President Obama Delays His Trip to Focus on Health Care Reform

Isn’t it hypocritcal of Stupak to abandon those 46 million Americans without health insurance, to honor instead his personal belief on abortion? Knowing full well that 45,000 Americans will die each year because they lack insurance, somehow doesn’t faze Stupak. I wonder how many uninsured live in his district?
And the strangest part of his stance is the bill makes it perfectly clear that no federal money will be used for abortions.
So what is he really objecting to?
On a positive note, I’m glad that Obama is delaying his trip to help pass the health care reform bill.
All 46 million uninsured Americans are counting on it.
All those Americans who are having a hard time making ends meet while their insurance premiums goes up 20 or 30% every year are counting on it.
To all the representatives and senators who are voting yea for this bill, I say thank you. You truly understand that your job is to protect the American people and our economy.
‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ = affordable health care

I’ll say it again, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ = affordable health care.
46 million and growing each year, Americans are uninsured because they can’t afford it.
45,000 of them die every year because they lack health care. Think about that number for a minute.
While I personally think we need a public option, I will gladly settle for this bill for now. It will do so much good by helping make insurance more affordable, as well as limit the harm insurance companies can do.
The insurance industry has spent over 8 million dollars to try to stop this bill. That fact alone tells us this bill will be good for us, the consumer. To those who say it will be a windfall for the insurance companies, I say explain why they spent 8 million fighting it.
This health care reform bill will be good for uninsured and insured Americans, and great for our economy as jobs in the medical field grow.

Lydia,
You desired for life and liberty is quite modest, indeed.

What did Obama promise?
Jobs, jobs, jobs.
What’s he doing?
Government takeover of everything.
Just how stupid do you have to be to be a Demcorat?

It would be fitting if this bill died due to federal funding of abortions – even ignoring the moral aspects. How do you insure against that? I can see how you can insure one’s life – with a suicide clause. I can see how you can insure a car – with inspection of one’s driving record. How can you insure against unprotected boynking? Should taxpayers pay for condoms (hmm,,, maybe we do)? How about champaign and candles?

Stupak is a joke. His threats are empty and he is a nobody. Why is it that men want to regulate what a woman does with her own body? I am a man and I don’t think it’s my right to have a say in what a woman what she should do. Women should be doing the deciding not the men!

If so, why not try getting healthcare costs under control? That would be a good start since we won’t see benefits for 4 years anyway.
Posted by: mitchscove | Mar 13, 2010 7:20:26 AM
Sigh.
The disinformation is getting old.
Good articles on how the health care bill addresses cost (because it DOES address cost, not just spending, via pilot programs, the descriptions of which are nearly half the darned bill!), see
“Medicare’s Opportunity to Encourage Innovation in Health Care Delivery” in the New England Journal of Medicine (Robert Mechanic and Stuart Altman)
And also Testing, Testing by Atul Gawande (New Yorker),
See also Ezra Klein’s post, “Modest far reaching cost ontrol”
I’d also mentions that several reforms, “benefits” and temporary measures like high risk pools kick in immediately once the bill is passed, so some of the b.s. on waiting 4 years is untrue.
As Maggie Mahar, a health writer, points out, “As Dr. Don Berwick, president of the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI) points out in the film, Money-Driven Medicine, a great many stake-holders worry, needlessly, that they will lose something under reform. Berwick acknowledges that “some oxes will be gored” as those who profit from waste lose revenue. “But a lot of people with oxen that won’t get gored think they will,” Berwick notes. And this “coalition of the people who would be better off under reform” plus those “who are needlessly afraid of change . . that’s an immense coalition, “ he observes, “That’s eighty percent of America!”
Conservatives who oppose reform are always available to confirm a stake-holder’s most paranoid fears. Those who support reform should counter the spread of misinformation. Unfortunately, it’s much, much easier to “frame” a lie than it is to explain the truth. Lies lend themselves to one-liners. ” (Health Beat blog).
Well put.
Yes, it IS much easier for you all to frame your lies. But we need health care reform. Time to grow up.

WHEN YOU VOTED FOR THIS OBAMA, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?
____
David Brooks sums him up pretty well : “The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer… He has tried to find this balance in a town without an organized center — in a town in which liberals chair the main committees and small-government conservatives lead the opposition. He has tried to do it in a context maximally inhospitable to his aims.
But he has done it with tremendous tenacity.”
You should read the whole column, called “Meet the real Barack Obama.” Though I don’t always agree with Brooks and I’m definitely to the left of him on many things, he nails Obama’s critics on both sides pretty well.
Personally, of course, I’d put quote marks around “small goverment conservatives” leading the opposition. That’s their rhetoric but not their real deal– check their records.LOL.

Stupak drives the lefties crazy. Eventually the prolife group will cave, but you gotta admire their audicity in defying the party machine. What’s the count now, 333 to 12.

WHEN YOU VOTED FOR THIS OBAMA, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? …I’ll say it again, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ = affordable health care.
46 million and growing each year, Americans are uninsured because they can’t afford it.
45,000 of them die every year because they lack health care. Think about that number for a minute.

llan – well, why don’t you throw in food, a place to live, free public transportation and cable TV? 45,000 Isn’t that figure getting a little old? Really.

This week, Obama told a fundraising audience in St. Louis that “it’s nice to get out of Washington.” WHAT???–He spent his first year in office JOY-RIDING to FOREIGN countries — many times with his family — at our expense. He made more foreign trips during his first year (10 trips involving stops in 21 nations) than any U.S. president before him. Now, with the fate of HCR, the Campaigner-In-Chief is visiting American cities to ram Obamacare down our throats. This is the most corrupt administration in American history.

He made more foreign trips during his first year (10 trips involving stops in 21 nations) more than any U.S. president before him.
____________________________________
There was a LOT of repair work to be done – and it’s worked . . .
“The United States is the most admired country globally thanks largely to the star power of President Barack Obama and his administration, according to a new poll.
“It climbed from seventh place last year, ahead of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan which completed the top five nations in the Nation Brand Index (NBI).
“What’s really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009,” said Simon Anholt, the founder of NBI, which measured the global image of 50 countries each year.

There was a LOT of repair work to be done – and it’s worked . . .Posted by: tierra | Mar 13, 2010 1:38:29 PM
Sorry to burst your bubble, but all the bowing and putting america down did not help a bit, a matter of fact our standings in the world are lower then ever before. Go and read newspapers from other countries, or do you only know one language.

Posted by: Lizzie | Mar 13, 2010 1:56:05 PM
“Indeed, if there was one undisputed headline for the Nation Brands Index 2009 results, it would be Barack Obama’s impressive effect on Brand America. Of course most people was expecting an improvement of the US standings in the Nation Brands Index with Obama’s election (and we predicted it as early as January 2009, coinciding with his inauguration speech), but the results have surpassed all reasonable predictions.
“While most countries in the Nation Brands Index have continued to move slowly, either upwards or downwards, the United States has advanced no less than 7 positions in a row and has taken the top spot as the country with the best overall brand. This is a “dramatic change”, confirms Simon Anholt, the mastermind behind the Nation Brands Index.
“What’s really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States in 2009,” explains Anholt. “Despite recent economic turmoil, the U.S. actually gained significant ground. The results suggest that the new U.S. administration has been well received abroad, and the American electorate’s decision to vote in President Obama has given the United States the status of the world’s most admired country.”
“This improved perception of the U.S. is not only in the area of Governance and People, as there are improved perceptions for People, Culture, and even Tourism of the United States. “The general positive goodwill has also spilled over to the other dimensions including Culture and Tourism where the U.S. has recorded stronger reputation performance compared to 2008″, add the Nation Brands Index authors.
“In reality, and generally speaking, it seems like the United States, more than improving its image on the world, has been restored to its rightful spot as the world’s first economy. As the richest and most powerful country in the world, being at the 7th place was a freak of nature – an evidence of how awfully former President Bush had managed America’s image. Now, the country has recovered its natural position as the most admired country in the world.”

Guess Obama needs a few more days to bribe, threaten, and twist a few arms.
Can he pass any of his bills based on merit or do they all stink so badly he has to buy votes?

I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT, THAN POPULAR.
___________________________________
The country is now perceived as both right and respected – a huge change.

Leave up to tierra to bring up some totally specious “Index” with virtually no documentation of methods,participants,results or reliability.Just like the mention of the Pembina Institute, it is an attempt to try to appear educated while revealing a paucity of true analytical thinking.Where is the data that this “Index”,even if statistically valid,would have any significance at all?This is so similar to the anecdotal reports at the heart of the vaccine-induced autism myth proposed by so many prominent celebrities.Instead of listening to the experts,these people would give promenence to pop-science theories from individuals who had no direct scientific evidence for their claims.Maybe this “Index” is a big thing in Canada, it certainly is totally meaningless in the USA.

Simon Anholt is nothing but a motivational speaker whose gimmick is to frame his “masterclasses” in a theory of national branding.Try to register and see how much they cost.The fact is that there is no other reputable journal that publishes on this “theory”.One of his claims was that “Crocodile Dundee” greatly improved the world’s perception of Australia!Go to his website-no mention of academic credentials,degrees, higher education,etc.I suppose tierra’s next reference to prove her academic skills will be Ramtha, the 20,000 year old spirit from Atlantis.You can buy a spot at those “seminars”,too.

PEW RESEARCH CENTER
The Pew Global Attitudes Project, the largest ever series of continuing multi-national surveys focusing on worldwide issues, has been monitoring views of the United States and of the American people since 2002. It has conducted more than 200,000 interviews in 57 countries.
These surveys chronicled the rise of anti-Americanism around the world for much of the past decade. Favorable ratings of the U.S. plunged in many countries following the invasion of Iraq and remained low through 2008. In 2009, we began to document a revival of America’s global image in many parts of the world reflecting confidence in its new president, Barack Obama.
By mid-2009, opinions of the United States in Western Europe, as well as major countries in Asia and Latin America, were about as positive as they were at the beginning of the decade, before George W. Bush took office. The improvement of the American image was especially evident in Western Europe, where opinion of the U.S. had remained at a low ebb for many years. For example, America’s favorable rating in Germany jumped from 31% in 2008 to 64% in 2009. A comparable increase in positive opinion was apparent in France (42% to 75%). While improvements in the U.S.’s ratings were most dramatic in Western Europe, changes in a positive direction were apparent in major Asian and Latin American countries and elsewhere.

tierra has found another survey to quote.Apparently she wasn’t aware of the Anholt GOTCHA.

One of his claims was that “Crocodile Dundee” greatly improved the world’s perception of Australia!
_____________________________________
And what proof do YOU have he was wrong?

What were the worlwide ticket results for “Dundee”?
Posted by: Nephron | Mar 13, 2010 4:08:58 PM
____________________________________
So you have NO proof he was wrong. I see. You have shown nothing.
That’s 3 surveys I’ve posted in a row Nephron . .. try to keep up.

We spent a fortune propping up institutions that would have sunk the E.U. .. they should worship the U.S. for it’s funding..

I would imagine people are the same the world over. They admire honesty, intelligence, respect for others, and positive goals in a person. Thus, the U.S. public electing a leader with those qualities show the majority of us admire those qualities also.
Stupak’s attitude is puzzlingly hypocritical. He talks about values but doesn’t hesitate to lie about the health care bill. Despite his insinuations and others like him, there is nothing in the bill to give federal dollars for abortions. Quite the opposite, it spells out clearly that no federal money will be used for abortions. They are using this false excuse to vote against the bill, when the truth of the matter is they are siding with the insurance industry, not us.

“to ram Obamacare down our throats.”
____________________________________
Since when does passing legislation = ‘ramming it down our throats”?
Since its the Democrats in office, not the Republicans?
Do unto Republicans as Republicans would do unto you. Pass the bill.

Staying home can be equated to browbeating reluctant legislsators using what I like to call “executive waterboarding” I wish the POTUS would go on his trip……….I am tired of b.s.

tierra said:
Since when does passing legislation = ‘ramming it down our throats”?
Well tierra since 60 percent of the
country is against passage of the
Senate Bill and the Dems control the
Senate and are trying to pass it
under reconciliation they are trying
to ram it down our throats!
This isn’t about Democrats vs Republicans it’s about Democrats vs
the American People!
Our representitives are elected to
abide by the will of the people not
go against it!

For those of you who don’t seem to understand, the Government is not supposed to legislate by polls. Never has been.

OBAMACARE – JUST LIKE THE GOVERNMENTS OF DETROIT, CLEVELAND, CHICAGO, BALTIMORE AND DC. ALL DISASTERS FOR YEARS, YEARS AND YEARS AND ALL RUN BY DEMOCRATS FOR YEARS, YEARS AND YEARS. !!! SAME STUFF, JUST DIFFERENT FACES, LOCATIONS AND PROGRAMS. THESE NUT JOBS ARE STILL STUCK IN SOCIOLOGY 101. HELP!!!

He needs to get the hell out of the country ,its runs better with him not being here Amen