Liveblogging the President’s Healthcare Speech
We’ll be using the comments section of this post to liveblog the president’s speech to Congress on healthcare. Based on the information currently provided it looks like we’re in for a guilt campaign that attempts to change the aesthetics of the debate without doing much to modify the substance. People are suffering. We must work together. The basic outline of the Democrats’ plan is the only solution, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is merely divisive greed.
When I called in to his show, at the turn of the hour, Matt Allen quoted this excerpt from the speech:
Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true.
As I told Matt, this is merely another example of the President striving the conquer the Politics of Fear with the Politics of Hope.
I don’t have a remote for the television in my office, so as I knelt before it pushing the button over and over again to reach Fox News (natch), I couldn’t help but look longingly at all of the fluff that I passed by…
The word is that the speech is scheduled for 40-45 minutes, which is apparently ten minutes longer than promised, yesterday.
What could the president’s target audience possibly be for a 45-minute primetime speech on a relatively boring topic that we’ve been debating all summer?
The president is running late. Who does this guy think he is?
The walk down the aisle is always peculiar. Smile. Laugh. Shake. “How’s the family?” “Good, thanks, Mr. President.”
Hug Hillary. Second whisper. She laughs. Langevin gets an aisle seat.
Are we supposed to discern something from this? The only note of interest was that Nancy Pelosi grabbed the President’s hand in both of hers and held on for a good fifteen seconds.
Is he really trying to take credit for an economic recovery?
“until all responsible homeowners can stay in their home”?
Wouldn’t they, anyway, if they’re responsible? So how is “responsible” being defined?
Multitasking, here, I just realized that today is 9/9/9 — which, as we all know, is merely 666 standing on its head. (I’m joking, here.)
I wonder: when they estimate the length of these speeches, do they include the repeated ovations?
“one in three go without coverage”? How many do so voluntarily? How many are not in the US legally?
All of these increases in the cost of healthcare insurance. How much can be attributed to the lack of will to implement tort reform?
I don’t think the President has the facts right on his example from Illinois.
Obama:
On the left, they want a single-payer system.
On the right, they want a market-based system.
There are arguments for both, but either would be a radical change, and we shouldn’t try to rebuild the system from scratch.
Me:
He’s too smart to not realize that that’s the problem. The Democrats’ solution is to plant the seeds of the single-payer resolution.
“Nothing in this plan will require you or our employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”
“What it will do is make your insurance work better for you.”
But, Mr. President, what if I disagree and want to keep the coverage that you claim is worse for me?
Yes, absolutely, preexisting conditions should be covered.
How does that get paid for?
Everything the President has proposed as of 7:32 will raise the cost of insurance. Where does the cost-control come from?
No refusals. No droppage. No limits on payouts. But limits on pay-ins. Mandated free regular preventive care.
How is this not essentially the government creating a government insurance program within the shells of private programs?
Ha. These changes will begin in four years… after I’ve already had my campaign for office.
And by the way, didn’t he trash the plan that he just explicitly complimented as a “good idea” from John McCain?
Oh, wonderful!!! (He did say that I’m going to have the same health care plan as Congress, right …?)
Businesses will be required to chip in for healthcare, but 95% of them will be exempt.
How does that work?
Sounds like the public option is dead.
Federal Town Hall!
When the president claimed that no illegal immigrants would receive coverage, somebody screamed out: “That’s a lie!”
Andrew… Nope, he was just building up to it.
Hold on my last comment…
Health care reform most definitely will provide health care coverage to illegal aliens, Mr. President. How do we know?
Because where in the bill are health care providers required to check the citizenship status of the potential patient?
It’s almost nauseating to hear politicians argue for a “public option” on the basis that competition is so limited, when the reason is clearly government regulation and mandates.
Do they believe this stuff and simply not understand how the market works, or are they being deliberately misleading?
“Nobody would be forced to take the public option.” Except, you know, all those people who lose their small-business healthcare when another possibility emerges.
Can we apply the President’s comparison of public and private universities to primary and secondary education too (actually, the Prez might go for that!)
Justin, re: 8:41, I’d vote for option 1.
And now we move from dreamland to utter fantasy. “I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit now or in the future.”
He’s promising a pay-as-you-go provision. I’ll believe it when I see it.
“These changes will begin in four years… after I’ve already had my campaign for office.”
Great point. If this is a crisis situation, how can the implementation of a solution wait four years?
Of course, most of the increase would be borne as a hidden tax on employment.
I note, too, that he didn’t promise a ban on tax increases.
If projected savings do not materialize from this reform, spending cuts will take place?
Is he already talking about rationing?
Great moment: “I want to talk directly to seniors.” He did the speech-performance thing of looking directly into the camera and then panicked and resorted to the annoying left-teleprompter-right-teleprompter-left-teleprompter-right-teleprompter thing.
Can’t he even memorize a “heartfelt” reassurance?
Medicare will not be cut as a result of this reform?
Proposed and enacted cuts to Medicare and Medicaid totaling $500 billion (yes, billion) were addressed separately, not within any reform bills.
So, technically, what he said is correct.
Wait a minute. A fee on the most expensive private plan? What happened to having our choice of plans?
Obama: Most of the cost would be paid through fixes of Medicare, and much of the rest would come from fees charged to insurance and drug companies.
Why wouldn’t the problems with larger involvement of government illustrated by Medicare and Medicaid simply reassert themselves?
Okay, this is disgusting. Reading a letter from Senator Kennedy “to be read upon his death”.
But, Monique, it allows the one-two-three twostep of tying “rugged individualism” and “healthy skepticism about big government” with simple community “big heartedness.”
Thus does incremental, creeping socialism point to previous steps as evidence that further steps won’t lead straight ahead.
“The safe thing to do would be to kick the can of reform one more year, one more election…”
But didn’t you just say that most of this reform would kick into effect after one more presidential election?
I’m beginning to think that either President Obama actually believes what he said tonight, or he’s just an especially good liar. He’s almost making Bill Clinton look honest. Either way, he’s pretty convincing. His adherence to objective fact-based data was especially loose.
He’s either misinformed or he’s being deceitful regarding coverage of illegal aliens as well as funding for abortion, and especially his claim that this won’t “add to the deficit.” He’s trying to claim that there won’t be taxpayer funding of abortion, because he is trying to convince us that premiums alone will cover expenses, without any government extra subsidy. Yeah, right.
Basically, he wants us to believe there is a magical cake out there — we can have our cake and eat it, too — and it will even help us lose weight! And it won’t cost a penny more than the regular cake those evil rich people eat!
I thought it was a partisan speech, especially when he used less than truthful means to “call out” others for supposedly lying. He must be feeling the heat. Glad the guy in the gallery called him out on the illegal alien lie.
“Chip In” = Mandatory Payroll Tax
Mandatory Payroll Tax = Opportunity for employers to dump people onto the public plan and to destory the private system.
I’ve noticed that the president is very prone to setting up “straw man” arguments, claiming his opponents support something he must know they don’t support, in order to try to build support for his own plan.
An Inexorable Pull of Echo Chamber Snark?