Comments on Obama Health Care Speech

Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: President Obama, promoted his national public health care option to the American Medical Association. He was selling his position to the American people that a government plan which would compete with private insurers is "not your enemy; it is your friend." Text of Obama's Health Care Speech.

Some initial responses indicate that President Obama is rather naive in thinking he can persuade everyone about everything including the sight of hand of moving a government health care plan forward as just another option equal to private health care plans. We already have examples of government health care for veterans, retired military, the elderly over 65 and mandated care for anyone entering an Hospital Emergency Room for anything they need. And how is this working? Not very efficiently.

Health care analyst Michael D. Tanner on Cato@Liberty: responded:

In his speech to the American Medical Association today, President Obama repeatedly denied that he supports “socialized medicine” or “government-run” health care.

But what is important is not the terminology, but under the proposal supported by the president, government would control more and more of our health care decisions. Government would compel Americans to purchase health insurance, controlling its content, how much we pay, and the relationships between insurers, doctors, and patients. Government bureaucrats would determine whether Americans receive certain medical services.

There may be no better salesman than Barack Obama, but his product is deeply flawed. The so-called “Public Option,” or government-run plan, that President Obama supports would slowly but inexorably lead to the destruction of the private insurance market and the imposition of a government-controlled single-payer system.

But the problems with Obamacare go well beyond the Public Option, which the AMA opposes. The mandates on businesses and individuals, taxpayer subsidies, insurance regulation, and government interference in private medical decisions pose serious threats to American businesses, taxpayers, and most importantly patients.

That’s bad medicine, no matter what you call it.

Dr. Timothy Johnson, ABC News Medical Editor had a few terse comments:

Obama kept speaking about keeping what you have if you like it. "If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what."
Comment: What's the "reform" about simply allowing you to keep your present plan as is?

Obama commented on two reforms that almost everyone agrees are necessary: electronic medical records and prevention.
Comment: He ignored the fact that there is no evidence that prevention long term saves money -- e.g., we may get so good at it that everyone lives to 90 and gets Alzheimer's.

Obama's big pitch that a "Health Insurance Exchange" will be like the program for federal employees where they can choose from a list of insurance plans approved by the government -- and immediately said that "one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market."
Comment: This is the big sticking point with Republicans and something the AMA said last week they were opposed to. However, the AMA has tried to back away from that stance a little bit and today there was moderate applause for this idea. He also threw another bone to this audience by saying the annual process for setting payments for doctors -- the Sustainable Growth Rate -- needs to be reformed.

More comments will be available tomorrow as people have more time to mull over the speech. Today's news was distracted by the events in Iran as its citizens protesting their election results. Tomorrow will ring more detailed review and analysis. But in summary remember that this speech was by a president who in his first 100 days has pushed through programs which have created the largest national debt in history. He does not know a think about health care. It is therefore questionable to trust our health care to Obama plan which points towards nationalized health care.

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Tags: AMA, American Medical Association, Barack Obama, doctors, health care, health care plan, nationalized health care To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!