‘This Week’ Sunday: Health Care Reform Debate
EmailIt’s been the week of the big health care push. The president took to the airwaves in a prime time news conference this week and traveled to Ohio to rally public support for his health care reform overhaul.
But with four different bills in the House and Senate and political wrangling on both sides of the aisle, the president isn’t going to get a bill before the August recess.
On the show this Sunday, an exclusive debate between two people who are shaping the health care debate in Congress: Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., — who has said that health care reform could be Obama’s “Waterloo.”
Plus, joining me on the Roundtable to discuss all of the week’s politics: ABC’s George Will, ABC's Donna Brazile, the Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, New York Times columnist David Brooks and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.
You won’t want to miss this show.
See you Sunday morning.
–George Stephanopoulos
Rick Santorum Sweeps 3 States 
Pentagon to Open Additional Jobs to Women
George,
Couldn’t you at least balance this debate with Wyden or Feingold? You’ve got two people who are against any public option, something that myself and 76% of Americans want according to a WSJ poll.
Can’t you find it in your heart to include someone to debate the positive side of a public option?
The traditional media outlets are letting us down yet again…
Posted by: Bruce Ewert | July 23, 2009, 4:39 pm 4:39 pm
George I’m with Bruce. Get two Republicans who want and support this public option!
Posted by: Janet Wolfbauer | July 23, 2009, 4:50 pm 4:50 pm
George, I believe you try please the right too much.
Posted by: Rafael | July 23, 2009, 5:23 pm 5:23 pm
I don’t usually watch the 3 Sunday morning talk shows for a few reasons:
1. This Weak, Farce the Nation, Meek, the Press shape the guests center right. You need Katrina Vanden Heuvel on each week and other real lefties.
2. The 3 hosts live a comfortable lifestyle and have large salaries which appears fine, but you really don’t get affected if the Gravity deniers ( GOPranos ) win or the Democrats win. So you get to host a dog fight while the poor and middle class suffer.
3. People like me don’t get to question your guests like I can do on CSPAN Washington Journal. I spoke to Representative Waxman and complain about the GOPranos junk Medicare part D and then tell him about my petitions for single payer and fixing Medicare Part D. In the last I have spoken to Sen. Feingold, Representative Xavier Becerra, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Richard Trumke,
Senator Gary Hart. I have watched CSPAN for 30 years.
Posted by: The Liberal Democratic Party of The United States of America | July 23, 2009, 10:21 pm 10:21 pm
Filling the beds of hospitals and filling emergency rooms with every person who has a headache or needs something (because they arent worried about paying a bill) isnt going to fix our healthcare system. Its going to create massive waits and delays. Top that off with doctors retiring, less people becoming doctors and the corruption in government it will most certainly create along with unemployment and inflation and raised taxes one can see it will truly create a disaster and the democrats seemed determined to not study the negative aspects of their proposal including the people in healthcare insurance companies and drug companies they intend to slather with money coming back (after embezzling the money) with their hand out and saying they are broke and need more.
I’m not trying to scare you but look at the NJ ‘money laundering’ government scandal in which 40 people were arrested including the mayors of Secaucus and Hoboken. It 100% matters because in laymans terms the more government we have the more corruption (like this) it will create. If you let the government take over healthcare corrupt officials will do anything to get at the money including get their hands dirty like these guys. Its going to be too hard to police the new departments and offices the healthcare plan will create. LESS government means LESS corruption. MORE government equals MORE corruption get it? Its easier to police 1000 corrupt government officials than 1,000,000 new ones.
Posted by: guesswhaturwrong | July 24, 2009, 12:59 am 12:59 am
George,
I always enjoy your program,
I’ve been pushing Bill Moyers
discussion on Health Care as a prerequisite for forming an opinion I would love to add a segment from This Week, not to compete with Moyers but to take up where he left off and make it more clear, more eveident and less scary for all those listening to the Status Quo and Rush Limbaugh wanna bees.
Thanks for doing what you do so well
I can tell you enjoy it, as I follow you on Twitter (I recently have been AMAZED by FaceBook and TweetDeck)
Peace
See ya Sunday
Posted by: Steve Purnell | July 24, 2009, 3:06 am 3:06 am
Wealth-Care is not Health-Care
& Stealing is not Healing
Posted by: Steve Purnell | July 24, 2009, 3:09 am 3:09 am
Attention Republicans
Sandbagging and Nagging is not Leadership
Posted by: Steve Purnell | July 24, 2009, 3:11 am 3:11 am
Health Care Solution… —-
Provide basic health care for all U.S. citizens… —-
Health care solutions —-
All citizens should have access to AFFORDABLE, or FREE,
basic medical care in order to reduce the development and
frequency of costly and avoidable problems. —-
Necessary Parts —-
a. Accessible facilities with certified staff. —-
b. No ability to sue. —-
c. No unnecessary tests. —-
Thank you, —-
Robert Evan
Posted by: aclepd.com | July 24, 2009, 7:17 am 7:17 am
Ethics, Religion & medical Choices and Costs:
1.SHOULD religious organizations who promote births of children parents cannot care for or support through lack of education and birth control BE held morally and legally and FINANCIALLY RESPONSIBLE?
2. IF YOU DO a very early test and it shows your child will be disabled & in need million$ of lifetime multiple expensive modalities in education and med care and your religion says no ABORTION at any stage. You choose to go with the church teachings. You don’t have a spare $2 mil.
Should the state or church be the financially responsible party?
Posted by: dc matthews | July 24, 2009, 1:53 pm 1:53 pm
We’ve got center-right Kent “I hate the public option” Conrad balancing extreme-right Jim “I hate the public option” DeMint. Thanks again George.
Posted by: flounder | July 24, 2009, 2:24 pm 2:24 pm
Have any of you who are for this healthcare bill they are trying to pass even read any of it? It is nothing but 1,000 plus pages of a shell, there are no specifics. The bill allows 18 months after its passage for the specifics of the plan to be generated. There is nothing which details the amount of coverage, do-pay, deductable, premiums, etc which one would expect to find in anything dealing with a healthcare proposal. There is nothing which details what payments will be allowed to healthcare providers or what providers would be participating in the plan. The only thing in there is fines if you don’t participate and additional taxes to hopefully fund this empty bill. Congress and Obama are trying to sell us the taxpayer a blank piece of paper which contains no details so that we can make an informed decision as to whether this is good or bad legislation. For something this expensive and important to the American people they should not pass any legislation until all of the details are known. Would you buy a house in a city you had never been to just because someone you didn’t know said it was a good house?, a car? Like normal Congress has the cart before the horse and without the details the taxpayers could be sold a bill of goods that will not do what many think it will do.
Posted by: sandcrab1612 | July 24, 2009, 9:26 pm 9:26 pm
Health care debate? How can it be a debate when both guests are on the political right and oppose a public option?
You media folks are full of it.
Posted by: zett | July 24, 2009, 11:13 pm 11:13 pm
Conrad vs. DeMint? What kind of “debate” is that? You might as well have Rush Limbaugh come on and debate himself.
Posted by: Sam | July 25, 2009, 12:16 am 12:16 am
The libs have to face up. Socializing health insurance isn’t all that popular with anybody. I doubt that half the members of Congress have even read this monstrosity. Meanwhile, everybody’s favorite hero makes some “stupidly” thought out comment ( this was truly from the heart…remember Rev. wright and his “typical white” grandmother), then again what should we expect from a 48 year old Chicago community organizer.Just watch, as Obama’s poll numbers drop his “center-right” buddies at ABC (and the rest of the slobbering MSM) are going to resort to A) bringing up the evil specter duo of Bush/Cheney to frighten the leftist intelligentsia back into action. Or, B)find some story on the Palin family to mesmerize the liberal intellectual classes! Anything to deflect attention away from Boy Wonder’s short-comings.
Posted by: country cuz | July 25, 2009, 6:02 am 6:02 am
Are you people insane?! Kent Conrad, who is a recipient of large amounts of money from the insurance industry and who is doing his best to DERAIL public option for healthcare, and Jim DeMint, who has zero credibility and/or integrity and who comes from the Republican Party which is trying to KILL health insurance reform?! THAT is a “debate”?! This is a perfect example of why George Stephanopoulos and This Week with its cast of droning Washington insiders is unwatchable. You “could” be informing the public on this very important issue. Instead you’d rather put out fools like Conrad and DeMint and help confuse people so that health insurance reform will die. The American people WILL win this “debate” and Conrad and DeMint WILL be shown to be the greedy fools they are. While they enjoy top-notch health care, they want to deny it to the very people who pay for theirs.
Posted by: WI resident | July 25, 2009, 9:02 am 9:02 am
I am from North Dakota, and have voted Democrat my whole life (40 years) partly because I have been waiting for a big enough Democratic majority in congress to pass health care reform. Now we have a healthy majority in the house and a 60/40 advantage in the Senate so imagine my shock to find out that my Congressman, Earl Pomroy, is a Blue Dog Democrat who seems to be fighting against health care reform, and one of my Senators, Kent Conrad is a fiscal conservative disguised as a Democrat who shills for the Insurance Industry. Apparently, the Democratic Party in North Dakota might have to rethink their candidates next time around.
Posted by: Kate1149 | July 25, 2009, 5:14 pm 5:14 pm
we need a universal payer system! Our companies, and country, are burden by this ridiculous lawyer-insurancecompany run system. Hospitals are FORCED to treat patients anyway (by Court decree) so why not at least make it rational?
Take the MONEY away from the LAWYERS and INSURANCE COMPANIES. Give it to the doctors, nurses, and hospitals. Let the prices come DOWN because shysters and insurance gougers aren’t taking a cut of every cost.
In other words be rational. No more uninformed slack-jawed jury giving millions to some out of shape litigant who sued a charity hospital and whose shyster took at minimum a 1/3 of the “award”. Or companies who have to pay for their employees insurance no matter what the cost (some random employee whose kid gets cancer or something). No other country has such a debilitating system on business simply because the lawyers and insurance companies pay for the politicians tobe elected! We need a universal, central payer system (with a private option for those who want private doctors)!
Posted by: Ed | July 26, 2009, 12:04 am 12:04 am
Two percent of the highest earning people will never be able to pay for 98 percent of the population’s health care. It seems like a plan to eliminate the impending needed procedures of the aged and the baby boomers, but everyone gets old.
Posted by: anony | July 26, 2009, 4:58 am 4:58 am
Here’s the trend of Obama’s Job Approval:
Jan: Approve 64 Disapprove 17.6 Spread: +46.4
July: Approve 54.5 Disapprove 41.3 Spread: +13.2
That trend is a -4.7 spread per month over 7 months.
Obama has a 49% Job Approval and a Negative 11 Approval Index in Rasmussen among Likely Voters.
The trend going forward:
Aug: Approve 52.2 Disapprove 43.5 Spread: +8.7
Sep: Approve 49.9 Disapprove 45.8 Spread: +4.1
Oct: Approve 47.6 Disapprove 48.1 Spread: -0.5
Nov: Approve 45.3 Disapprove 50.4 Spread: -5.1
Dec: Approve 43.0 Disapprove 52.7 Spread: -9.7
These Plummeting Job Approval Numbers for Obama indicate why there is such a rush to pass this awful agenda.
Posted by: Angelo | July 26, 2009, 7:50 am 7:50 am
Why is the media so afraid to remind members of congress that THEY have the best healthcare system in the world NOT the average American citizen…. I have yet to hear anyone assert that fact… why tippy toe around it??? Afraid to lose further interviews???
Posted by: john | July 26, 2009, 9:15 am 9:15 am
George
This is for sen Jim DeMint from SC.
If the Government increasing the taxes on private Insurance companies…The government can stop the private Insurance companies by capping the there PREMIUM prices from private Insurance companies on the people!!!
Place Federal Government”Regulation”
on all the private Insurance companies!!!
Posted by: Brendett | July 26, 2009, 9:20 am 9:20 am
When are the demo and repubs going to keep their respective parties out of this “debate” and start looking at how the entire system works from access to insurance reimbursements. The entire system is broken. Rebates and tax credits are rediculous when people have been asked to take cuts in pay and lost their jobs. If Mr. DeMint and his colleagues had any clue of what healthcare costs are, he should be embarrassed at throughing out a number such as $5,000 vouchers. I am sure that his family is set.
I am firm believer that all policians should loose their healthcare coverage and participate in the current policies that the “real” person participates in.
Posted by: G Beer | July 26, 2009, 9:43 am 9:43 am
Question for DeMented: How does national competition in the insurance market help consumers who have a pre-existing condition? Last I heard, a pre-existing condition is cause for redlining in all 50 states.
Posted by: JeannetteHP | July 26, 2009, 10:36 am 10:36 am
“…health care in the 1990′s got taken over by wall street and big business.”
William Mcquire was going to walk away with $1.6 billion dollars to manage other peoples health. Eliminate the middle men and lower the costs, improve the quality and quantity of health care in the US. Get rid of the benefit brokers that divert funds from patient treatment, physicians, hospitals and medical research.
Posted by: Frankie Mal | July 26, 2009, 10:44 am 10:44 am
A choice between a government-run option and private insurers, while at the same time applying competitive pressure to the rest of the insurance industry is madness. It might “feel good” to know that government cares for our health, but the long-term cost is frightening. The government-run option is the “Trojan horse” of the Obama administration wanting to takeover of the country’s healthcare system With a liberal Congress spending billions of dollars to bail out industries and tightly controlling other private sector enterprises, a highly regulated industry like healthcare insurance is headed to the public slaughter-house at the will of federal legislators, all in the name of competition.
Posted by: Ray Torres | July 26, 2009, 12:22 pm 12:22 pm
ILLUSTRATION for difference between public AND private health insurance:
Air plains have three classes: first, business, and regular
All passengers get carried on the SAME airplane, SAME safety standards, to the SAME destination. An ADDITIONAL fee, however, will purchase EXTRA perks, EXTRA comfort in business class or first class.
BUT: for additional money (function of private insurers) we can purchase more comfortable seats in BUSINESS Class and for even more additional money we can get seated in FIRST CLASS.
The important role of Public healthcare will be that of providing good, safe health services for everyone, the general PUBLIC, with the same safety standards for everyone.
The role of PRIVATE healthcare will be that of offering ADDITIONAL SERVICES to the patient:
During HOSPITALIZATION: providing private rooms with a single bed instead of the REGULAR rooms with several beds in each room; private access to physicians instead of public waiting rooms; brand name medicines instead of generic medicine….
Posted by: Ziggy | July 31, 2009, 10:02 am 10:02 am
GEORGE…….THE BOTTOM LINE IS WE NEED HEALTHCARE REFORM NOW…..
Posted by: lindalu | August 2, 2009, 5:58 pm 5:58 pm
All I can say is Thank god for Medi care
I have really never had Insurance and medicare sure has taken the worry off me.Why cant we just do a program like medi care? I can go private for a suppliment that I can afford ..My brother has the caddilac supplement I have the cheaper one ..it works for me!
thank heaven tho I have had no serious health issuses all my life …. Thank heavens now if I do ..I at least have Medi care
Posted by: Patricia | August 2, 2009, 7:23 pm 7:23 pm