The Note: Obama Sells Health Plan to Public, Congress

Look at the polls – real American want a government health care option. Obama is on the side of the people with this one.

I agree with the majority of Americans that we need improvements in health care, we need a public insurance available to all, to provide much needed competition to private insurance companies and to make sure everyone has access to affordable health care insurance.
The fact that so many in Congress want to back away from public insurance shows they are not listening to their constituents but they are listening to the private insurance companies’ lobbyists.
We need affordable public health insurance.

To those that want a public plan, the polls being used to support the Whitehouse effots also said, “Among the “obstacles” to health reform, the poll found that “many Americans are concerned that their own healthcare may be compromised if the government is involved, and while they are generally willing to pay more in taxes for universal coverage, that support drops when dollar amounts are mentioned.” In short the math doesn’t add up, if health care spending is currently 2 Trillion a year, how does the government plan on funding a plan that costs 1 trillion over the next decade. Yes people are in favor of it if it does not cost them anything and does not affect their ability to make choices. The key to healthcare reform has to be on the overall cast of healthcare itself. Otherwise the Whitehouse is positioning the insurance industry to collapse as they did the mortgage industry.

ObamaCare specifically exempts members of Congress along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116. If nationalized medicine is good enough for us then then it should be good enough for them.

All I know is that something has to be done…this president is trying…if he didn’t do anything everyone would be screaming…now he’s trying to get people together to discuss this and make it better and people are screaming. Our health sysmtem is broken. I’m so tired of working so hard and then having to pay so much of my salary for healthcare and my employer is ready to not pay anything towards it because we will go out of business. I wish these Republicans would shut up and try to work with this president and some Democrats too. How come Bush did nothing about this and now Republicans have a plan? Right!

What makes any sane person think that the government can manage health care. Look at what the government has done to Social Security, Medicare, Public Housing, and now AIG. With this kind of a track record they have proven that they aren’t even capable of successfully operating the local burger stand. To start with where will the money come from and not cause an increase to the government debt any more than it is? In his first 132 days in office Obama has increased the debt of the government by 694.2 Billion dollars. At this rate he will increase the debt of the Government by 1.9 Trillion dollars in his first year alone and 7.6 Trillion dollars by the end of his 4 year term in office. If he is elected for a second term with the same rate of spending then the government debt will increase by 15.3 Trillion dollars. Since the debt owed by the Government was 10.6 Trillion dollars when he took office an additional 7.6 Trillion will almost double the debt in just 4 years to 18.3 Trillion dollars and at the end of his second term it will have increased to an unthought-of 26 Trillion dollars. The interest alone on this amount of debt will consume more than half of the entire federal budget. This does not even include what Obama wants to put into healthcare which has been estimated may actually cost upwards of 1.6 Billion dollars. This is money that the Government does not have and cannot conceivably have without raising taxes to the point where everyone in the country will be paying a much higher tax rate than they are currently paying. No matter how you want to put it any healthcare reform will require government involvement which will lead to required government spending so the money is an important issue, if it’s not there then healthcare will have to wait until such time as it is available. Obama promised change but this is ridiculous he makes all who came before him look minor on their spending while in office. Time to stop spending and do what should have been done long ago, cut spending which is not specifically authorized in article 1 of the constitution.
There is NO money for healthcare, there is NO money for education reform or any other dreams in the upcoming budget. Look at what the government has done to Social Security, Medicare, Public Housing, and now AIG.
As far as the federal government cost of health care to its own employees you can Google FEHB and see what the different plans available to federal employees are. It should be noted that these are the same exact plans which are available to our elected federal officials. The government does not pay 100% of the employee health insurance and the portion they pay is considered a benefit in lieu of wages just like most major employers who provide a health benefit to their employees. Usually the larger the company (more employees) the more likely is that they provide the health insurance rather than paying the larger wage as most employees would rather have access to the health insurance instead of the small increase in wages. For an employee in California with a family looking at an HMO (California Health Net, High Option) this amounts to roughly $4.40 an hour. For the same family in California looking at a FFS (Blue Cross Blue Shield Service Benefit Plan, Standard Family) this also amounts to $4.40 an hour. Small business’s which have fewer employees cannot afford to offer this type of benefit to their employees without having to make drastic cuts (layoffs) or drastically raise the price of their finished product/service both of which will probably cause the business to fail in time due to lack of profit. The federal employee still has to pay to participate in the insurance ($292 a month for the HMO and $357 a month for the FFS) so the government does not provide 100% of the insurance to the government employee. Probably the best that the government could do for health care would be to somehow expand the FEHB type of insurance for the general public to participate in but with no government funding for the general public. You have to remember that the federal employee is receiving his government share of the insurance funding as part of his wage and benefit package and performing labor in return, the general public would provide no benefit to the government for any government funding of their health care. Perhaps another question you may want to ask yourself is how much would I pay for healthcare insurance? Would you pay $1055.00 per month to be able to partake of the HMO I used as an example? Would you be willing to pay $1120.00 per month to be able to participate in the FFS I used as an example? If yes then maybe the answer is not government paid healthcare but the government allowing all citizens to participate in their healthcare programs at their own expense (they would have to pay the total of what the government pays for their employee plus what the employee pays). I would imagine that there are some plans which would be cheaper but they might not offer the same level of health care as a more costly one. If this was the way they go then it would be up to each individual to carefully compare costs and benefits between plans before making possibly a wrong choice.
When Medicare was created in 1965, benefits were relatively limited and retirees paid a substantial percentage of the costs of their own care. In 1965, Congressional actuaries expected Medicare to cost $3.1 billion by 1970. In 1969, that estimate was revised to $5 billion, and it actually came in at $6.8 billion. Things have gotten worse since, and Medicare today costs $455 billion and rising. Medicaid was intended as a last resort for the poor but now covers one-third of all long-term care expenses in the U.S. — that is, it has become a middle-class subsidy for aging parents of the Baby Boomers. Its annual bill is $227 billion, and so far this fiscal year is rising by 17%. Schip was pitched a decade ago as a safety net for poor kids, Schip is now open to families that earn up to 300% of the poverty level, or $63,081 for a family of four. Any new federal health plan will inevitably follow the same trajectory, no matter how much Senators might claim they’ve guaranteed otherwise. The Lewin Group consultants estimate that 119 million people who now have private insurance could potentially be captured by the government under the Obama public option. This is on top of the 90 million already in Medicare or Medicaid. This would guarantee a spending explosion that would over time lift federal outlays as a share of GDP into the upper 20% range or higher. This health-care debate isn’t like the “stimulus” bill, which was largely about short-term spending and deficits. This one is about whether to turn 17% of the U.S. economy entirely and permanently into the arms of the government.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, during the phase-in period of Social Security, Congress was able to grant generous benefit increases because the system had perpetual short-run surpluses. Congressional amendments to Social Security took place in even numbered years (election years) because the bills were politically popular, but by the late 1970s, this era was over. For the next three decades, projections of Social Security’s finances would show large, long-term deficits, and in the early 1980s, the program flirted with immediate insolvency. From this point on, amendments to Social Security would take place in odd numbered years (years that were not election years) because Social Security reform now meant tax increases and benefit reductions. When revenues exceed expenditures, as they have in most years, the excess is invested in special series, non-marketable U.S. Government bonds, thus the Social Security Trust Fund indirectly finances the federal government’s general purpose deficit spending. It is also interesting to note that the Supreme Court has established that no one has any legal right to Social Security benefits. The Court decided, in Flemming v. Nestor (1960), that “entitlement to Social Security benefits is not a contractual right”. In simple terms, the decision means that since no one has any legal right to Social Security benefits, Congress can cut or eliminate benefits at any time.
The Trust Fund is regarded by some as an accounting trick which holds no economic significance. Others argue that it has specific legal significance because the Treasury securities it holds are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government, which has an obligation to repay its debt. It is important to note, however, that while the Treasury guarantees the interest and principal payments it makes to the Social Security Trust Fund, the benefit payments made from the Social Security Trust Fund to American retirees have no guarantee at all. The Social Security Administration’s authority to make benefit payments as granted by Congress extends only to its current revenues and existing Trust Fund balance, i.e., redemption of its holdings of Treasury securities. Therefore, Social Security’s ability to make full payments once annual benefits exceed revenues depends in part on the federal government’s ability to make good on the bonds that it has issued to the Social Security trust funds. The federal government’s ability to repay Social Security, in turn, is contingent on fiscal policies taken today (which have tended to increase deficits and the percent of the budget spent on interest and principal payments) and in the future. Once again in simple terms if you want Social Security then the government is going to have to reduce its debt (lower spending to pay off debt) or raise the FICA taxes to ensure that there is enough coming in during the current year to cover the benefits which are to be paid. Raising the FICA taxes is probably not the way to go as in the coming years there are more people who will be receiving Social Security than there will be people paying the taxes which means that the government has to stop spending on all of their dream programs that they are now trying to pass. Bottom line is the Government does not have this kind of money and there is no way they can get this kind of money without a large tax increases on the entire population.

what we need to do as voters is remove all health care for goverment workers including the president until they come up with a plan to get health care for everyone,People are actally dying because they cant afford medical treatments,one term in office and they have health and pension for life .did we get to vote on that?

Nationalized health care is not the answer its is a disaster!

The Real Story: Congress, their staffs, and other federal employees enjoy special health care privileges that are denied to the rest of Americans. Congressmen and other federal workers understandably like the system that they have set up for themselves at your expense. So much so, that buried in many of the leading bills to restructure the health care system, there are provisions that exempt members of Congress, their staffs, and their dependents from each bill’s effect. Demand that Congressmen and Bureaucrats stand in line for their health care just!!!!!!! Never Forget: They work for you. You pay their salary and benefits. Not Vice Versa.

“Nationalized health care is not the answer its is a disaster!” – We have low life expectancies and higher infant death rates than other technologically advanced countries. We spend more per capita and its a leading cause of bankruptcy. In other words – privatized insurance is ineffective and expensive. How is that not a disaster?

The Health Care Solution: Get A Job!!! If that does not work – Get Another Job (Better Paying or Second Income)!!!!!!!

Great. The pharmaceutical companies have agreed to discount $88B. Has anyone noticed that the no-bid provision of the Medicare prescription drug program resulted in additional revenues for them (and costs for taxpayers) of $175-180B? Nobody mentions the second number when rolling out the first as an indicator of their largesse. The American public is about to get what they deserve in health care, earned by a consistent refusal to pay attention to the collective chicanery of congress and special interests.

Daniel orr – You said “one term in office and they have health and pension for life”
This statement is 100% BS. Congressmen get their retirement through a system called Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) and their healthcare via access to the Federal Employees Health benefits (FEHB) plan. You can google FEHB and FERS to see the details.
To qualify for retirement they must meet age and time of service requirements which is put into a formula along with the salary they received in the high (salary) years of their time in office. You can go to the site and compute the numbers.
Basically if we had term limits in Congress (2 terms or 12 years in the Senate and 4terms or 8 years in the House) the retirement paid to Congressmen who are no longer in office would be relativly minor as most would not break the threashold to qualify for retirement unless they were over the age threashold.
In order to qualify for continued healthcare the Congressmen has to first meet requirments which are already estblished. Once again with term limits most would not qualify for continued healthcare when they leave office.

Barb wrote: “What makes any sane person think that the government can manage health care.”
Think of the alternative: doctors, insurance companies, etc. agree what we have now is NOT sustainable. Our antiquated system wastes 25% of ALL healthcare dollars on paperwork alone compared to 3% in advanced nations with GOVERNMENT run health care.
The governments of France, Japan, and some other countries offer SUPERIOR health care: doctors do things NPs and PAs do here, there are shorter waits, and in some countries like Japan the health care industry is still private – just the insurance is government run. And the real kicker is that they do it for 9-10% of GDP. We do it for 18%, expected to rise to 25% in several years – and on top of that 1/3 of Americans are un- or under-insured and most health care “networks” end at state lines: does your car or life insurance change at a state line? No. But health insurance does because it’s already built on SOCIALIST inside-the-state communal-like networks.
How can our companies pay backbreaking premiums and compete against, for example, Toyota which doesn’t have to provide health insurance for its Japanese owners?
During the Civil War, Lincoln knew Grant could not manage war as well as Robert E. Lee. But he was a tremendous step above McClellan, Hooker, Polk, and other poor-performing generals. Likewise, government is not often the ideal solution, but there are areas where the private alternative is worse.

So Barb your saying a bad plan is better than none?

The_Mick – Looking at how government has performed with VA, remember the conditions our vets had to endure at Walter Reed, the practice of reusing items which should be sterile for procedures and transferring dieease between patients. Look at how they have performed with Medicare and Medicaid which are both severlly in the hole.
No thanks, I don’t want government healthcare which has this kind of track record involved in my healthcare.
Let them make what they are involved in already is working then maybe more people would feel better about government run healthcare.

I wonder if ABC News, in their decision to show the Obama Health Care special, understands the definition of journalism.
Journalism “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation”
Advocacy Journalist “journalism that advocates a cause or expresses a viewpoint”

The major culprit in the seemingly endless rise in health care costs is found to be the removal of the patient as a major participant in the financial and medical choices that are currently being made by others in the name of the patient. This plan will just enhance that fact and drive cost Higher.
Read the CBO report that states w/o all the info on on certain issure it will cost $1 trillion over the next ten year. (that is a low est.) the connclusion is 37 million would still be w/o healthcare. Some propose a mandate that you must purchase insurance or be fines or go to jail.
Do the American people really want the Government to be in charge of their health? Tell you what when or if you can have treatment and how mush you will pay. Come on people wake up! The Mayo Clinic alone treats over 7000 foreigners year, John Hopkins 6000. The Prime Minister of Italy came her for heart surgery. We have the highest quality care in the world don’t destroy that when ther are other options to fix it.

The nepotism runs deep in congress. They refuse to address the most costly factor of healthcare expense, that being malpractice insurance. Tort reform is essential to bringing down the cost of healthcare. Our congress is made up of a body of lawyers who are protecting their ambulance chasing “brothers” in the legal profession who are making a living off of the medical profession and at our expense. Something must be done to stop the incidence of frivilous liability lawsuits in general.

I really wish people would give ALL the statistics when quoting them. The NY Times poll indicates a minimum of people (only 43%) would accept a tax increase up to $500 a year to have public coverage. Up to $500 a year? Boy is that wishful thinking!
As far as other concerns expressed in that poll 63% of those surveyed were concerned that the quality of their own health care would get worse; 68% were concerned that their own access to medical tests and treatments would be more limited; and 53% were concerned that they would be required to change doctors.
So lets deal with ALL the facts here. It appears that Americans are not as sold on all of this as people would want to think. $500 a year would pay only a small fraction – I presume these people think “other” people will pay. They need to think again – we all will pay.

I have been smoking for years. I do not know ANY smokers that do not want to quit. My insurance will not pay the $159 per month for Chantix- an exceedingly effective medicine to quit smoking.
I would love to take Chantix and quit. I cannot afford it. Period.
The ALA ought to be making this and other means available to smokers if they really want to quit. Or to demand legislation that the insurance cover meds like Chantix and Zyban.
The very notion of taking out half of the nicotene out of cigarettes is totally absurd, nonsensical and ridiculously counterproductive.
Smokers will have to smoke double the amount of cigarettes in order to maintain the level of nicotene which will only promote cigarette smoking not serve as a panacea.
Nicotene is a physical addiction and should be treated as such. It is not psychological. I tried the patch and would forget I even smoked for a certain amount of time.
The very LAST thing that legislators want is people to quit smoking. We are too busy financing everyone else and government and are overtaxed to the point of total
injustice.
They need to go pick on someone else like alcohol which probably results in more deaths than cigarettes ever will. Or tax yachts.
The ALA and other agencies has not been very successful in getting people to quit smoking.
How much would you like to wager that the price of Nicorette gum will double? It is already more expensive than smoking itself so where is the incentive as most people buy by the pack and cannot even afford to save to cover a month’s worth.
The entire approach is a sham. And I urge you to consider alternative methods that will assist smokers of quitting not doubling the amount of smoke they inhale leading to MORE Cancer.
Sucking on a lollipop is NOT going to make people quit. I cannot stress enough that this is a physical addiction and not comprised primarily of a psychological component.
You desperately need to change your approach.

morekare – You have a basic misunderstanding. All of the services which you say you pay taxes for are local or state funded enities. The taxes you pay for these services are paid through property taxes, sales taxes, and state sales taxes not federal taxes.

Since when does “The Press” do infomercials for the US Government they are suppose to be watching with a questioning eye? “The Press” in a Democratic society is supposed to be the 4th estate of Government. The Press is vital to balanced information reaching the public. It is not suppose to cheer lead for a given administrations.
Mandate: Report the news so that “We The People” can decide.
“ABC News – A Press for Profit organization owned by a for-profit corporation ” is mushing up the hard questions into soft balls to lob at the first Fascist President of the USA who openly degrades America every chance he gets. A President elected by Acorn who hates tax paying working Americans and sees them as privileged individuals who should give up their hard earned wages to provide additional support for the lazy, non-tax paying, public dole misfits that he calls supporters. Now that He has created a crisis of Health Care that must be solved before the 2010 mid-term elections he is racing down a path to destroy the health care system to the advantage of his non-tax paying Acorn driven supporters.
ABC News is now cheer leading for an Administrations hell bent on the destruction of the Capitalist system and Social democracy.
Questions: What has the Administration promised ABC News for their cooperation in SELLING the American people on Socialized Medicine? What is ABC getting out of the deal?
Hey Fox News why don’t you follow up on that question since you are the only major news agency in the USA acting in the best interest of the American Tax Payers.

For all of you carping for “free” health
care: Put off upsizing your plasma
screens, drive a good used car, and
you may find you can finance you own
health care plan. Do you want a “czar”
named by Emperor O to guide you through
their health care menu?

We outspend all other developed countries in health care but are number 37 in ranking. According to the World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: Improving performance.
“The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health services, ranks 18th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.”
Here are the salaries of the top 10 healthcare executives for 2008. It comes to about $71 Million for one year. Those salaries com from the profit which exists in the current healthcare system – one of the reasons we pay twice as much as other countries. I’m sure these executives have excellent Health Care Plans:
* Ron Williams – Aetna – Total Compensation: $24,300,112.
* H. Edward Hanway – CIGNA – Total Compensation: $12,236,740.
* Angela Braly – WellPoint – Total Compensation: $9,844,212.
* Dale Wolf – Coventry Health Care – Total Compensation: $9,047,469.
* Michael Neidorff – Centene – Total Compensation: $8,774,483.
* James Carlson – AMERIGROUP – Total Compensation: $5,292,546.
* Michael McCallister – Humana – Total Compensation: $4,764,309.
* Jay Gellert – Health Net – Total Compensation: $4,425,355.
* Richard Barasch – Universal American – Total Compensation: $3,503,702.
* Stephen Hemsley – UnitedHealth Group – Total Compensation: $3,241,042.
Our current system isn’t working – the World Health Report points that out very clearly, but everyone is concerned about how to fund a Universal option.
A simple suggestion- Impose a Health Surcharge on those items which contribute to poor health. The examples below could generate $73.5 Billion in a year.
29 Billion packs of cigarettes sold every year – $2.00 Health Surcharge per pack = $58 Billion generated.
$134 Billion spent annually in America on fast food in 2008. Average $10 per meal = 13.4 million meals – $1.00 Health Surcharge per meal = $13.4 Billion generated.
2.1 Billion bottles of alcoholic beverages sold in 2008 (10 bottles per adult) – $1.00 Health Surcharge per bottle = $2.1 Billion generated.

I worked in the Healthcare industry for fourteen years as the Controller and also as Treasurer on the Board of Directors. The only solution for helping individuals, families, employers and physicians is a single payer health plan.
The Hospitals, Insurance companies, Pharmaceutical companies and lobbyists are genereating too many untruths.
Hospitals typically will in negotiations with an insurance company give discounts to them but increase fees on other procedures to more than offset the discounts.
Insurance companies must generate profits for their investors and this will be around 20% of additional costs to be born by people and employers.
Pharmaceutical companies spen more on advertising than R&D. Why are they allowed to advertise with all the side effects that kill us ? They also influence individuals with their ads to the extent that they force their physicians to get them or they will find a physician that will, too much power.
Lobbyist spend so much money that politicians listen to them instead of the people back home where a single payer plan is so popular.
I have conveyed this message to both of my Senators and my President.
It it time the people get what they demand which is healthcare for everyone, at a price they can afford and and all the healthcare system can provide without recording large profits.

Why are we not priviledged to the entire package when it comes to the Health Care Program. We all know from past experience that our “LEADERS” tack things onto these bills and then we are stuck with them for the rest of our lives. Personally I am tired of them ramrodding things thru and then telling us that this is the way it is going to be.If they have 8,000 pages in a bill we need to know what the other 7,999 pages say before we approvwe the 1 that they want pushed thru, because, the other 7,999 pages are the ones that they will get us on and then say it was what we approved.n They pushed thru the “Bailout & the Stimulis Bills” and now we find out they did’nt even know where the money was going or,who, they were giving it to. This ia apparent with the Loss of the Auto Dealerships. They are holding hearings to find out how the auto Company’s chose which dealers would be closed. Would you not think they would have covered that before they gave away all of this money. They are trying to find someone to place blame on for thier own carelessness. It is never our Leaders fault. It is either the Democrates or the Republicans that caused the problem. Never all 535 of them. We are paying a very heavy price for thier foolishness. How can they expect us to trust them the way they are throwing our money around. At the same time telling us we need to learn to live within our means. God save us! It is a fact that our Politicians cannot.

Mandatory in any law of sweeping change
in health care should be the phrase,
“and ALL elected officials will be
included, and subject to the SAME
benefits and deficiencies”. You’ll
see this clause included when, well,
Obama stops lying to the electorate…
i.e. never.

Universal health care is a welfare program in disguise. Seventy percent of those eligible for this coverage are illegal immigrants. Again, the US taxpayer has to foot the bill for medical coverage as well as all the other perks illegals are receiving. No one in this country goes without health care. If you can’t afford it you can go into any emergency room and receive care. This is a bill that we as americans are going to be unable to pay off.