Obama’s New Hampshire Pep Rally was a farce. The bipartisan hand-picked audience was filmed as they emerged from union buses, and when they broke out in a chant of “Yes we can! Yes We can! Yes we can! at the end of the president’s opening remarks. He then went on to demonstrate that he is unfamiliar with what is actually in the bill, and to make a number of misleading and false statements about the legislation working its way through Congress.
He has said repeatedly that “Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.“ The purpose of the public option is to move Americans out of their private coverage and into government run health care. The non-partisan Lewin Group has confirmed that the House bill, H.R. 3200, will move about 88.1 million workers from their current private employer-sponsored health plan into the public plan.
“We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors.“ False. The AARP released a statement yesterday directly contradicting the president. “While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”
“I just want to be clear again: Seniors who are listening here, this does not affect your benefits. This is not money going to you to pay for your benefits; this is money that is subsidizing folks who don’t need it.” Like doctors, hospitals and service providers. Many older Americans are having trouble finding a primary-care doctor who will treat them. ObamaCare plans to cut $485 billion from reimbursement for care providers. They also plan to kill the Medicare Advantage program which is extremely popular with seniors. It covers all the traditional Medicare benefits and much more. 22% of Medicare patients (10.5 million seniors) are currently enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs.
“I said I won’t sign a bill that adds to the deficit or the national debt. Okay? So this will have to be paid for.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that the House bill will increase the budget deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, and another trillion over the 2nd decade. Costs will go up at 8% a year while revenues will increase at only 5%. The Senate has not yet figured out how to pay for their bill. They keep talking about taxing “the rich” but
This is just some of the misinformation and falsehoods that came from the President’s “Town Hall”meeting yesterday. Attempts to discredit doctors, suggest that they do unnecessary tonsillectomies when a pill would do, and discredit the pharmaceutical companies who invest so much in bringing life-saving and life-extending medicines to market are unseemly, and unworthy of being used to sway voters.
American citizens have every right to confront their representatives, to be angry, to demand to be heard. To call them “brownshirts” as Brian Baird (D-WA) did, claim they are un-American as Nancy Pelosi (D-SF) did is an outrageous assertion by representatives who have clearly forgotten the first amendment and their constitutional oath.
Democrats are trying to demonize the health insurance companies, claiming that they deny claims, drive people into bankruptcy, cheat people and squeeze out too much profit. Executives are supposedly vastly overpaid. CEOs of most major companies are elected after vast experience at all levels of corporate endeavor, when they have proved their expertise and seem to deserve promotion. Most politicians cannot make the same claim either to expertise or experience. The demonized insurance companies operate on a 3.3% profit margin, and for-profit hospitals have a 3% profit margin.
I have never met anyone who has had their claim denied or been treated badly by a health insurance company. My experience has always been positive, but I can speak only for myself. The Democrats are attempting to create a villain to distract attention from their efforts to avoid meeting with their constituents or listening to objections to their planned legislation. And for the White House to suggest that those who disagree with the President should be turned in, is something new and appalling.
The Obama administration announced some time ago that they planned to spend $80 million to sell the President’s health care plan. Advertisments are appearing on Craig’s List all over the country offering $10-$15 an hour for helping to sell the plan. George Soros has just donated another $50 million to the cause, so Democrats are very determined to force this plan on the American people who, according to the polls, do not want it. The pharmaceutical lobbies, in backroom meetings with the Obama administration, have agreed to cut their prices by $80 billion over 10 years, in exchange for a promise that they will not be asked to cut further. They have also agreed to sponsor pro-ObamaCare television ads for $1.5 million.
The angriest people and those most in evidence at town-hall meetings seem to be the older folks who — Democrats should be reminded — always, always vote.
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I don’t get it.
How can you be “pro life” and not support the most
life affirming service in the world; helping the sick?
Do you know you are working for the big health care lobbyists?
Rick Scott, Ex-Hospital CEO, Leads The Campaign Against Health Care Reform
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002243.html
Scott, a multimillionaire investor and controversial former hospital chief executive,
Comment by christianliberal August 13, 2009 @ 9:47 amhas become an unlikely and prominent leader of the opposition to health-care reform
plans that Congress is expected to take up later this year. While disorganized Republicans
and major health-care companies wait for President Obama and Democratic leaders to
reveal the details of their plan before criticizing it, Scott is using $5 million of his own
money and up to $15 million more from supporters to try to build resistance to
ANY government-run program.
Why would you assume that “multimillionaire” and “investor” and “chief executive” are the important descriptive words about someone working against government run health care? I don’t know Mr. Scott, or anything about him, but in the present situation that he was a hospital CEO denotes some inside knowledge about health care. There is a very long history of government health care plans, and they vary in the amounts of government control, but they also are all in financial trouble.
Assuming that the bill now in the House is about “helping the sick” is in error. It is about government control of one-sixth of the economy, and thus control of the votes of those who depend on the government for their health care. If it were about “helping the sick” and “the best of medicine”, you would find members of Congress and of the other branches of government eager to join. They have no intention of participating, and have passed laws to assure that they don’t have to.
The Obama administration is spending $80 million to push their health-care plan. George Soros is putting in more than $5 million to push the plan through. Why is Mr. Scott’s contribution to the other side reprehensible? The American people do not want Obama’s health care reform, according to polls, and with justification.
The costs of health-care have risen all across the world. We have all sorts of new technology from CT scans and MRIs to new ones that I don’t even know the name of yet. These diagnostic tools are saving lives. Pharmaceutical discoveries are extending and saving lives, but they are not cheap. On average, a new drug costs over $1 billion to bring to market. When people do not have to pay for their own doctor visits (employer-provided) too many run off to the doctor every time they have a cold. There are many ways to bring the cost of health care down. All have been opposed by Democrats who want single-payer government control. There are no cost-cutting provisions in the house bill, only rationing– cutting payments to hospitals, doctors and suppliers. Democrats have never understood that if businesses cannot make a profit, they cannot remain in business. The profit margin for hospitals is 3% and for Insurance companies 3.3% — far lower than most corporations.
There is no one in America who goes without health care. The number of people who are uninsured because they cannot afford insurance is around 10 million. The remainder are young healthy adults who don’t want insurance, people who could afford insurance but choose not to buy it, illegal immigrants, and people who are eligible for some other government program but have not applied. We have the world’s best health care, the best outcomes for major disease, and granted, the most expensive — largely because we can afford it.
The claim that government health care will cost less are absurd on the face. They want to insure 46 million more people, insure all illegal immigrants, insure people who do not get insurance until they are diagnosed with an expensive illness, and do no serious cost cutting measures except to pay all providers less and it’s going to cost less? The CBO estimates 1.2 trillion over the next ten years. Private estimates double that.
Before you criticize, read the whole post, and the links which provide further information. Otherwise, you don’t know what you are talking about.
Comment by The Elephant's Child August 13, 2009 @ 2:22 pm[...] Pontifications: Obama: Goal Is to Eliminate Private Health Insurance American Elephants: The Democrats Really, Really Don’t Want to Hear From You About Nationalized Health Care Chris Burgard, Big Hollywood: Dear Mr. President, Please Don’t Kill My Kids Right Voices: [...]
Pingback by San Francisco’s Pelosi, Feinstein, Boxer Refuse to Host ObamaCare Town Hall Meetings… Citizens Will Hold Their Own Mock Town Hall Meeting and Candle Vigil (UPDATE: Boxer’s Book Tour) « Frugal Café Blog Zone August 15, 2009 @ 8:57 am[...] Deceiver.com on Pelosi and Obama: Goal Is to Eliminate Private Health Insurance American Elephants: The Democrats Really, Really Don’t Want to Hear From You About Nationalized Health Care Chris Burgard, Big Hollywood: Dear Mr. President, Please Don’t Kill My Kids Right Voices: [...]
Pingback by “You Can Bet Our Astro-Turf…” San Francisco Tea Party Against Health Care (video) « Frugal Café Blog Zone August 15, 2009 @ 1:08 pmYeah, our health care is “the best in the world.” That’s why the citizens of all the other industrialized countries clamor to dump their national health insurance plans.
Oh, wait — they all recognize our health insurance for the expensive joke it is, and their public polls show they want nothing to do with the expensive, inequitable chaos of American health insurance.
We pay more, for less, amd it’s time we Americans woke up and realized the cost savings of health insurance administration proven by pooling more insured under the same kind of health care our legislators enjoy–especially the Republican senators and congresspersons who deny us the kind of health insurance they enjoy.
Comment by OmbudsBen August 18, 2009 @ 1:02 pmBen, Your comment is just silly. First off, the idea that Obamacare is anything like what congress has is a joke, which is starkly illustrated by Democrats defeat of a Republican amendment that would require congress to enroll themselves in the plan Democrats want to force on Americans. They wont have anything to do with their own plan! The LAST thing Democrats are going to do is subject their own health to socialist health care.
Second, your claim that “the rest of the world” thinks our system is a joke, is itself a joke. Canada’s top doctor just announced that Canada’s health care system is “imploding” and like the socialist systems in Europe, Canada must rapidly privatize their system in order to save it. Medicare is bankrupt, medicaid is bankrupt, Britains system is bankrupt, and Canada’s system is bankrupt
Socialized medicine is a disasterous failure everywhere it has been tried, and yet the stupidest people on the face of the Earth, progressives, want to IMPLEMENT it!
Our system may be expensive, but it isn’t imploding. And frankly the main reason our health care is expensive is because when our government and other governments take over health care and force private industry to meet their price controls, those costs are shifted to Americans in the private market.
Try to actually know what you are talking about next time.
Comment by American Elephant August 18, 2009 @ 4:38 pm