On Health Care Reform, President Obama Tells Congress: Finish Your Work, Bring This Journey to a Close
EmailJake Tapper and Sunlen Miller report:
Flanked by health care professionals in white lab coats and blue hospital scrubs, President Obama Wednesday afternoon called on Congress to vote on final passages of health care reform in the “next few weeks.”
“No matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform,” Obama said from the East Room this afternoon paving the way for the use of the controversial parliamentary procedure of reconciliation, which requires only 51 Senate votes for final passage, as opposed to the customary 60 needed to fend off a filibuster and proceed to a final vote..
“Reform has already passed the House with a majority,” he said. “It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of sixty votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up-or-down vote that was cast on welfare reform, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and by the way for both Bush tax cuts – all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.”
Those five bills were all passed in the Senate using reconciliation rules.
The president called on members of both Houses of Congress to “finish their work” and “schedule a vote in the next few weeks,” promising to do everything in his power before no and then to help make the case for reform. He said it is time to “bring this journey to a close,” being almost one year to the day since opening up the health care summit last March in the same room.
The White House has since announced that the president will travel to Philadelphia, Pa., and St. Louis, Mo., next week to build public support for final passage of the bill.
The debate, the president said, “easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship and misrepresentation and misunderstanding. But that's not an excuse for those of us who were sent here to lead. That's not an excuse for us to walk away.”
Speaking to the many House and Senate Democrats worried that this vote will hurt their chances of re-election, the president said, “We can't just give up because the politics are hard. I know there's been a fascination, bordering on obsession, in this media town about what passing health insurance reform would mean for the next election and the one after that. How will this play? What will happen with the polls? I will leave it to others to sift through the politics, because that's not what this is about. That's not why we're here.”
The proposals have been debated, changed, and “improved over the last year,” the president said, arguing the process has ended up incorporating ideas from Democrats and Republicans – including, he said, ideas heard during last week’s Blair House summit – like funding state grants on demonstration projects for alternatives to medical malpractice lawsuits and using an idea proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a practicing ob-gyn, on using medical professionals to work undercover to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid.
The president added that his proposal also gets rid of many provisions – like the deals made to win the votes of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., extra federal aid to Nebraska for Medicaid expansion and protection for Florida seniors from Medicare Advantage cuts, respectively – that the president said “were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans.”
The president said that there might be some Republicans who disagree with his belief that there should be more oversight of insurance companies.
“On the other end of the spectrum, there are those, and this includes most Republicans in Congress, who believe the answer is to loosen regulations on the insurance industry – whether it’s state consumer protections or minimum standards for the kind of insurance they can sell,” he said. “The argument is that will somehow lower costs. I disagree with that approach. I’m concerned that this would only give the insurance industry even freer rein to raise premiums and deny care.”
The president said that his proposal will give Americans more control and promised again, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”
(When he visited the GOP House retreat in January, the president had said that “some of the provisions that got snuck in” to the health care reform legislation during House and Senate negotiations “might have violated that pledge.” He said, "we were in the process of eliminating" those provisions. Asked repeatedly as to what provisions were added, White House officials never responded.)
Mr. Obama today outlined the three areas where he believes his proposal would change the current health care system.
1. It would end the “worst practices” of insurance companies, such as denying coverage to consumers because of pre-existing conditions, or dropping coverage for patients who get sick.
“No longer would they be able to arbitrarily and massively raise premiums like Anthem Blue Cross recently tried to do in California,” the president said, “up to 39% increases in one year in the individual market. Those practices would end.”
2. The president said his proposal would give the uninsured and small business owners the same kind of choice of private health insurance that Members of Congress get for themselves.
“The reason federal employees get a good deal on health insurance is that we all participate in an insurance market where insurance companies give better rates and coverage and better rates because we give them more customers,” he said. “This is an idea that many Republicans have embraced in the past. Before politics intruded.”
3. The president said his proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions – families, businesses, and the federal government.
“We have now incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care – ideas that go after the waste and abuse in our system, especially in programs like Medicare,” he said.
The president pledged that the plan is deficit-neutral; “our proposal is paid for,” he said, arguing that some of the cost-cutting measures of the Senate bill reduce premiums and would bring down the deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next two decades.
“With this plan, we’re going to make sure the dollars we spend go toward making insurance more affordable and more secure. We’re also going to eliminate wasteful taxpayer subsidies that currently go to insurance and pharmaceutical companies, set a new fee on insurance companies that stand to gain a lot of money and a lot of profits as millions of Americans are able to buy insurance, and make sure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of Medicare.”
The president argued against calls to scrap the bill or to pursue a scaled-down piecemeal approach to reform. Painting a picture of the cost of doing nothing, President Obama warned against more American losing their insurance if they switch or lose their jobs, small businesses forced to choose between health care and hiring, insurance companies deny people cover, and rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid sinking the government deeper into debt.
“For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last for another decade or even more. The American people, and the U.S. economy, just can’t wait that long.”
- Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller
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Jake,
Once again the President says, “if you don’t vote on this bill we will take our ball and go home”.
It is a crime that he is not called out for the threat that starting over will mean doing nothing. The only way that would mean doing nothing is if he would quit.
Of all the demagoguery in this debate, it is the one thing that he and the Democrats always get away with, and it is the most blatant attempt to pass the bill based on FUD.
Posted by: Marty | March 3, 2010, 4:16 pm 4:16 pm
Hopefully all will notice how Obama surrounds himself with “white coats” to give the illusion that the medical community thinks this is a “good” bill.
In reality, all should realize, that if it is good for doctors……it certainly WON’T be good for patients.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | March 3, 2010, 4:43 pm 4:43 pm
Forget about government run anything… ie post office, etc.
•Social Security was established in 1935. 75 years to get it right and it is broke.
•Fannie Mae was established in 1938. 72 years to get it right and it is broke.
•War on Poverty started in 1964. 46 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor” and they only want more.
•Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. 45 years to get it right and they are broke.
•Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 40 years to get it right and it is broke.
•The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. 33 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
AND NOW THIS PRESIDENT WANTS AMERICANS TO BELIEVE THAT WE CAN TRUST A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??
“Mmm, mmmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama/ ….mmm, mmmm, mmm, Barak Hussein Obama…”
say it again
Posted by: bl | March 3, 2010, 4:51 pm 4:51 pm
Ed Taylor basically got it right except for Social Security, it was actually doing ok it had a large fund to work with to insure the people who contributed to it got a retirement until the government that now wants to start a healthcare program to the money out of the fund and put it in the general fund so congress can spend it. Now look, everyone still has to contribute to it and the retirement age keeps getting extended and when congress fights over something else they won’t pass the budget so the retired can not get their checks and then they point fingers at each other blaming each other for the problem with both parties cause the problem.
Posted by: Dan | March 3, 2010, 5:08 pm 5:08 pm
bl, it seems to me if we trust the government to run our military, to protect us from another country invading us, they certainly can run a health insurance exchange.
Because that is the main part of the health reform bill. The government isn’t ‘running’ health care or the insurance industry. There will be an exchange where individuals that don’t have insurance at work or who work for themselves, like plumbers, etc. can pool together to get a good price on insurance.
Folks, with 47 million Americans unable to afford insurance, with premiums going up faster than our paychecks, with insurance companies canceling people’s policies when they get real sick for trivial reasons and with 60% if all bankruptcies due to medical bills, (even though most of those patients had insurance), we’ve got to pass this health reform bill.
Small businesses want it, the medical profession, the hospitals want it, the individuals paying high premiums want it.
And to those who say we should wait and think about it, we’ve been doing that since 1944!
Posted by: Lydia | March 3, 2010, 5:27 pm 5:27 pm
Who would you define as a bonehead:?
“And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well – every family, every business owner, every patient, every doctor, every nurse.”
What about those who DO NOT want this “reform” to make their voice heard? All indications seem to show the latter has a greater percentage than what the bonehead wants.
Keep bouncing his bonehead on the wall until he knocks himself out. We thought he was The Smartest Harvard graduate – a pres of its Law J.; now we wonder what a Harvard education has done to the Smartest One!
Posted by: skinny dog | March 3, 2010, 5:35 pm 5:35 pm
“Hopefully all will notice how Obama surrounds himself with “white coats” to give the illusion that the medical community thinks this is a “good” bill.”
Yep. Just like Bush when he gave his “war on terror” speeches with military personnel surrounding him. You all thought that was a good idea then, didn’t you?
Posted by: Bernie | March 3, 2010, 5:48 pm 5:48 pm
“with 47 Americans unable to afford health insurance….” – Lydia
=======
We fat cats say, get your fat butt off the couch, find a hard-working job, motivate yourself and take yourself out of “poorness”, and pay your health insurance, so that you do not rely on a Social Program.
How do you think we cats get fat? We have to move our butt to eat the food you humen provide us. For us cats, it’s hard work!! Your poor, less-educated Gun and God-clinging people can also do some work. In America, “the land of opportunity”, if you are not willing to work hard to feed yourself, but rather, to wait for 0bama charity, you deserve not to be insured and cured.
Posted by: fat cat | March 3, 2010, 5:52 pm 5:52 pm
Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, doctors, nurses and hospitals support this bill.
The AMA, the biggest group of doctors in the country has publicly stated they support it!
Posted by: Lydia | March 3, 2010, 5:53 pm 5:53 pm
Bernie, my apologies, the actual culprit was Rick McDaniel. I am so sorry I didn’t read more carefully.
Rick, you are the one I want to argue with. Honestly do you think that most doctors want to see people die because they don’t have health insurance? Do you think they enjoy arguing with insurance companies to okay treatments they have denied their patients? Do you think they enjoy submitting bills multiple times for months before some insurance companies will pay them? Think about it. The doctors and nurses are on the patients side.
Posted by: Lydia | March 3, 2010, 5:59 pm 5:59 pm
fat cat, your idea that people just need to get off their butts, find a job and buy insurance, shows you need some more education on the subject and perhaps a little compassion thrown in for good measure.
Statistic show that most people without insurance are working, some of them two jobs. There are so many companies, especially small businesses that can’t afford to insure their employees. It is like the game of musical chairs we all played as kids. There simply aren’t enough chairs (jobs with insurance) for how many adults are working.
And if your job doesn’t offer insurance, you don’t have a prayer of affording it on your own. The premiums for anyone buying individually are so high, only someone earning 70K or better could afford a good insurance policy.
That is the reason that 46 million Americans don’t have insurance.
By the way, of the ‘fat cats’ I know personally, half of them earned it, the other half ripped off their workers and their customers. Just being a fat cat doesn’t automatically make anyone an authority on how to act. Especially when you don’t bother to look up the facts.
Posted by: Lydia | March 3, 2010, 6:11 pm 6:11 pm
Lydia,
Perfect arguments, indeed. We cats are perfectly in favor of controlling prices for health care, or better yet, for gasoline price to be under $2/gl. Then, you should ask our Greatest Smartest Clueless Leader to draft a bill to control costs.
Then, why on earth you want 0bama to force us cats to pay those lazybones, or those poor hard-working people to buy them insurance? If we cats lay our teeth on your chin to demand for money, we’d be sent to the big house. Yet if 0bama does it, you call it “compassion”.
We cats are absolutely compassionate creatures. We provide you human with companionship and comfort, by our own will. If you force us to sit on your lap, we will bite your nose off.
Posted by: fat cat | March 3, 2010, 6:32 pm 6:32 pm
I’m so tired of Republican B.S. arguments. They misuse polls and the facts to distort the truth. By now, the Republican’s should know Americans are sick and tired of hypocritical politicians who make $176,000 a year and get the best govt run health insurance via our tax dollars. Hypocrites!
Polls. What the Republicans are doing is clumping the poll stats together for their own personal agenda. The truth is, many said they did not want this bill not because they do not want reform, but because it did not go far enough. If the Republicans cared for the truth, they would find many polled said no to this bill because it did not have the public option, but the Republicans try to use those stats as if all of America is against Obama health care agenda. Simply not true. I’m tired of out of touch Republicans who should be wearing ties with the insurance company lobbyists name they represent on it.
Party of NO. Repukes new matra is yes we are the party of No when it comes to higher taxes and more spending….once again, distortion of truth. I guess we need to clarify. Republicans you are the party of Yes when it comes to giving tax breaks to the rich, un-regulating wall street to ruin our economy and distorting the truth about WMD to fight a war. But when it comes to middle class and spending our tax dollars on laws that will help middle class families you are indeed the party of NO. After all, middle class can’t give Republicans million dollar campaign contributions like your insurance lobbyists gronies can. Hypocrites, liars and full of out of touch B.S. is what the Republicans are.
If you are so against Govt run health care, Mr Republican politician, why not give up the health care our tax dollars pays for to give you and your family the best care in the world. Hypocrites,
Posted by: jj | March 3, 2010, 6:37 pm 6:37 pm
Americans are sick and tired of hypocritical politicians who make $176,000 a year and get the best govt run health insurance via our tax dollars. Hypocrites!
—jj
=======
jj – You make a perfect point. Please ask our Greatest Smartest Clueless Leader 0bama to put the public option, i.e., govt run health insurance, that has a broad support in the House and by the public, back into His Health Care Bill.
He lies to you, and is clueless, yet pretends to be Smartest; clueless still, you believe in him.
Posted by: huh | March 3, 2010, 6:43 pm 6:43 pm
Jeffery Flier dean of the Harvard Medical school says that we should be implementing health savings accounts.
This lie that the medical profession is behind this ridiculous bill should be shouted down.
Funded health savings accounts combined with low cost catastrophic insurance is a great idea. Why make the insurance companies richer – unless of course they are paying off the politicians.
Posted by: welldirected | March 3, 2010, 7:15 pm 7:15 pm
Mayo Clinic (one of the best hospital systems on the planet) has quit taking Medicare patients because they lose money on every patient at the rates that the government pays out.
What happens if they push this silly bill through and no healthcare providers will take the insurance.
We should be pushing for quality healthcare, not insurance.
Posted by: welldirected | March 3, 2010, 7:24 pm 7:24 pm
A very good opinion article today:
“Before he doubles down, or triples down, on this sweeping overhaul, Obama ought to have a quick talk with billionaire Warren Buffett…..
He also happens to know a thing or two about how that economy really works.
Such as the fact that health care costs, now consuming 17% of Gross Domestic Product and rising rapidly,…
Such as the fact that a sensible reform strategy, what Buffett calls “a plan C,” would focus on controlling costs first, second and last – and then, only then, turn to the important work of expanding coverage.
Says Buffett: “I believe in insuring more people. But I don’t believe in insuring more people till you attack the cost aspect of this. And there is no reason for us to be spending 17% or thereabouts when … many other developed countries are spending … 9% or 10%.”
Posted by: bl | March 3, 2010, 7:48 pm 7:48 pm
There will be an exchange where individuals that don’t have insurance at work or who work for themselves, like plumbers, etc. can pool together to get a good price on insurance.
Posted by: Lydia |
—
PLEASE do not forget to say that were this farce to pass, it would cost $money$.
IT WILL NOT BE FREE!!!
How much will that insurance cost (premiums)?
What will it cover (benefits)?
What about deductibles, copays?
Posted by: smartlillena | March 3, 2010, 8:28 pm 8:28 pm
And there is no reason for us to be spending 17% or thereabouts when … many other developed countries are spending … 9% or 10%.”
Exactly. Those are the countries with single payer and other universal health systems.
Posted by: Flash Override | March 3, 2010, 8:59 pm 8:59 pm
welldirected, it is interesting you bring up the Mayo Clinic, since they support the Senate bill. I disagree with them on the public option, as they don’t like it, but they are firmly behind Obama on this.
Posted by: Flash Override | March 3, 2010, 9:05 pm 9:05 pm
“The president added that his proposal also gets rid of many provisions – like the deals made to win the votes of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., extra federal aid to Nebraska for Medicaid expansion and protection for Florida seniors from Medicare Advantage cuts, respectively – that the president said “were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans.”” – ABC News
What about the Louisiana Deal?
What about the Union Deal?
Those were about winning individual votes too.
It’s politics as usual with NoBo leading the way.
I’m starting to believe this guy, our president, wouldn’t know the truth if it was a 2×4 and hit him square in the face.
He throws aside principals as if they were used Micky Dee bags.
This is not a good sign for us Americans.
We may be in deep trouble.
We may have made a huge mistake electing Barack Obama.
Posted by: Noz | March 4, 2010, 7:59 am 7:59 am
If the Brit’s had the POTUS, they could call for a vote (a vote to depose him)…
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | March 4, 2010, 8:31 am 8:31 am
from the ABC article: “Obama said from the East Room this afternoon paving the way for the use of the controversial parliamentary procedure of reconciliation, which requires only 51 Senate votes for final passage, as opposed to the customary 60 needed to fend off a filibuster and proceed to a final vote”.
Obama seems to forget his own parties feigned outrage back in 2005. Joe Biden in 2005 reacted to Bush threatening to use the nuclear option for cabinet appointments:
“I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.”
Obama himself, back in 2005, threw himself into the fray (it’s all on video – type ‘naked emperor news democrats nuclear option video’):
Obama saying in 2005 about the nuclear option, “you have absolute power of either side and that’s just not what the founders intended”
Hillary Clinton telling Bush about the nuclear option “you have to restrain yourself Mr. President”
Chuck Schumer saying about the nuclear option, “the checks and balances that have been at the core of this Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option . . . it is amazing, it is almost a temper tantrum”
Harry Reid said in 2005 “the fillibuster serves as a check on power and preserves a limited government”
Joe Biden saying “this nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power, it is a fundamental power grab”
Feinstein saying “the Senate becomes ipso facto . . . majority rules supreme and the party in power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power”
Joe Biden again saying about the Republicans threatening to use the nuclear option “and I pray God that when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing”
and Baucus saying “this is the way democracy ends”.
Meanwhile today in 2010, when the Democrats have the power, they conveniently forget about their “principled” remarks from 2005 and are now about to use the very thing these phonies so adamantly chided by passing government health care using the nuclear option. The Democrats aren’t about principle, they’re about power, bending and molding their opinions depending on who’s got the leverage. Democrats feign outrage one year, only to adopt the very thing they were previously “outraged” against in a previous year. Today they blame the Republicans as the part of “no” while ignoring their own feigned ‘outrage’. Today, they choose to use the nuclear option while yesteryear they criticized it as a “naked power grab”.
This is the height of hypocrisy.
Posted by: EPU | March 4, 2010, 9:00 am 9:00 am
The POTUS will throw his own party under his own election bus.. without even a hint of guilt.. on his part.
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | March 4, 2010, 9:03 am 9:03 am
This is the height of hypocrisy.
Posted by: EPU | Mar 4, 2010 9:00:56 AM
Clearly, you don’t understand the difference between reconciliation and the nuclear option.
Here’s an idea. Look it up. And look up the hypocrisy of the GOP that used reconciliation many times, and threatened to sue the nuclear option as well.
Its obvious that reconciliation isn’t scarey enough to appeal to the GOP so they’re conflating the two.
Only dupes will fall for it.
Posted by: progressive mama | March 4, 2010, 10:51 am 10:51 am
progressive grandma
You are ALL WRONG. The use of the term “nuclear option” was INVENTED by the Democrats in 2005 – their term for “reconciliation process” to dupe Kool aid drinkers like yourself.
Posted by: EPU | March 6, 2010, 12:49 pm 12:49 pm