Obama Pitching Health Care Plan In Chicago Monday

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama plans to speak to the American Medical Association on Monday to push for his health care overhaul.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday that Obama will travel to Chicago to pitch the powerful association's annual meeting. Gibbs says Obama will call the status quo unacceptable during the Monday speech.

Gibbs says Obama will describe why past efforts to change health care systems failed and warn about what happens if the overhaul doesn't take place this year.

Obama is taking a more forceful approach to his health care overhaul. He heads to Green Bay, Wis., on Thursday to talk with voters about his plan.

-ASSOCIATED PRESS

Comments

[Chicagofan1]

I am not a big fan of Obama’ policies, but knowing the HC industry on the Administrative side, I believe that the single health care system is the only solution if you are looking to provide quality Health care for ALL. If there will be any competition between private and government plans, it will create a major disaster for people who will be under the gov. plan.
Insurances will be able pick and choose the people they want to insure (if they do not like you then go to the gov. plan) and same goes for doctors. Private ins. comp. will pick only the best doctors to attract "better" insurers and we all know who will get hurt the most. It's all about doctors and quality of HC.
It's either single payer plan or nothing good will come out of it. It's too important and complicated.

[Muley]

ATTENTION: Chicago Single Payer Activists and Supporters-
President Barak Obama will be speaking at the AMA annual meeting sometime on Monday.
Single payer activists and supporters plan to use the occasion to demonstrate in favor of single-payer universal health care.
WHEN: Monday June 15, 11:00 am
WHERE: Tribune Tower, 435 North Michigan Avenue, near the American Gothic sculpture
The location is some distance from the hotel where the AMA meeting is being held to prevent demonstrators from having to deal with security problems.
Hope to see a large crowd!

[DrJulienArbor]

Here's some beat for you to play for them...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr0HdiLCsXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeB1Ro6hXMo
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/video/view.aspx?songID=837
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFpregq5eJ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7pQpNx-F4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-tbJOFcQw8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY7Hh5PzELo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZxuYjLnxGo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_drlO5vSU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_5DoQhu9y8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6Kys_t_GNg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUrJdf4PbEk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgMn2OJmx3w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NT0rVJ41PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHNsLd-Yoqc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqtjpCGhCQk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwlC9J1CAUs

And some continuing education for them...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NpZA_BAU2g

Safe travels.

[OptimusMaximus]

So, let me be sure I understand liberal logic.

Most all the liberals hyperventilate about the Bush Administration breaking the LAW on the torture issue, and want the Bush administration prosecuted for WAR CRIMES, even though the victims are not American Citizens, and even though there is a serious legal debate about whether water boarding meets the definition of torture/

Yet, when it comes to Universal Health Care, which is clearly beyond the powers granted to the Federal Government by the constitution, and would clearly be a breaking of the LAW by any reasoned reading of the constitution, most liberals again hyperventilate if some form of Universal Health Care is not immediately enacted by Congress in this session.

So, who gets to pick and choose which LAWS get to be broken with impunity?

I thought all members of the three Federal branches (legislative, executive, and judicial) took an oath upon assuming office to "uphold, protect, and defend" the US constitution.

Can you guys not see the utter illogic of your positions?

Just asking....

[PINO]

---------------------
peabodies wrote: With Single Payer, we pay taxes, and choose our doctors...
---------------------

Hold on there...I thought the talk was that obama-care WAN'T single-payer, and now you are using the term. How interesting.

Democrats have taken great care to make the new health-care plans hitting the House and Senate this week look like anything but single-payer, socialized medicine. They insist that they want to maintain the private insurers in the market and give Americans choices in coverage. However, by pushing for a government-run plan to “keep insurers honest,” they have created a Trojan horse for socialized medicine. Period.

Government exists to service its interests, at least in its present form. Mostly, it serves to further itself. Any government bureaucracy that sees danger in competition will work to eliminate it. The dynamic in health-care plans would not be government making private insurers “more honest”, but in squeezing them out of the marketplace to create a monopoly.

Any public option offered by the government will be nothing more than a virus at the heart of the plan, through which the statists can push through a single-payer national health care system, and it won’t take that long to get it. Once the insurers understand the dynamic, they will run away from their health-care plans at lightning speed, leaving the field to Medicare, or whatever new name the Left dreams up for it.

[Bronxdude]

Isn’t marketplace competition the backbone of capitalism? If so, let the greed-driven private health insurance providers compete with the government for my business. Members of Congress have no less than seven health insurance plans to choose from. Why can’t I have the same option? In Georgia, Cigna and UnitedHealthcare officials colluded with state republicans to eliminate Blue Cross and Blue Shield as a competitor, narrowing the slate of choices to two, with the end result being higher premiums, bigger profit, and reduced benefits. To republicans, the definition of choice is seven of more, while the definition of choice for the average American is two. What a crock!

[Bronxdude]

In collusion with health insurance corporations, pharmaceutical manufactures, and physicians who regard healthcare as only a revenue stream, the Reagan deregulated, for-profit medical culture has methodically raped America, while complicit, unscrupulous, and self-serving republicans silenced by special interest, graft, and kick-backs acquiesce. Since obstructionistic republicans support the systematic plundering of the middleclass by ruthless corporations like UnitedHealthcare, this is why we need government oversight between the public and greed-driven health insurance providers. Profit at the expense of human suffering is a republican engineered abomination. Bipartisan or not, true non-profit health insurance reform will provide affordable and cost-effective options that include a public offering. Since Georgia is self-insured, state employees have no due process patient protection rights, which means UnitedHealthcare can deny medical care and authorize exorbitant copays and deductibles with no appeal oversight. Real, quality-driven reform will end the monopolistic strangle-hold enjoyed by morally bankrupt health insurance corporations. In Georgia, Cigna and UnitedHealthcare officials colluded with state republicans to eliminate Blue Cross and Blue Shield as a competitor, narrowing the slate of choices to two, with the end result being higher premiums, bigger profit, and reduced benefits. Mr. Obama: The health insurance industry (and the despicable republicans they bankroll) will not retreat quietly from billions in annual profits! I want the same affordable, universal, federally subsidized health insurance Congress and their families enjoy. When compared to the average American, why do politicians live longer? Answer: universal, affordable health insurance.

[USCitizenShareHolder]

HEALTH CARE MARCH ON WASHINGTON

June 25, 2009

for a single payer public option

go to the website below:

http://www.healthcare09.org/

[Oakland]

Big whoop! Obama is all talk and no go. Compare his campaign promises to the low hanging fruit he delivered. Bush/Obama, what's the difference. I don't see change worth noticing in policy.

Vote third party............. Throw all the crooks out.

[Derelict outlaw]

With 11% unemployment we could easily put 20 million Americans into the streets and on his TV tell him not to sell out on Single Payer

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

[Derelict outlaw]

President Obama needs your help, tell him not to sell us out on the single payer plan he convinced us was best, it takes 20 seconds to tell him before Monday, do it again and again tell your friends and family

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

[Thefamilyvan]

I applaud the President for pushing his health care plan as quickly as he has.... the last one to do that was Clinton, and he didn't get far at all...This is major and we need the Congress.... especially those Senators on board with this. If we don't... it will go down.

[rxvette]

The private health insurance companies, drug companies, and lawyers have got to be put in their place once and for all. They're letting their greed bankrupt the U.S. healthcare system and diminish care for everyone. Read the story below on an example of how our current unregulated capitalistic healthcare system has failed one of millions of Americans:

http://rxvette.blogspot.com/2009/05/healthcare-reform-touches-home.html

[Peabodies]

Part 2-- health care musings.
This from the U.K. [MPs --Members of Parliament, Royal Mail, the unionized British postal service, NHS the government -run National Health Service]

"What really intrigues me is how some MPs are all anxious about "part" privatisation of the ROyal Mail, and yet not a single one of them has ever made the slightest whimper about the now far-advanced, and far more damaging, irresversible, privatisation of the NHS, as piece by piece it is being repackaged and sold to PRIVATE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE COMPANIES (my capitals)". --random blogger from the U.K.

Today, Wednesday, June 10, on the Hill, health care professionals made it clear that they believe a single-payer system to be the best and perhaps only workable option for health care reform ... "Our most famous radical document begins with the words, 'We the People.' Not 'We the Insurers,'" Walter Tsou, University of Pennsylvania.

"Unless you can stop the insurance industry price gouging, we simply cannot make health care affordable, which means you either have price controls on the insurance industry or you take them out of the equation through single-payer reform," --Geri Jenkins, National Nurses Organizing Committee.

Talk about having the fox guarding the henhouse -- "After all Sen. Baucus is essentially an employee of the insurance companies. Why would anyone expect him to bite the hand that feeds him?"

[Peabodies]

On President Obama meeting the AMA next Monday, my thoughts. The American Medical Association isn't the people's friend in this debate. They derailed the reform that Pres. Truman advocated that would have put us on par with the rest of the world in 1947, and they're still at it!! They are limiting the numbers of health care professionals being graduated in U.S. institutions. Ever wonder why so many of your health providers have foreign-sounding names? They have prepared for this moment for decades. You want single payer? We CAN'T STAFF IT.

Senator Jeff Merkley, quoting a GOP strategist : "Frank Luntz's memo, that's his memo on how to kill health care, came out in April. It says - talking point number five - "Health denial care horror stories in Canada and other countries do resonate, but you have to humanize them. You notice we recommend the phrase 'government takeover' rather than 'government run' or 'government control.'" Why? Because government takeover sounds even scarier".

Hmmm, Mr. Luntz, we've had insurance companies takeover of our healthcare for decades, and we're sick of it. Give us SINGLE PAYER. Instead of the bloated bills, each month, we'll pay more in taxes, but in the end we'll sleep better (our employer won't have control of our family's "health"), and WE WILL PAY LESS.

"The time has come to strike the right balance between the government and the market, for integrating social and environmental factors and demilitarising the economy". Mikhail Gorbachev, June 10, 2009

[ChelseaC]

Peabodies,
Well said.