Blurry vision?
Rising temperature? Symptoms of a health problem, alright. Namely, the one on Capitol Hill.
Which is why President Obama is taking his argument about health care reform to the people in small town America.
Undertaking an aggressive new effort to push a major health-care measure through Congress by August, Obama rebuked critics from both the right and left — conservatives who say his support for creating a government-sponsored insurance option alongside private coverage would send the country toward an unsustainable nationalized plan, as well as liberals who are concerned he won’t go far enough to mandate universal coverage.
He is sounding a lot like candidate Obama in these speeches. Dramatic rhetoric, but generalizations like “doing nothing will cost us more”, as if anyone is suggesting that.
There is emerging bipartisan consensus around many big isssues of health reform, including a need to move all Americans toward coverage and to prohibit insurance industry practices that deny coverage to people with health problems.
But there remain major disagreements over how to pay the $1.5 trillion it will cost over the next decade to cover the 50 million Americans who lack coverage, as well as whether employers should be required to offer coverage and whether government-sponsored insurance should be one option.
Obama has detailed few specifics that he is for and against, and he did not break any new ground on Thursday.
But plenty of others are laying out alternative plans. Like Judd Gregg.
To be effective, health care reform must include insurance coverage for everyone, encourage prevention measures, and reform the inefficiencies in our system to ensure the future strength of our economy. CPR—Coverage, Prevention, Reform—is a plan I have proposed that sets up a system where every American will be required to purchase meaningful health insurance to ensure each family will be protected against bankruptcy if a family member becomes seriously ill or injured. No family should lose their home or life-savings because of illness or injury. For those who may not be able to afford this plan, you will have assistance getting coverage.
And Karl Rove.
If Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state. To prevent this from happening, there are five arguments Republicans must make.
The first is it’s unnecessary. Advocates say a government-run insurance program is needed to provide competition for private health insurance. But 1,300 companies sell health insurance plans. That’s competition enough. The results of robust private competition to provide the Medicare drug benefit underscore this…
Second, a public option will undercut private insurers and pass the tab to taxpayers and health providers just as it does in existing government-run programs…
Third, government-run health insurance would crater the private insurance market, forcing most Americans onto the government plan. The Lewin Group estimates 70% of people with private insurance — 120 million Americans — will quickly lose what they now get from private companies and be forced onto the government-run rolls as businesses decide it is more cost-effective for them to drop coverage. They’d be happy to shift some of the expense — and all of the administration headaches — to Washington. And once the private insurance market has been dismantled it will be gone.
Fourth, the public option is far too expensive…The Obama administration estimates its health reforms will cost as much as $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years…
Fifth, the public option puts government firmly in the middle of the relationship between patients and their doctors. If you think insurance companies are bad, imagine what happens when government is the insurance carrier, with little or no competition and no concern you’ll change to another company.
Then there’s Kent Conrad.
The idea of creating health-care cooperatives was proposed by Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat. It would allow non-profits to negotiate directly with health-care providers for low-cost rates. The plans they offer would be sold, like private plans, through Internet-based exchanges where consumers could buy insurance at lower-cost, group rates.
Conrad said the cooperatives could be chartered by either the federal government or the states, and that they could receive federal seed money.
Member-run cooperatives is an idea that’s gaining traction. At least the two parties are talking about it, and some of them even have cool heads and clear vision.
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Most Corporate executive officers do not give specifics in proposals either. That’s why people get hired, to find out how to get where the CEO wants the company to go! Our country is no different. The President proposes and the Congress disposes. The president does believe a single payer plan is important since a government plan would help bring down costs. Right now all of the 1200 or so private plans are amazingly similar. The only difference is the introlductory rate that each charges to gain your business only to raise that rate significantly the following year. It has become really difficult for a company to plan for health insurance costs since they can vary tremendously from year to year. That’s why big business is quietly lobbying for a solution.
Obama is right. Not doing anything will increase the American’s cost in the future and cut American corporations’ ability to compete in the world.
In 2008, health care spending in the United States reached $2.4 trillion, and was projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012.1 Health care spending is projected to reach $4.3 trillion by 2016.1
Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.3
In 2008, the United States will spend 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. It is projected that the percentage will reach 20 percent by 2017.1
Although nearly 46 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens.3
Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Developmen
What expense does the Catholic Church in America have that it doesn’t in much of the rest of the world? The Catholic Church in America provides health care to it’s workers. Getting healthcare costs down will save the Church a lot of money. Wonder how the USCCB feels about a national plan? Bishop Murphy of Rockbille Centre (Long Island, NY) stated in May, 2009, “Health care is a social good, and accessible and affordable health care for all benefits both individuals and the society as a whole. The moral measure of any health care reform proposal is whether it offers affordable and accessible health care to all, beginning with those most in need. This can be a matter of life or death, of dignity or deprivation.â€
Please, God, make Karl Rove go away — maybe join a cloistered sect somewhere. (I kid — he’s too entertaining.)
1,300 private insurance companies offer health insurance in the U.S., and yet almost 50 million Americans don’t have any insurance — public or private. Granted, some percentage of that uninsured population is voluntarily uninsured. But it’s so secret that private insurance companies seek to eliminate enrollees if they are deemed too expensive.
(He also has selectively quoted from the Lewin study, which in fact came up with SIX scenarios as to how many people would trade their private insurance for public insurance — anywhere from 10 million to 120 million. and people who switch from a private to a public plan aren’t LOSING anything — they will in large part be voluntarily making the switch to coverage that costs less, offers better coverage, or both.)
The American system of providing health insurance is crazy. One plan for the poor, another for veterans, another for the elederly and permanently disabled, yet another for those who choose to be self-insured, and a rag-tag system for people who don’t have any insurance.
And then there are those who have insurance, but with deductibles and co-payments set so high they are discouraged from seeking care until their health problems get serious.
Per capita spending on health care in the U.S.is the highest in the world — by a large amount — and yet health outcomes are no where near the top of the list in any category.
The previous poster seems to be cutting and pasting an argument whose goal is to scare us into wanting health care reform…ANY health care reform…to come to us by the same route as the recent “stimulus” packages. The president proposing and congress supposing that it cannot be improved upon and thereby passing it without so much as reading the thing. It appears he didn’t even so much as proof read his own post. Eh, oh well, he’s kind of wasting his time on this blog anyway. Health care for all has always been a non-negotiable in the Catholic Church’s social justice program. Nationally, there IS a growing consensus on the need for health care reform, BUT what form it comes to us in is critically important. Read Bishop Murphy’s statement here http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2009/09-114.shtml and notice the paragraph on abortion.
Now is the time for debate. This time is needed for the country (esp. congress) to educate itself on all the options. Let’s take our time, think it through and get this one right. To borrow a phrase, “WE are too big to fail.”