Symptom of the Disease: Obama not familiar with pending health care legislation – Update: Video Added
Continuing with our Symptom of the Disease series, we’ve got President Obama admitting that he is not familiar with what is included in the current version of the House health care legislation. He has not read it, Congressional leaders don’t read it, party leaders don’t read it. But you know what? Bloggers like our own Sound Off Sister read it.
Now to be fair, who has the time to read thousands of pages of legislation? Why, if the people who are responsible for voting on legislation were required to read and understand what they are voting for nothing would ever get done.
When it comes to the federal legislative branch of government, I think I’m OK with that, but in reality, this is a good example of a symptom of the disease.
The Heritage Foundation has the report detailing a call Obama had with lefty bloggers trying to get them on board and promote the plan, which of course, he is not familiar with.
During the call, a blogger from Maine said he kept running into an Investors Business Daily article that claimed Section 102 of the House health legislation would outlaw private insurance. He asked: “Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?” President Obama replied: “You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.” (quote begins at 17:10)
This is a truly disturbing admission by the President, especially considering that later in the call, Obama promises yet again: “If you have health insurance, and you like it, and you have a doctor that you like, then you can keep it. Period.” How can Obama keep making this promise if he is not familiar with the health legislation that is being written in Congress? Details matter.
There will be many life-status changes that may move you into a position where you will not be able to keep the health insurance you have. Since 60-plus percent of insurance is provided through employer plans, just moving from one job to another – a life-status change – will most definitely result in a change in your health insurance.
Do you really think you’ll be able to have the exact same coverage you had before?
This has been documented here and on other blogs. No need to go through it again, Obama is lying to the American people.
This story is simply a symptom of the disease since the federal government should not be involved in health care at all. Never. Ever. No way. They do not have a Constitutional mandate to get involved! When government gets involved in the consumer market, the rules, regulations and legislation is so confusing and convoluted that even the IRS tells you their advice on tax subjects might be wrong, and you’re liable for any mistakes!
Unreal.
UPDATE (JV): Here’s audio of the exchange. Unbelievably, it’s true. Click the pick to watch.
6 Comments
The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.
You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.
The site is not broken.
On the other hand, we are " consuming" health products like soda/coffee/gasoline…. If that is the case why and where is the incentive on the part of health providers/pharma…. to reduce costs? I don't think we are willing to "ration" ourselves.
I guess I totally missed your point, and can't figure how it relates to this post. That said, there is plenty of incentive to keep costs low as any business who has competition will be driven to provide service on time all the time, at the lowest justifiable cost and the highest justifiable quality.
@Steve- You allude to the fact that the government should not get "involved in the consumer market". We consume health care like a commodity. Costs for the consumer are skyrocketing and I don't see "competition" reducing them. Why reduce costs/prices instead of simply make more money w/ a captive audience.
We can't consume health care like a commodity since the government is already FULLY INVOLVED with health care and their programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare Part D and others all are part of the problem. The government sets the reimbursement rates, which is much LESS than the actual cost so health care providers offset those losses with higher rates for people not covered by government programs. Hence the higher premiums paid by the people who have coverage.
Costs are going up in good part because we are NOT using a free market system and there is absolutely NO perception of value when it comes to health care. The low co-pays killed the industry, since people now expect a doctors visit to "cost" $10, an ER visit to "cost" $25 and prescriptions to "cost" $5.
If you think costs are going up just to ensure higher profits, take a look at what health insurance companies net profit margins are. In most cases we're talking less than 6 percent. Those types of margins are pretty low.
You're welcome to reply to this thread one more time, but we're way off topic.
@Steve, thanks. We CAN’T treat health care as a commodity, but we do (my opinion). We do NOT have a free market system for health care, but that doesn’t matter (my opinion). Doctors, hospitals and pharma advertise as if they are offering just another “product” (pharma spends more money on ads than on R&D). And a 6% NET profit margin is not too shabby with a captive market. And employers deduct their contribution to health plans. And, the bottom line is: ”Nobody wants to give up anything ”.
For us in the public, ignorance of the law is no excuse. And yet, Obama and our elected officials don't even read the bill which we will be required to know all about. Shouldn't they be the ones who are the authority on what's in their laws?