected, he obviously knows better, so his intent is clearly to mislead.

The pub-op plan being floated by Obama would INCREASE the number of people in costly, inefficient, for-profit, private plans. Here's the estimate of Jacob Hacker of Berkeley, the leading academic purveyor of "public option": "Put simply, Health Care for America is a pure, undiluted proposal for public plan choice. So it’s notable that under my proposal, according to the Lewin Group’s analysis of a couple years ago, the public plan ends up with much lower enrollment in the public plan than projected in the Lewin Group’s new analysis (90 million versus over 131 million). (For aficionados, the national insurance exchange in my proposal would have larger enrollment, but around 38 million people in the exchange would choose private plans instead of the public plan.)" (http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/april/hacker_says_that_pub.php) As Dr. Don McCann of PNHP writes, "Get That? Even with a Medicare-like public plan option, the market for the private insurers will expand! That is the real tragedy of this debate over a public plan option. It has led us away from the debate we should be having instead: an affordable single payer national health program for everyone, versus expansion of our over-priced, inequitable, and inefficient system of financing health care through private plans and public programs."

[vanmungo]

Sorry, you are spreading disinformation. From the time of its enactment in 1965, it took only nine months to put Medicare firmly in place--in an era when they were dealing with almost all paper records. It should take far less than that to cover the other two thirds in this computerized age.

You do nothing out here but parrot disinformation PR from the HMOs.

[textynn]

NO we are not settling. We are done suffering and living in fear. We are done making a useless industry rich beyond kings. We are done being exploited by these heartless for-profit sociopaths.

[freshnotbitter]

"they'll manipulate the more expensive health care ontothe public insurance makingit appear non cost effective"

I thought of that, but you know what? They'll be fighting Uncle Sam for once. Right now they are manipulating expensive care off their rolls and leaving people in the street or on medicaid. Uncle Sam will be watching to make sure that people get their money's worth out of private insurance when the alternative is Uncle Sam picking up the tab. That is what has the insurance companies so worried. They know their scams will be spotted and that they will have to do business honestly. They hate that. That is why crooks like Republican Senate Majority Leader McConnell has just come out and said that a public option of any kind whatsoever is off the table, republicans will not support it. Looks like big Insurance lobby called in their chips and told their republican b to get on his back and perform.

[BabblingBrooks]

Foot in the door, camel's nose in the tent. Government will sooner or later squeeze out all the private health care providers once they get this passed.

[jlabonty]

To be truthful I really don't care.

[FogBelter]

Comprehensive Universal Single Payer Health Care is the only responsible option, Mr President.

Put it on Congress to get it done, or out the stonewallers in a speech from your Bully Pulpit and let Republican and Democratic voters learn who's with them and who's against them.

You can get Comprehensive Universal Single Payer Health Care passed, Mr President. The vast majority of the American people want it. Look at what Senator Baucus faced from his constituents in Montana when he held his Town Halls. 70% of US bankruptcies are due to Medical costs ... the American People need relief and you, sir, are the President.

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours."

Richard Bach

[donaldw6]

I'd like to believe Obama has the power to get it passed, but I can't. I don't think this is something he can do alone. I think it's up to us as a nation to educate ourselves, and put the pressure on Washington ourselves. Obama could speak the absolute truth from the "bully pulpit" and still get hammered for it. It's up to us to build consensus, and single payer is so beautifully logical and obviously right, I really believe we can do it.

[Samalabear]

If he gets on the bully pulpit the way he did with the credit card bill and bankruptcy reform (silence from the bully pulpit was booming) we are screwed. He has 65% of the American people behind him -- and if he doesn't know that then he isn't paying for attention. Those ads running on TV that speak directly to Obama on single-payer are paid for by citizens. There are lots of groups out there, there was a whole day of rallies for single-payer on May 30, and there are many more scheduled. The MSM didn't report on any of this.

[NWGuy]

One of the ideas with health care reform is that it requires employers to cover their employees as a way to make sure everyone has health insurance (not quite the same as health care).

What I have NOT heard:
What steps will be in place to make sure that the insurance companies don't raise their premiums as high as they possibly can since the employers are required to buy it?
What is in place for those employers that have to close their doors due to increased costs?

[AlsoSarah]

Perhaps the small business owners can buy into the Public Health Care Option.

[Garybot]

That all sounds great - except for the employers that will have to go out of business - like small business owners. Many of them are alread on the edge, and this will push them over - everyone onto the unemployment line please!

[freshnotbitter]

If there is a public option with premium of fifteen per cent of annual income then any employer can say that he is simply deducting fifteen per cent from peoples salary and they are insured by the public option unless they want to go and buy their own policies in the market which should be anybody's right. how does that put any employer out of business? Has any employer told you he had to get out of business because he has to deduct fifteen per cent of salaries for social security and send it to feds every payroll? Isn't health care like social security? In my mind it is.

[blist14]

we cant afford universal healthcare

[donaldw6]

The actual truth is, we can't afford NOT to have it.

[williamg]

Thank you.

[ChelseaC]

it depends on what type of "universal health care" we're talking about--government subsidies to insurance companies--NO--we can't afford this as too much money will go to admin. costs and salaries of CEO's, ect.
However, universal PUBLIC health care--Medicare for ALL--not only can afford to do it, it would be much CHEAPER than the system we currently have. But we would need to cap drug prices too--force Big Pharma into price negotiations as all other countries are smart enough to do.

http://www.pnhp.org/change/

[jlabonty]

It's coming - so get ready.

[bigskydem]

Want to see the view of health care reform without the Healthcare for profit filter?

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/watch.html

[Samalabear]

I've watched this more than a few times, and I am always struck by Bill Moyers saying that they're covering it at the Journal because the MSM isn't. I am truly trying to figure out why. The NYT does, but that's mainly editorials. At this point it should be on the front page. It is the key to our future in all areas, but especially job growth and hopefully bringing jobs back to this country, manufacturing jobs.

[Corral]

Why don't we collect from each Senator and Representative the total matching funds they have taken as bribes (oh, I mean "contributions") in their lifetimes from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries as a down payment for a single-payer health insurance plan. Gee, that may even pay for the whole plan!

[LuckyBlessed]

LOL. Where is some one with balls and deep pockets to advertise this 24/7?

[MMJones]

And then take away their primo health insurance they get for life...

[ohio4obama]

And isn't that the kicker...

[oakley9]

great idea!

[Garybot]

Yeah - and throw in a house for everybody!

[ohio4obama]

Those jokers masquerading as senators and representatives better give us a public option--a REAL, VIABLE public option.

I've emailed my senators and representative. You should too!

[vanmungo]

Obama's "public-option" plan is not even a half-step forward: it is it is at best a step sideways, and perhaps a step into the abyss. Here's why:

The main advantage of single-payer is risk pooling--everyone is in the same pool: well, sick, young, old, sick, and poor, thus averaging out the risks and costs of guaranteeing cost-efficient coverage to everyone. In the "public-option plan," everyone is NOT in the same risk pool, as they would be in single payer. In a "pub-op" plan, the oldest, sickest, and poorest would end up in the public plan; the youngest and healthiest--and hence most profitable--cohort would aggressively marketed by the private HMOs. Hence the whole advantage of single-payer risk pooling would be lost: combining EVERYONE's resources (through a modest tax rather than bloated private premiums) so that the currently healthy 80 percent subsidize the unhealthy 20 percent and thus achieve cost efficiencies not obtainable if these two groups are in separate pools.

Moreover, because of these untenable costs, the "pub-op" public plan will have to charge premiums and impose deductibles, just like the private plans--more of the same, notwithstanding the "public" branding. This is the essence of sham reform: game the system so that the public sector founders, thus discrediting the idea of publicly funded health care for another generation. We must insist, "Single payer Medicare for all . . . or NO DEAL! Go to www.pnhp.org or www.singlepayeraction.org

[ohio4obama]

Uh, you're preaching to the choir here.

[donaldw6]

Why in the H3LL isn't this the main?

[williamg]

Donald, I ask that question EVERYDAY.

[billiej]

Neither of the false options in the current health care 'debate' addresses the 28-30% overhead represented by the health insurance industry. The primary source of waste – health insurance industry practice – is ‘off the table’. All talk is about trivial changes to a health care system profoundly broken.

People now, if the additional ‘public provider’ option is selected, two scenarios are likely. Scenario One: lobbying will result in a ‘public provider’ option that is very limited – defeating the goal of expanded coverage. Scenario Two: lobbying will doom the ‘public provider’ option by ‘rigging the deck’, ensuring those can profitably enrolled in ‘private sector’ plans are moved to ‘public provider’, driving up public costs, threatening annual funding, allowing the private sector to falsely claim they’re ‘more efficient’ and ‘less costly’ than the ‘government alternative’. Again, defeating the goal of expanded coverage.

It’s ‘written on the wall’; we’ve seen it often, and most people ‘get it’.

People will be shocked when obama stands up and says “We decided to maintain private sector providers who waste 28-30% of your health care dollars denying coverage and maximizing their profits, plus we’re going to add an additional ‘public provider’. That’s change you can believe in!”

A much better option: Put the 28-30% overhead to work providing actual medical care! In other words, the single payer option.

[donaldw6]

I swear, if we pushed it right, we could get a march on Washington together on this one that would make all the legislators tremble.

[jlabonty]

There is a march for June 26th in Washington DC

[LuckyBlessed]

SMART BUSINESS IDEA= CONTINUE USLESS OVERHEAD
Lets just keep lining the pockets of health insurance and pharmaceutical company CEOs. They feel no shame. It's like when the mortgage banker CEOs were brought out from under the rocks, they had no shame. What do they care if they're responsible putting this country further in debt, they have their big houses and country club memberships.

Here's a link to the billions of our dollars that BURN in flames in health Insurance profits alone (not including salaries, bonuses, advertising, and other useless OVERHEAD) from Forbes- http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/industries/Health_Care_Insurance_Managed_Care/1.html .

Anyone have a total dollar amount of how much of our money is wasted in Health Insurance and Pharmecutical Company Profits???

[oakley9]

No but you can be sure it in the billions, if not trillions!

[Samalabear]

Well, if I didn't know better, I think the hospitals on Long Island are single-handed financing Cablevision and their News 12 channel -- one after the other, every one of them, state and private. Pharmaceutical companies, TV every other ad is a pharmaceutical ad and I think pharmaceutical ads are the only companies that haven't cut down when it comes to print, especially women's magazines -- full page and special multi-page inserts.

[AlsoSarah]

"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."

Yes. Every person should have that choice. The insurance companies are scared as hell about "affordable" health care. That means that people will have a choice. The insurance companies won't dictate the terms completely as they do now. Oh they will still make tons of money, but they will have to bargain with us. They don't like that one bit. So expect them to pull out all stops and that means their paid Republican politicians. They will do anything and everything to prevent affordable health care from going through.

[quiviran]

Republicans don't have to fight. The Democrats are killing it in the cradle. Ask about Max Baucus' town hall meetings on healthcare.

[ChelseaC]

Beware of government funding the insurance companies(­subsidies)­--still leaving them in the driver's seat.
True reform would be to completely IGNORE the insurance companies--give them no help, no susidies, ask nothing of them. Instead, we make out own system--Medicare for ALL and allow the REAL competition--real DEMOCRACY to begin. If this were to happen, I suspect there would be a mass exodus by the majority of the population to join MEDICARE, leaving the insurance companies to be on their own.
Leave them alone--why beg them to help us when We The People don't need them.

Allow the repugs to buy their private UNREGULATED insurance policies and see how long it takes them to cry Uncle---Uncle Sam that is........­..........­..
It boggles my mind why these guys even have a seat at the table.

[lily]

Obama only cares about the insurance companies getting their pound of flesh.

He couldn't care less about sick Americans who can't get health insurance.

I hate Obama.

[jlabonty]

Obviously you don't read - so needless to say you hated Obama already.

[ChelseaC]

POTUS,
Nice feel-good speech but could you please skip the platitudes and cut
to the chase and tell us if we're going to get a single payer PUBLIC funded
option--YES or NO?

When I hear the term "affordable health care", I become more concerned about this vague statement.
This process has not worked well thus far. I am not happy with the glossing over of the events concerning Sen. Max Baucus--this is a joke--this is not just a difference of opinion and to say so is to discount this very serious crisis.

[anothervoice2]

Well said.

[lily]

Obama won't do anything without the approval of his corporate masters.

So we are screwed.

[jlabonty]

Lily - get a grip.

[ohio4obama]

I think I can probably answer that.--NO. We probably won't get single payer option. And it's the biggest shame of all.

[williamg]

Understand, even under a single payer plan you will have to pay.

It's never going to be free.

[ChelseaC]

Williamg,
I guess you have not been paying attention--who said Medicare or ant other public option would be free?. It's call taxes--that's how it paid for but cheaper than your private for profit system that you seem to praise.
I saw another one of your posts that stated 85% of Americans are happy with the health care system andtheir insurance companies. If that were not so sad, it would be laughable.

[lentinelia]

Obama's looking for money to finance health care?

Easy.

End the war in Iraq.
That would be an immediate savings of ONE HALF MILLION DOLLARS A MINUTE!

[ChelseaC]

And stop bailing out the banks and wall street....­..........­..........­.
The sad truth is MEDICARE for all would be cheaper but he lacks the cajones to stand up to big pharma and the health insurance industry.

PNHP, clearly demonstrates that passing HR-676 will save us billions they also point
out how we can retrain those who work in the insurance industry.
http://www.pnhp.org/change/

The only excuses not to change is the fear of the insurance industry and how they line some politicians pockets. Not all the Dems are on the take but quite a few are.
We need to let then know, without a public option such as Medicare, their days of serving are coming to an end when we vote them out--Obama included.
Put your representatives on notice now.
Another thing about this is bipartisanship--no Republican that I am aware of supports a public option--so why are we waiting in the wings for THEIR approval? Did Bush/Cheney ask and wait for our approval when they tortured and did their other rotten to the core deeds?
If Dems won't deliver on health care, won't uphold the US Constitution, continue to support Wall St. instead of Main St.--they are no better than Republicans.
I will only support Dems who are REAL Dems--not DINOS.

[williamg]

Actually, he already calculated that in. He (OMB) projects that ending the war will pay for half of the health care reform.

[oakley9]

Money???? Ask the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the HC corporations, big food, big chemical to give back the money they have pilfered in profits from those with illness and disease.
and to the BIG chemical and BIG food and BIG tobacco companies that played their parts in creating disease.

[oakley9]

Exactly.