Obama Presses Hard to Unite Dems on Healthcare and Slaps Down Republican "Demagoguery"

It was not surprising to see the Republican side of the joint session of Congress sit in their chairs like scolded school children wearing universally constipated expressions of disdain as President Barack Obama presented a powerful and effective consensus healthcare plan to unite the Democrats.

It was also not surprising to hear a member of the Republican side scream out "lie" during a presidential address, one of the most shameful acts ever witnessed, when Obama slapped down one GOP lie after another that he correctly stated were driven by politics rather than care for the American people.

Obama's healthcare concensus plan is plain and simple. And while the Republicans will not loosen their grips on their "bogus claims," as Obama put it, Obama outlined a vision that can help put to rest the most egregious lies even if Republicans, like GOP spokesman US Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), refuse to let up on the "scary stories."

Obama spelled out in English what Republicans will certainly seek to distort in their familiar language of demagoguery. In the first part, Obama said:

1. There will be NO CHANGE in job related insurance, Medicare, Medicaid or VA provided health coverage. NO CHANGE "in what you have."
2. Will prevent the insurance robber barons from continuing to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, (the one proposal that drew Republican support). Obama promised that would be in the bill he signs.
3. No arbitrary caps on coverage costs for patient care. (That has to hurt the insurance industry right where its cold blooded pulse beats!)
4.  Insurance companies will be required to provide basic coverage for routine examines like breast cancer screenings to prevent breast cancer.

In the second part, Obama said that over the next four years:

1. an insurance exchange will be created where coops of insurance coverage will be made available to those who lose health insurance when they leave or lose their jobs, or change jobs or are self-insured. It's a brilliant idea as Piers Morgan of America's Got Talent might say.
2. For those who can't afford even that coverage, tax credits will be made available to help them cover the costs. Government will offer low-cost coverage to the poor, an idea Obama credited to his former presidential rival Sen. John McCain.
3. Everyone will be required to carry basic health insurance, just as everyone is required to carry auto insurance, a proposal that saves billions in money spent to cover those who think they won't have health problems and then do.

Obama spoke to the "demagoguery" and the "bogus claims" forcefully, adding even more to the constipated Republican expressions int he audience. Obama drove a stake into the vampire heart of the Republican narrative when he stressed:

1. There will not be any "death panels" as advocated by the disgraced former candidate for vice president Sarah Palin, to kill off senior citizens. "It's a lie plain and simple!"
2. The Obama healthcare plan WILL NOT cover or apply to anyone who is in this country illegally.
3. No Federal dollars will fund abortion.
4. There will be no government takeover of private healthcare, promising that the public will have a "choice." No one will be forced to leave their existing coverage to take the modified public option that Republicans have used as the foundation for their demagoguery against health care reform and the defense of the insurance industry lobby. He called on the stoic Republican audience to stop making their "wild claims about government takeover."

In ending his speech, the 15th Presidential address to a joint session of congresss since 1952 (according to retiring ABC Anchor Chalres Gibson), not one dollar of the "sacred trust" called Medicare will be used to fund the healthcare reforms.

"Don't pay attention to those scary stories that your medicare will be cut ... I will protect medicare."

Obama made some final points addressing the scare tactics that his plan is "socialism" or that this is a "government takeover of healthcare, after paying a powerful tribute to the late Sen Ted Kennedy, paraphrasing Kennedy's powerful repeated public tragedy that many families face: "There is something that will make you better, but I can't afford it."

The President reminded the Republicans -- and it was clear the first part of his speech outlining the consensus health care plan to unite the Democrats and the second part was to slam down the GOP demagoguery -- that Social Security was also denounced as "Socialism" when it was first proposed in the 1930s, and Medicare was also denounced as a government takeover when it was proposed in the 1960s.

The President's speech was so powerful it probably sent many of the nation's health insurance industry robber barons into economic cardiac arrest.

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Follow Ray Hanania on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rayhanania

Comments

[Pinkie e]

Not one dime...NOT ONE DIME I tell you .... will come from the national deficit to pay for this HC bill. It will all be funded by the savings we get from fraud and waste in the present system." That statement alone should be enough to scare the hell out of us. Will we hear any criticism from PBO's personal guard dog media..MSN­BC CBS ABC NY Times etc. Of course not and that's even scarier !

[William50]

The Republicans are liken best to a church with many of its congregation leaving to a more moderate fellowship. They have to continue to rant to those who stay, because that is what they want to hear and pay for, but the know they have to change.
Be very careful about saying that the Republicans are dead or ranting, they may be weakened but they also have vast money from the major corporations supporting them. Do not say the Rush is their leader, he is just a mad dog being allowed to howl to keep you off guard. Watch instead if there is a slow takeover of the party. Because and when this happens, they may be called Republican but they will be in fact strongly middleamerican. Because this is where the true power lies, in that large middleamerican population that is for America.
middleamerican2010
Casey

[DivaDev]

Interestingly, Rep. Joe Wilson's site is "down for maintenance" and has been since late last night:

http://www.joewilson.house.gov/

I'm a web developer and can tell you that site is not "down for maintenance" all this time. It's 2009 and we just don't let a site go down and stay down that long. We fix it, and we fix it fast.

I'm tired of watching such disrespectful outbursts that show little regard for the office of the Presidency. I wasn't a big fan of W.'s policies, but I can tell you that I never showed public disrespect for him. What makes it worse is that much of this is coming from people who call themselves followers of Jesus. I'm a follower of Jesus who reads and knows my Bible, and I can tell you it instructs us to respect our leaders, telling us clearly that no one is placed in leadership except that God has made it so.

For some reason, today's crop of evangelists seems to conveniently forget that verse and tailor the Bible to match their current political views.

Just so you know, not all Christians are going along with that, and some of us are starting to call them on the carpet.

[MalleusMaleficarum]

The Republican performance during the presidential address was abominable. Sitting in their chairs, gawking, gesticulating, frowning, waving bits of paper -- they were exactly like "unruly school children" listening to a lecture about discipline in the school yard. But, they just don't get it. These people are not worthy of the nation they serve, and neither are the people who elected them -- and continue to support them. Whose responsibility is this travesty of justice? Our's -- those of us lucky enough to have been educated and nurtured competently. The cluster of imbecility nestled in the South -- surrounding New Orleans in an arc extending for 500 miles as well as sweeping across through Texas and northward up into the Great Plains to the Dakotas with branches into the Western lands: Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona, Montana -- we have a nation within a nation saturated with olde tyme religion and its accompanying cant: creationism; anti-abortionism; anti-communism; racism; sexism and every other form of xenophobia; paranoia and schizophrenia. This very dangerous mass hysteria defies logic -- and it is the responsibility of every sane American to alleviate it -- and the pain it causes to its victims and their victims who are the rest of us who live with people so fundamentally challenged by modernity that they would prefer to pay their escalating insurance premiums until they die as a result of a lack of coverage rather than to adopt the real world solutions of every other advanced industrialized nation on

[Franzie]

The plan is without details. That is known as a concept. Concepts are not something we should hang our hats on. The federal government endowing themselves with the expertise in healthcare is like having my grandma work on my car. Develop a plan, research, gather data then take a course of action. Doing something for the sake of doing something does nothing. There were great points presented but no solid plan to resolve. Acting on what was presented last evening is a gamble that is too risky to consider.
The public option which is so touted by some is like having the US Postal Service compete with FedEx and UPS and a myriad of other competitors. I read they are shuting down over 400 post offices nationwide due to not being able to contain costs and operate with existing revenue. The answer is not to tax any entity more to make the post office work. The same goes for a public option. It is a pandora's box awaiting the hand of the government to unleash it's fury upon the common citizen. It will be known as Medicant.
My point is giddy does not mean correct when deciding what course of action to take for the sake of all Americans. Calm down, use data, look at costs, and make judgements based on the big picture. Policy created to win votes never helped America prosper. My wallet is in cardiac arrest.

[jayjay4142]

When the republicans are in the majority they come up with details . Details like how to give the corporations more taxbreaks. How to de-regulate any of the large companies like banks , credit card companies, insurance companies etc. How to pay the working man as little as possible so that the Execfutives can keep on getting larger and larger salaries. We have seen our jobs outsourced, our housing costs rise, educating our children cost has skyrocketed. Yet now we have come to the point where we feel greatful to a company for giving us a cut in hours and salary because we are fortunate to have a job at all. The Republican party and any other party who is guilty of enabling these things to go on, should never consider themselves patriotic and most especially moral.

[mergina]

Talk is cheap. He still seems POWERLESS.

[donnabella]

excellent article, ray! you've got a new fan ;-)

[tel8034]

"It was not surprising to see the Republican side of the joint session of Congress sit in their chairs like scolded school children wearing universally constipated expressions of disdain"

"It was also not surprising to hear a member of the Republican side scream out "lie" during a presidential address, one of the most shameful acts ever witnessed"

----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­-----

But you forgot to mention the signs held by the elected republicans which read "What Bill?", and the papers which supposedly had their version of a healthcare bill (quite THIN).

It was as if the rethugs thought they were going to an incited mob town hall, with their signs, and their hate speech, rather than attending an event where the President was addressing a joint session of congress.

YET THEY WANT TO BE RESPECTED AS ELECTED OFFICIALS ..........­.... GO FIGURE.

[Aesops]

Yeah it's a bit perplexing being outside America and seeing that it's the Christian Right that don't want to give poor people healthcare­....I'm not a practicing Christian, but wasn't that a big part of what Jesus was up to while he was here on earth? And yet when it comes to expensive wars that kill thousands of innocents, they're on board with that....

$900 billion over the next 10 years for Healthcare = BAD,
$500 billion EACH YEAR for Military = GOOD?

How about $400 Billion a year for the military and $100m a year so people at home don't die from being uninsured? Doesn't that sound like a more reasonable use of finite resources?

Oh wait, now I get it. If all of those poor boys get free healthcare, they won't need to join the US military to get it anymore! Who will die for "freedom" then?

[benjaminblue]

It is not that the immigrants should not have health care at some point; it is that all legal citizens should have coverage first.

[mcthfg]

What is with the racism towards people in this country illegally? THEY WORK HERE. Some pay into social security, yet will never see a cent back. They should get health care. They are human beings, and to deny them health care is inhumane. It is idiotic to think that giving health care to people here illegally will cost anywhere near what it is currently costing us to have Blackwater murder people in Irag and Afganistan.

I'm willing to help ALL the less fortunate people in this country have access to health care. It is too bad so many right-wing "christians" don't feel the same way.

[emariejon]

For a supposedly "Christian" nation, we sure don't live by the Golden Rule, do we?

[Policon]

But we're not a Christian nation. Obama said so.

[athenap]

It's rather shameful that the Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, etc" and then somebody went and scribbled at the end, "but not if they're sick."

[Dosadi]

The Republicans keep this controversy going because their brand of politics requires an "enemy" to rail against. They have to have someone they can throw at the populace to scare them into submission. That is what it is all about. Americans are supposed to be afraid of illegal immigrants. They are the new enemy (along with never seen terrorists) and it is mandatory that the Republicans have an enemy to point at.

[marxmarv]

"Observe", the trickster says to the audience, "there is nothing in my left hand", while bringing in thousands of sham-diplomaed guest workers on H-1B visas with his right.

[gs-425]

The emotional play to the rule of law is pathetic at best.

[mozartssister]

Thank you. I couldn't agree more. They are people too, believe it or not, and our economy as it currently functions would be far worse without them, the haters' denials to the contrary.

Common human decency . . . a rare commodity.