Of Ganders And Geese
President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people -- like the president himself -- wouldn't face.The probing questions came from two skeptical neurologists during ABC News' special on health care reform, "Questions for the President: Prescription for America," anchored from the White House by Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it's not provided by insurance.
Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn't seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he's proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.
The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if "it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.
Emphasis mine. We all want the best of care for our families Mr. President. That is why so MANY of us have been fighting the nationalization of our health care system. We want our local doctors to be the ones to make the decisions - not a bureaucrat in DC. That local doctor will know what is best for the patient while the bureaucrat in DC will not. It's that simple.
Labels: Universal Health Care
posted by The Lady Logician at
9:47 AM
9 Comments:
This makes as much sense as any of your other posts on health care-- i.e. none at all.
Absolutely nobody is proposing that rich people be prohibited from buying whatever health care they can afford.
Fixing health care is about lowering costs to keep the rest of us out of medical bankruptcy!
By
rmwarnick, at 10:14 AM
Do you have no idea how insurance works? If you are forced to take in the uninsurable, rates go up. Yes, even group rates. The rich can still pay under the table so they get a pass. So fixing healthcare gets "free" insurance paid for by the rest of the taxpayers, given to those who could not manage to pay for it. So the top and the bottom get better coverage than the rest of the middle because with limited resources the medical community controlled by government interference will tell you how you will be treated. For the poor and underinsured- a little is better than what they have. For the rich some free services will supplement what they have to pay for separately. For those who can't pay to be above the system- long lines for generic services and mediocre doctors forced on you like an HMO from hell. And those employers that used to give you decent healthcare benefits will stop to let you "take advantage
of" the very best care the government thinks you deserve.
Nice.
By
Racer X, at 2:11 PM
Actually, the vast majority of the 50 million Americans without health insurance are young and healthy. Having them in the insurance pool would greatly reduce costs. Let's make health care affordable, shall we?
In 1948, President Harry Truman won office on a platform of single-payer health care. Here we are, 60 years later, still lagging behind other countries because of Republican scare tactics.
By
rmwarnick, at 3:12 PM
Richard - do you really pay that LITTLE attention to the news? Are you really that reliant on talking points?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/19/ap/politics/main5096951.shtml
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gK8UACQa5gEv1cZ-SRxXDc3XDwRwD98TPSP80
I especially like this from the second link.....
“White House officials suggest the president’s rhetoric shouldn’t be taken literally: What Obama really means is that government isn’t about to barge in and force people to change insurance.”
If we can't take it literally that we can keep our existing plans, why should we take it literally that the government won't force us into their plan?
If this plan is so great then why did Congress EXEMPT ITSELF from having to participate in it????
By
The Lady Logician, at 4:40 PM
Without a public option, costs can't be controlled. Insurance companies will continue to drop people when they get sick. Already, 2/3 of the bankruptcies in this country are due to medical bills.
That's why the public option has 72 percent support.
By
rmwarnick, at 5:02 PM
I lived 28 years in England and I paid around 7% of my salary in National Health Insurance premiums. There were other taxes to pay for health care also. In the U.S. for far superior care I pay a lot less out of pocket. Admittedly my employer pays up to 75% of the premium. Most people who are employed and have health insurance don't want to change and they don't want to pay more. If you want to cover more people make it mandatory to have health insurance and mandatory for companies to provide it. When you get to that point work out something for the unemployed. Otherwise just back off and leave us alone. Get to work on something useful like reducing spending at getting the country out of debt. I thought all you Democrats were going to bring the troops home? Use the money saved there to help the unemployed. This isn't rocket science, it's political science.
By
Rick, at 5:58 PM
Obama is not pushing a national health care system. I wish he was. The US has by far the worst and most expensive health care of any industrialized nation. Under a national health care plan, a "bureaucrat in DC" will NOT be making any decisions concerning your health care. But personally I would take a bureaucrat in DC making decisions then a fat cat in Connecticut making money off of me making decisions.
By
Unknown, at 7:27 PM
Take heart Brad....Russ Feingold has the good news for you.....
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=6413
"…I believe the goal here is to create whatever legislation we have in a way that could be developed into something like a single-payer system."
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 10:16 PM
Even if I take your stat on face value. Adding more people into the system may reduce average cost but it can never reduce overall cost. Those who don't pay, if they are the nations healthiest, have done so because their priorities do not force them into having health insurance. If they are all healthy and young and the underwriters have smiled on them, they should need no assistance in obtaining their health care. After all, in this Catch 22, if they are such a bargain why do I have to pay for them? Mine is much more expensive.
Are you trying to tell me my costs will go down adding 50 milion people onto my policy?
By
Racer X, at 3:20 PM
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