Obama's Health Care Speech

The first thing I have to say, is the way Congress can't be a civil legislative body while the President is speaking. I don't know when it started but, I can remember Congress booing and heckling President Bush during his speeches. Last night, Congress couldn't stay in their seats, jumping up and clapping at every little comment. This is the highest legislative body in the nation and these elected officials can't simply sit and listen to the speech. The continual stopping was ridiculous. I did find it quite amusing that the democrats couldn't stop clapping at every little remark until the TORT reform was mentioned and then they were sitting on their hands. Change everything but the TORT laws, that's just funny to me. I wonder who the trial lawyers support. Also, kudos to Rep. Wilson from South Carolina for calling out the President's misrepresentations. The democrats have been acting a lot worse than that in the last few years.

The next thing is, was this a campaign rally or an address to Congress? It sounded more like the rally speech he gave a couple of days earlier to his buddies at the union rally. The sheep in Congress jumping to their feet and cheering every word gave it even more of a rally feel than an address to Congress. Another item that gave it a rally feel was all of the I's and me's. I pulled the country back from ruin, I saved this and I did that and because of me.

Now, I can address Obama's speech. What plan is he talking about? The bill most people reference and is the easiest to obtain would be HR 3200. That is the bill that came out of the House of Representatives. A couple of committees in the Senate have produced a bill and several members of both houses have drafts. Obama keeps referring to his plan, in my plan this and my plan that. Where is your plan? Is it just some fantasy created in his head? The bill I read, and from the others I've seen parts of doesn't come close to anything he was talking about last night. He was supposed to lay out his plan and all he did was speak a whole bunch of mistruths and talk about fear tactics or political bullying, he did his fair share of that as well. What special interest is he talking about? I haven't heard anything from the insurance companies and can you blame them, would you want to speak out against the people that hold the fate of your livelihood or just hope for the best? The only interests I've seen is everyday, normal people. So are we, concerned citizens, the American people, special interests that are trying to kill health care?

Once again, Obama's fantasy health care plan, according to his speech was exactly what everyone wanted to hear. A little for the left, a little for the right and make it sound like the American people is who you care about. There was no substance to his speech, he didn't say anything. He mentioned public option to make those on the left happy, he mentioned tort reform and stopping fraud to make those on the right happy. He said it would be self funded to make the taxpayers happy. He did mention about covering preexisting conditions and not losing coverage while sick. Everybody agrees with that, but what is your idea to fix it? Do you have an idea for anything? On Labor Day, Obama claimed the opponents of the health care bill didn't have any plans, but addressing Congress, he acknowledged alternative plans. The same speech, on Labor Day, he claimed that opponents wanted to keep everything the same, but last night seemed to agree that everybody wants reform, it's just what type of reform.

He says he wants a health insurance exchange where the public option would be one of many, "they" (not quite sure who they are) estimate only 5% of people would take the public option and it would be self funded by the premiums it collects. If only 5% go to that option, how is it going to fund itself? It couldn't sustain itself, so where is the funding going to come from? Are all the people that can't afford insurance supposed to paying for it? It has to be "deficit neutral" but where is the funding going to come from. The only way for it to be deficit neutral would be to cut spending or raise taxes. Those are the only two ways to make it deficit neutral. This health insurance exchange isn't even supposed to take effect for 4 years. 4 years, just in time for reelection, how curious. If this is such a crisis, why is he going to wait? Why cram it down our throats? Look at Former Speaker of the House Gringrich's plan. He suggests breaking the health care bill down into 4 or 5 smaller bills instead of one monster omnibus bill that could ruin our health care system. Take one bill to reform the existing programs like medicare and medicaid which estimates $120 billion in waste and fraud per year combine that with TORT reform which is an additional $50 billion per year. If these programs are revamped and made more efficient wouldn't they handle the health care for those that don't have it? Wasn't that the original intent of those programs?

Obama has his outline but the "significant details" have to be worked out. What are the significant details? Apparently, the entire bill is the significant details since we have never seen this bill. So the Obama plan has a broad concensus and the "Death Panel" isn't included. HR 3200 has a provision that includes medical decisions based on a cost-benefit analysis determined by the health care commission. The formula calculates the cost of the service by the benefit of the person involved. So while there is no death panel by that name, there is a group that will determine if the person will benefit long enough to justify the cost of the procedure. Illegal aliens would be covered by HR 3200, in fact, attempts to attach a provision requiring proof of citizenship would not be added to the bill by it's sponsors. Additionally, a Supreme Court ruling made it unconstitutional for ANY person to denied medical treatment (that was interpreted to include illegals). That's why all the illegal aliens are currently being given medical services all around the country. I'm not even going to touch the federally funded abortion comment, the fact the ANYBODY has the right to tell anyone else what they can or can't do with their own body, to me, is just silly.

While Obama tried to reach across party lines and involve some reforms that make some common sense like portablility, interstate policies and by golly even made a slight comment about TORT reform. Slight comment because he blamed "defensive" medicine as a possible cause of higher insurance rates. It's not the defensive medicine alone that's raising rates, it's the multi-million dollar lawsuits. While some credit must be given for the attempt, only a little. Obama, just a few minutes after trying to reach across the aisle, said he would only entertain "serious" proposals. What's a serious proposal, one of the 30 that were held up during his speech or only one that has a public option in it? Obama also said that they wouldn't talk to anyone who only wanted to kill the bill. He also commented the day after that they might resort to reconciliation, how's that bipartisan support?

While the great Orator is up speaking about a plan with no details, no substance and no health care plan (written anyway) the sheep are all just falling in line. Obama is a good speaker (with a teleprompter), in fact he's so good, that he has made over 112 speeches. He's only been in office for about 210 days, that's about one every other day. One every other day! No wonder he doesn't have a plan, or a clue, he's too busy practicing for his next rally. Maybe that's the reason he appoints so many czars, somebody has to be acting President while he's speaking. Does he really think that if makes a speech everyone will just fall in line?

How is the United States going to pay for the plan? Obama said the plan had to be deficit neutral, makes sense on the surface, sounds good too. We already know the people who can't afford insurance are going to be on this plan, they obviously can't pay their own premiums. Are the 5% of people that move into the plan and pay their premiums going to fund the entire system. Wait, I remember now. He plans on taxing the "best" insurance policies from the insurance companies. If you tax only the highest costing policies, wouldn't people drop it and opt for the non taxed policies? I would. Would they not then tax the next highest when the highest has no members to tax? Are those without insurance going to be taxed as it says in HR 3200. Obama never actually explained how it's going to be paid for, not even a hint. HR 3200 raises taxes on insurance companies, insurance policies, employers, uninsured (kinda funny, aren't they the ones we're trying to insure)and of course the evil rich people.

I was disappointed by the omission of one cost savings measure. This strikes at the reason people with pre-existing conditions can't get insurance. Mandates. Mandates are government requirements stating what an insurance company must cover. These can be health care providers, health care services and patient populations. They can require chiropractors, acupuncture, hair plugs and substance abuse counseling. Not only does it force services or providers but also these mandates set costs. They set minimums and maximums that companies can charge. Here a just some of the things that the government mandates: alcoholism, cleft palate, contraceptives, substance abuse, hair prothesis, in vetro fertilization, port wine stain elimination, acupunturists, pastoral counseling, massage therapists and the best is community pooling.

I downloaded a report card to grade the speech and according to the report card, the President received 40%; not a very good grade and I graded very liberally, kinda of funny for me. Here were the 10 points to base the grading: 1. include litigation reform (he mentioned defensive medicine brought on by lawsuits so I gave him credit) 10 points. 2. stopping fraud in existing programs, he mentioned looking there for some savings so I gave him credit, 10 points. 3. Reject higher taxes, no credit for this one, no mention on what would happen with taxes. 4. Reject government rationing, he skated around this issue with no mention of rationing, no credit. 5. reject government run health care or bureaucratic care, we knew he wasn't going to get this one, no credit. 6. Open to multiple bipartisan bills, no credit, in fact Obama said he would attack anyone that tries to kill this bill. 7. Use normal procedures or resort to reconciliation, no credit for this one either. 8. Power to the individual, he said it so he got credit, I didn't believe him when he said it because since WWII the individual has very little say in their health care and with a bureaucrat in charge, you have any less control, 10 points 9. focus on health, wellness and early detection, he gets credit for this one although Obama made the false statement that wellness and early detection decrease insurance costs, there has not been a report or a study proving that, most reports show that it has no effect on the cost, 10 points. 10. invest in science and technology, again no credit, no mention of science or technology in any of his speech. 4 out of 10, not a very good score, especially when I gave him #1 & #2 even though it was very borderline.