Obama Weekly Radio Address: Insurers Are "Filling The Airwaves With Deceptive And Dishonest Ads"

WASHINGTON — Pushing back against his critics, President Barack Obama says overhauling the health care system, while helping millions of people, also will test whether policy makers can "serve the national interest despite the unrelenting efforts of the special interests."

The administration is trying to build momentum for the president's overhaul effort after the Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 vote this week for a bill that would extend health care coverage to millions of people. One Republican, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, supported the bill, and the measure faces considerable opposition from the health care industry, labor unions and large business organizations.

"The history is clear: For decades rising health care costs have unleashed havoc on families, businesses and the economy," the president said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. "And for decades, whenever we have tried to reform the system, the insurance companies have done everything in their considerable power to stop us."

"It's smoke and mirrors," the president added. "It's bogus. And it's all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, 'Take one of these, and call us in a decade.' Well, not this time."

The health insurance industry released a study earlier this week concluding that the Finance Committee bill – one of five competing House and Senate health care measures – would raise premiums significantly for millions of people who already have health coverage.

The report drew intense criticism from the White House, congressional Democrats and other advocates of the bill who deemed the study a last-ditch effort to sway public opinion against the White House-backed measure.

Obama said he would not abide "those who would bend the truth or break it to score political points and stop our progress as a country." He accused the industry of "filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads," sending money and lobbyists to Capitol Hill and paying for studies "designed to mislead the American people."

The bills moving through Congress generally would require most Americans to buy insurance, provide federal subsidies to help lower-income people afford coverage and help small businesses defray the cost of extending coverage to their workers.

The measures would bar insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions and limit their ability to charge higher premiums based on age or family size. Expanded coverage would be paid for by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from future Medicare payments to health care providers. Higher taxes also are included in the bills.

Republican opponents say the bills will increase costs for patients, further job losses and give the government more of a say in who gets medical care, and what kind.

"Americans inherently know government interference drives costs up, not down," Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said in the GOP's weekly message. "The massive health care plans being crafted behind closed doors in Washington will ultimately allow the government to decide what doctors we can see, what treatments the government thinks you deserve and what medicines you can receive."

Obama contended the price of not acting will be a devastated U.S. economy because rising health care costs will mean lower salaries and higher unemployment, lower profits and larger numbers of people going without insurance.

Obama said overhauling the system will provide the change voters sought when they went to the polls last November.

"But it also now represents something more: whether or not we as a nation are capable of tackling our toughest challenges; if we can serve the national interest despite the unrelenting efforts of the special interests; if we can still do big things in America," he said.

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On the Net:

Obama address: http://www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/RepublicanConference

Comments

[vandegrasse]

10:23 AM on 12/17/2009

Carry out just one of your many threats and only then will they believe you, Mr. President! Only then. As of now, you are a paper tiger to them.

[Pem3]

01:54 AM on 10/20/2009

Lets see how they bounce back from this wave of change I do not think they will be the same again.

[Scalie]

12:29 AM on 10/20/2009

Yea Prez, but that's what you want, right? Dialogue. Well, that's what you now have...dialogue and freedom of speech.

[justmakingcomments]

12:19 AM on 10/20/2009

and what if you are one of the millions STILL WITHOUT Healthcare?

Obama is being deceitful when he says everyone will get coverage.

[yweston]

04:44 PM on 10/20/2009

How do you know. You are full of "crap". You make such a prediction based on an incomplete bill.

[Sursum]

04:46 PM on 10/19/2009

I live in Texas, and I'm confused.

Tort reform & competition across state lines will lower costs? We have both here. I can choose from dozens of over-priced, "mystery" plans from multiple companies, and compensation for my pain & suffering, should I be a victim of medical malpractice is strictly limited. BUT -- our rates haven't gone down one whit. They're rising along with everyone else's at 20%+ a year.

Government can't do anything right? Then where does Gov't get off administering the death penalty? We have a case right now in which it's heart-breakingly obvious that Texas executed an innocent man, but Gov Perry is doing everything he can to cover it up.

Obama is spot on with his message. We need to end the monopoly of the private insurance companies, and end the death grip that corporate special interests have on our democracy.

I'm glad he had the courage to say this. If he gives up a second term politically (read: no funds from Big Biz) to get health coverage for us little folks, he will be a true American hero.

[midatlantic girl]

07:20 PM on 10/19/2009

Be like Daniel. Take a stand~ it's now or never.

[NeoConsAreFinished]

09:20 PM on 10/19/2009

Sursum kudos to your for speaking out.
Call the White House. It takes 3 minutes to tell them how you feel about this issue. It means more to them than an email.

[FunPie]

03:32 PM on 10/19/2009

How can Republicans keep arguing that a public option violates free choice? We have an employer based health care system, which means you get the choice of whoever your employer chooses to cover you. And last time I checked, we have a 9.8% unemployment rate, which means millions of people don't even have that choice. Listen to the This American Life episodes on health care. They are extremely enlightening.

http://thefunpie.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/sneaky-single-payer-loving-democrats-public-option-tricks-are-for-kids/

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:52 PM on 10/19/2009

They argue that point because they think it has the traction to slow down reform, not because they think it is truth.

[spirit22]

11:54 PM on 10/20/2009

Because they are pathological liers who will say anything to win.

[showtel]

02:35 PM on 10/19/2009

Wow. Astonishing! No President has ever said this in lifetime:

"The history is clear: For decades rising health care costs have unleashed havoc on families, businesses and the economy," the president said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. "And for decades, whenever we have tried to reform the system, the insurance companies have done everything in their considerable power to stop us."

And what follows in the article is only because the Insurance companies want to keep their points high on Wall Street, it has nothing to do with the health of the insured:

The health insurance industry released a study earlier this week concluding that the Finance Committee bill – one of five competing House and Senate health care measures – would raise premiums significantly for millions of people who already have health coverage.

Much Appreciation to Barack for bringing their methods out of the closet!

yay!

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/17/obama-weekly-radio-addres_n_324648.html

[lvogt]

01:48 PM on 10/19/2009

The health insurance industry serves no purpose beyond it's own profit. The profits of the companies are in direct opposition to payments for care. This is a system so flawed in it's concept that it should be eliminated. The idea that the government can't afford to insure people is made absurd by the fact that so many governments do it successfully. The idea that government will deny coverage is made absurd by the success of medicare and the denial of coverage by the current insurance companies. The idea that government is inefficient is made absurd by the fact that the insurance company overhead is 10 times that of medicare. The anecdotal stories of problems in countries with national universal care are dwarfed by the horror stories of denial and betrayal by private insurance we see here every day.

[mommaserene]

02:55 PM on 10/19/2009

Exactly. fanned and favorited.

[seattlejames]

07:28 PM on 10/19/2009

There is a study done a few years ago which stated that Medicare denials were 3 or 4 times higher than the top 5 private insurers. The study did not report the fact that patients can be denied treatment in the private insurance pre-approval phase. Denials are only counted after a claim has been submitted. If you limit the number of actual claims by denying them in the pre-authorization phase, of course your denial rate will be small. Medicare doesn't require pre-approvals.

[SurrealPumpkin]

09:28 AM on 10/20/2009

I've only had one denial from Medicare. The denial letter concluded that as it seemed that I had not been informed that Medicare might refuse to pay for the procedure I shouldn't pay for it. Not exactly worded that way, but essentially what it meant. The doctor started requiring patients to sign a form accepting liability if the insurer refused to pay for a procedure.

[bioluminescence]

11:28 AM on 10/19/2009

The health industry and the financial services industry have one thing in common. When unregulated they will do what they do best. They will deliver maximum profits to their masters. Everything else is secondary.

We thought we elected a president who understood this. We thought that by giving him Democratic support of the House and the Senate he could deliver the fundamental change in health care policy and the restoration of constitutional authority he promised us.

And we thought that 10 months into his presidency, getting tough with the health care industry would mean more than delivering speeches to them.

[acacia72]

03:52 PM on 10/19/2009

"And we thought that 10 months into his presidency, getting tough with the health care industry would mean more than delivering speeches to them."

Good things take time, especially when fighting an uphill battle against entrenched corporate interests; in reality it will probably take at least another 10 years before we see anything resembling European healthcare. Yet the battle has begun; the American people are beginning to realize they deserve far better, and are beginning to demand decent inexpensive healthcare, and will continue to demand decent, inexpensive healthcare until it becomes a reality. The insurance companies days of plunder-for-profit at the expense of Americans health and well-being are numbered; count on it.

Point taken inre to President Obama. Still, I say give him 4 years to produce before calling him a paper lion.

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:56 PM on 10/19/2009

I suppose you'd prefer that he instead use his robot-cannon arms and laser beams from his eyes to destroy opposition? His role in the system is to make speeches and to inspire the change that we want to see. He is doing exactly that. We don't live in a military dictatorship where every whim of the president becomes instant policy, nor do we desire such a system.

[SurrealPumpkin]

09:29 AM on 10/20/2009

People get confused because for the last 8 years that's exactly the system we had. It was aberrant, but you need experience of a time before that to realize it.

[suz1941]

11:03 AM on 10/19/2009

What's wrong with the decision makers in Washington? The people we elect to represent us. On both sides of the aisle, our elected officials are tehered to mega corporations. I include the pharma and insurance companies, to start with a few. If you want to eliminate any doubt as to who your elected officials are working for, the way to start solving that problem is through - CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! It is disgraceful what is being raised and spent on campaigns. Don't think for one minute that the small contribution that Mr. and Mrs. America send to their candidate is going to be given the same weight as the thousands and thousands of dollars given by corporations. Don't think for one minute that once elected, the perks that come with the office, from corporations and high rollers, are just too much to pass up.

In addition, the number of LOBBYSIST per elected official in Washington is staggering. Let's see Washington do something about that. Think about it, if you are a representative that runs for re-election every two years, you are constantly somewhere with your hand out and there are plenty of corporations that can buy into their souls.

It is a vicious cycle and one that needs to be addressed. If elected officials had to depend on their constiuents for campaign funds, I guarantee you they would hear the voices that want health care reform.

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:57 PM on 10/19/2009

What's wrong is that our campaign finance system requires our representatives to be corporate whores in order to get elected. Quit blaming the rep's and reform the system.

[jmpurser]

09:52 AM on 10/19/2009

And Obama is basing our entire "health care reform" plan on these "dishonest and deceptive" companies.

[NeoConsAreFinished]

03:13 PM on 10/19/2009

It could be worse..
If you had elected repubes then you would have:
1 Privatization of SS
2 More and bigger war
3 More tax breaks for the rich
4 No work on healthcare unless it involves deregulation

Need I go on?

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:58 PM on 10/19/2009

Don't forget the repeat of 9/11 just to get everyone back into "shock and awe" mode.

[IGGHY]

09:19 AM on 10/19/2009

So they were profiting from anti-trust exemption while denying people coverages. Financial industry is making record profit with taxpayers bailout money while choking job growth. This is socialism at its worst. Level the playing field. If the government can't level the field, they should minimize themselves instead of lopsiding the field further by helping big businiss.

[Eris23Skidoo]

09:09 PM on 10/19/2009

Socialism at its worst? This is not socialism of any kind. Every last thing that sucks is NOT, by definition, "socialism". This is called CRONY CAPITALISM and it borders on fascism when the government supports industry. Socialism is when government is IN OPPOSITION to industry and/or when industry is defanged enough that the two can partner without corruption. Socialism is not the opposite of capitalism, socialism is the opposite of corporatism.

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, its just the opposite." JK Galbraith

[NeoConsAreFinished]

09:22 PM on 10/19/2009

We control the gambling industry. Why cant we control other industries that are important to our survival. Health, Energy, Food, Etc.

[1differentdrummer]

05:19 AM on 10/19/2009

I'll post this again; I know a couple in a small business who just received a 43% premium increase from their insurer with NO change in people. One of them used their insurance and the insurer is making them pay for that.

[justobserve]

06:55 AM on 10/19/2009

That's the reason we need the reform in the first place. Then Obama spoiled it by not supporting a public option but forced people to join in the private insurance! More money for private insurers!

[SurrealPumpkin]

09:31 AM on 10/20/2009

Obama still supports the public option, but will accept any plan that achieves the same result. It isn't a done deal yet.

[screamingCNN]

04:57 AM on 10/19/2009

about time!

[MorgaineChya]

04:36 AM on 10/19/2009

President Obama is simply trying to distract us from the fact that it is now obvious he had no intention of keeping his HCR campaign promise.

He really has some nerve criticizing the insurance industry for ly ing to us when he himself has done far worse.