The heated debate on the national health care plan being pushed by President Obama and the consequences of the significant drop in Obama’s own popularity or approval seem to be setting the stage for some serious, contentious and ugly scenes in Washington and throughout the country.
Obama called for “change” and made “change” the hallmark of his presidential campaign and his administration. He promised all kinds of great-sounding changes: total transparency in all Washington dealings, no lobbyists involved in his administration, no longer calling the situations in Iraq or Afghanistan “wars,” no mention of “terrorists.”
He said his stimulus plans would put a ceiling on this nation’s number of jobless and that the public would be given several weeks to study and learn about major legislation before it was considered by Congress. He made pledges about this nation’s debt, and on and on.
Now, just 10 months after his election and approximately eight months after moving into office, many, if not all, the “changes” are turning out to be the usual campaign rhetoric to win votes. Many of the “changes” Obama intends to jam down the throats of Americans are opposed by growing numbers of angry citizens.
Those in the Obama camp believed the election of their champion marked the beginning of a new, shining, squeaky-clean administration. The hated Bush administration was gone, and the public was ready for the eloquent-speaking former Chicago neighborhood organizer to work his magic.
It hasn’t worked out that way and, consequently, those in the Obama camp are angry and accusing those who oppose Obama of being un-American, using fear tactics and being puppets for those whose only goal is to see Obama defeated and disgraced.
Seldom, if ever, has a U.S. president made such an effort to get his prized legislation passed by Congress. Obama has made more national addresses in his first few months in office than the previous president made in his eight years in the White House. Even senior Democrats have said he has been overexposed.
Next week, Obama will deliver a speech to all the nation’s schoolchildren. Original plans called for many facets of the presentation to be not-too-subtle suggestions that these millions of students should support his legislative agenda and give study to what Obama’s goals should be. There was so much anger and public uproar about this that Obama officials now say the president will change some of his original plans for the student address. The whole thing looks like something we might read about Castro trying to do in Cuba.
It seems Obama comes out with a new plan, a more costly plan, every week, costly in terms of dollars and cents and costly in terms of the freedoms being infringed upon.
The president has appointed a number of “czars,” individuals who assume executive positions in many facets of our nation’s basic activities. And yet, none of these people are screened or approved by Congress.
In recent weeks, there has been closer examination of the backgrounds, activities and beliefs of many of those who have been given a czarship. It is shocking that Obama would place these types of individuals in such powerful positions, answerable only to the president.
The combination of the opposition and anger to Obama’s health care plan, exposed at the many town hall meetings during August, and anger over many other changes Obama is championing, along with the huge national debt, his constantly changing guidelines about who will or will not pay more or less taxes, the types of individuals he has named as czars, the takeover of private business, the regulation of what salaries will be allowed in some businesses, the effort to indoctrinate school-age children, the growing number of unemployed and the general, nationwide sense of frustration, anger, hopelessness and disappointment, all combine to create a dangerous, combustible environment.
Emotions are high, and it is incumbent on those in leadership positions to do whatever they can to keep the scene from becoming ugly.
People certainly have the right to speak out and voice their opposition to what a president — Obama or some future president — may espouse, but there must be civility. Likewise, the president should be sensitive and not try to force legislation or curtail freedoms this nation and its people have enjoyed for decades. Obama should temper his arrogance and soften the signals that he thinks he can do whatever he wants, regardless of the consequences for others.
The mood, activity, actions and scene in Washington next week, when Congress gets back to work and when the Obama machine renews its efforts to jam the president’s “changes” through Congress, and when the president makes another national address to a joint session of Congress all will provide a good barometer of whether there can be any sense or practice of bipartisanship (another Obama pledge) or it will be ugly, mean and dangerous politics as usual.
Comments
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merrill (anonymous) says…
Insurance clients do not have budgets of $100,000,000 to spend recklessly on politicians and BS campaigns. Clients have to spend their health care dollars more carefully. Meanwhile the insurance industry squanders health care dollars on politicians = corruption. They also squander plenty on shareholders. This money should be spent on health care.
I love competition but maintenance of someone's good health should not be based on competition. It should be based on immediate availability not on how much one can afford to spend with a corrupt insurance corporation.
The thing I love about National Health Insurance is that it allows MY tax dollars to provide health care to my family.
AND it brings MY tax dollars back to Lawrence,Kansas
AND it allows anyone to choose which doctor or clinic they choose. No booklet of of choices would be necessary ever again.
AND National Health Insurance would be there 365 days a year,24 hours a day and 7 days a week no matter what.
AND no more deductibles and co pays that in reality relieve the insurance industry of their responsibility.
The nice side of HR 676 is that those $1.2 trillion medical insurance tax dollars that covers a wide variety of government employees will actually be enough to provide insurance to all in the USA....yes under HR 676. That is certainly far more efficient use of OUR money aka tax dollars. It's about time.
National Health Insurance does not remove competition from the actual health care industry. It will be alive and well. Profits will be based on customer service and clinic performance based on the clients experience. This is my perception of competition.
HR 676 is the most practical and comprehensive coverage ever offered to the USA. Yes it has taken 50 years. Now is the time to say yes to excellent insurance for all:
Go to: http://www.healthcare-now.org/
merrill (anonymous) says…
The insurance industry is full of crooks and liars aka white collar criminals! Only people who believe in profits from injury,cancer and other illness are insensitive profiteers. Medicare Insurance for All does not have millionaire CEO's,advertising budgets, shareholders, a $100,000,000 anti reform budget and does not contribute tons of corrupt dough to political campaigns.
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Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid, according to a report released by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.
The report was part of a multi-pronged assault on the credibility of private insurers by Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). It came at a time when Rockefeller, President Obama and others are seeking to offer a public alternative to private health plans as part of broad health-care reform legislation. Health insurers are doing everything they can to block the public option.
At a committee hearing yesterday, three health-care specialists testified that insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell "junk" policies that do not cover needed care. Rockefeller said he was exploring "why consumers get such a raw deal from their insurance companies."
The star witness at the hearing was a former public relations executive for major health insurers whose testimony boiled down to this: Don't trust the insurers.
"The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable -- publicly accountable -- health-care option," said Wendell Potter, who until early last year was vice president for corporate communications at the big insurer Cigna.
Potter said he worries "that the industry's charm offensive, which is the most visible part of duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns, may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans."
Insurers make paperwork confusing because "they realize that people will just simply give up and not pursue it" if they think they have been shortchanged, Potter said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
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Go to: http://www.healthcare-now.org/
merrill (anonymous) says…
Smart Medical Insurance Improves Our Quality of Life And Our Wallets!
How many of the vocal minority out there supporting the most expensive medical insurance in the world are employees and/or shareholders?
How many are receiving corrupt campaign dollars?
Some of our reps on all sides of the aisle say “Let's slow down a bit”. I say consumers have been waiting for more than 60 years for fiscal responsible medical insurance how much slower can it go?
What could possibly be more american? Providing americans with the choice of National Health Insurance. HR 676 is the only equitable approach that includes all of us.
Shouldn't taxpayers have the choice of Medicare Insurance For All? Absolutely!
HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including:
*long term care such that cancer demands
*prescription drugs
* hospital
* surgical
* outpatient services
* primary and preventive care
* emergency services
* dental
* mental health
* home health
* physical therapy
* rehabilitation (including for substance abuse)
* vision care
* hearing services including hearing aids
* chiropractic
* durable medical equipment
* palliative care
* long term care.
A family of four making the median income of $56,200 would pay about $2,700 in payroll tax for all health care costs.
HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.
http://www.healthcare-now.org/
Doctors for Single Payer
http://www.pnhp.org/
Unions for HR 676
http://unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org/...
Organizations and Government Bodies Endorsing HR 676
http://www.pnhp.org/action/organizati...
Health Care In the USA
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/health...
Consumer Reports On Health Care
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/heal...
Keith (anonymous) says…
"Next week, Obama will deliver a speech to all the nation’s schoolchildren. Original plans called for many facets of the presentation to be not-too-subtle suggestions that these millions of students should support his legislative agenda and give study to what Obama’s goals should be. There was so much anger and public uproar about this that Obama officials now say the president will change some of his original plans for the student address. The whole thing looks like something we might read about Castro trying to do in Cuba."
What a load of unhinged crap. Dolph, you've really gone off the deep end. Unfortunately there's no water down there in the gene pool.
merrill (anonymous) says…
Why in the world is are so many members of congress protecting the most expensive medical insurance in the world?
A. they are shareholders
B. they accept special interest campaign money
C. a close relative or spouse sits on a health care related board
Answer: B for sure. In some cases it is A,B&C (on both sides of the aisle). Their personal wealth is NOT our concern.
Then pretend as though they are doing us a favor .
And why is the industry blowing $1.4 million health care dollars a day to defeat any type of reform?
That same $1.4 million dollars a day would provide 519 families of four excellent Medicare Insurance each day the campaign continues. After 31 days that becomes over 16,000 families robbed of HR 676 Medicare Insurance.
USA citizens deserve the most fiscally responsible and comprehensive coverage that has come our way in the last 50 years....HR 676.
Interesting reading on the matter:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/...
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/health...
http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/
======================================
Medicare Insurance for All would be a great asset towards re-employing america after losing 8 million jobs between 2007 and May 2009. Small business and large business would appreciate a break. AND it would make the USA more attractive to new industry = jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs!
snap_pop_no_crackle (anonymous) says…
HR 676 is the Norwegian Blue of legislation.
BTW, the Democrats in Congress hear the ghost of mid-term elections yet to come rattling his chains.
commuter (anonymous) says…
Merrill- Have you not learned anything????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
When I see your cut and paste crap, I keep scrolling until I see the next posts, more and more people do this too.
instead of helping your cause, you are hurting it. maybe you wrecked your bicycle one too many times.
Stain (anonymous) says…
Most of the opposition to health care reform is based on misinformation about the various reforms that are being proposed, misunderstanding, outright lies, and irrational fear mongering about scenarios that are not likely to occur.
Therefore Democrats should proceed without interference from people who are not operating with the true facts and basic understanding.
Why should people who are reacting to lies be able to decide this for the whole country?
If the anti reformists had sound arguments they would present them. The anti reformists are these:
Those protecting their profits at all costs to American health
Those who want this adminsitration to feel at all costs to the American people
Those who believe the other two groups and their misinformation capaign
Mixolydian (anonymous) says…
Why is insurance the primary method of paying for health care?
It's like paying for gas at the pump with your car insurance.
Look at LASIK surgery. Consumers are controlling the meteoric decline in the cost of that procedure. That can work for every other single aspect of health care, particularly with aggressive HSA incentives.
Use health insurance like any other insurance. To cover the catastrophic events, cancer, car wrecks, etc.
We don't need to throw trillions of dollars at a bad illogical system.
Stain (anonymous) says…
$400 billion a year goes to insurance companies.
That money could be better spent on health care.
Mixolydian (anonymous) says…
Insurance companies are the make believe bogeymen in this whole debate. Their combined profits could only run the country's health care for a few days. (Source from the recent Atlantic Monthly)
It's the payment system that is fatally flawed. Getting the government more involved in that system with a public option would be catastrophic.
Every politician (democrat or republican or independent) and every citizen should stand up and shout NO to a public option or single payer health care system.
notajayhawk (anonymous) says…
logrithmic (Anonymous) says…
" ...and such Democraps as Leiberman... "
Psssst - loggie - a little early to be hitting the pipe, isn't it? Sen. Lieberman isn't a Democrat. The Party kicked him out. But the people of Connecticut elected him anyway, since 1) Independents outnumber either Dems or Repubs in CT, and more importantly, 2) he represents the views of the people he was sent there to represent. I know that's an alien concept, log-smoker, but maybe the solution to healthcare reform is to listen to the people who have to live with it, not 'force something through' because the Party leadership wants it. Those renegade Dems *have* grown a "spint," loggie, by standing up to the president and the Party leadership and representing their constituents. When are you going to grow a brain?
rbwaa (anonymous) says…
"Original plans called for many facets of the presentation to be not-too-subtle suggestions that these millions of students should support his legislative agenda and give study to what Obama’s goals should be."
=====================
really?!!!
tomatogrower (anonymous) says…
A real debate is fine, even a heated one. But a debate that spreads lies, and does not lead to solutions is not a debate, so don't use that word. Mr. Simons, why don't you tell your conservative buddies to man up and have a real debate. They are just whiny wimps who are just part of the problem, not part of the solution.
merrill (anonymous) says…
HR 676 National Health Insurance can be financed by tax dollars already in the budget. $1.2 trillion medical insurance tax dollars fund a variety of government level employees. Oddly enough that $1.2 trillion will fund all USA families under HR 676.
All legislators protecting the most expensive medical insurance in the world are increasing your cost of living and the cost of medical insurance.
HR 676 and only hr 676 will reduce the cost of medical insurance by billions?
How?
* Eliminates high dollar medical insurance spending on what 2,000 health insurers add to the actual cost of medical insurance.
What does HR 676 eliminate?
• eliminates the bureaucracy which increases YOUR cost
• eliminates profits that increase YOUR cost
• eliminates high corporate salaries that increase YOUR cost
• eliminates advertising that increases YOUR cost
* eliminates over charges that increase YOUR cost
• eliminates sales commissions that increase YOUR cost
• eliminates Shareholders which are the primary clients of for-profit insurance companies which increase YOUR cost
• eliminates Special interest campaign dollars that increase YOUR cost
• eliminates Golden parachutes that increase YOUR cost
* Eliminates Politicians as shareholders which increase yoiur cost:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
* Eliminates Insurers Wrongfully Charging Consumers Billions = big time corruption = increases your cost
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
Go To: http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/
All legislators protecting the most expensive medical insurance in the world are increasing your cost of living and medical insurance.
merrill (anonymous) says…
Is protecting the most expensive medical insurance in the world good for business? No it is anti business and anti new jobs and industry
Is protecting the most expensive medical insurance in the world good for keeping the cost of of just about everything we buy in reasonable check? Absolutely not it increases our cost of living across the board just like high dollar gasoline.
Did we elect people to office to protect the most expensive medical insurance in the world from a more reasonable and fiscally responsible insurance program? No way jose' That is corrupt.
Did we send elected officials to Washington to accept special interest campaign money from the most expensive medical insurance program in the world? Heck NO that increases the cost of insurance!
So it seems the loudest voices against Smart Medicare Insurance for All are those who are profiting from the misfortune of others.
snap_pop_no_crackle (anonymous) says…
Doing some more recycling, merrill?
Internal combustion lawnmowers aren't green and make Al Gore cry.
merrill (anonymous) says…
Rod Boshart | Posted: Tuesday, September 1, 2009 10:40 am
des moines - The largest organization representing Iowa seniors says a survey of its members found they want Congress to make major changes this year to improve Medicare and reform the nation's health-care system.
Bruce Koeppl, Iowa state director for AARP, said a survey of 500 members in Iowa aged 50 and older indicated strong backing for Congress to take action to curb health-care costs and strengthen Medicare.
"This survey is a firm rebuttal of the notion that older Americans don't want health-care reform this year, and in fact, it shows our members believe just the opposite," Koeppl told a Statehouse news conference today.
"After the past few weeks of well-documented concerns, myths, town hall protests, and far too often uncivil debate, this survey shows majorities of Iowa AARP members still believe change is necessary and the status quo is not sustainable."
According to results of a telephone poll that AARP commissioned RDD Field Surveys to conduct of voting Iowa AARP members last week, 63 percent of the respondents said the health-care system needs major changes or a complete overhaul and another 28 percent favored at least minor changes.
merrill (anonymous) says…
By jessica hodgson
san francisco -- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private philanthropy fund, sold off almost all of its pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health-care investments in the quarter ended June 30, according to a regulatory filing published Friday.
The Seattle-based charity endowment, set up by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and his wife, sold its total holding of 2.5 million shares in health-care giant Johnson & Johnson in the quarter, according to the filing.
The foundation also sold millions of shares in major drug makers, including 14.9 million shares in Schering-Plough Corp., almost 1 million shares in Eli Lilly & Co., 8.1 million shares in Merck & Co. and 3.7 million shares in Wyeth, over the same time period. The foundation no longer holds shares in any of those companies.
Among the other health and life sciences-related investments the foundation liquidated are Allos Therapeutics Inc., InterMune Inc., Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.
The only life science-related holding the foundation retains is a 3 million-share stake in Seattle Genetics Inc.
The foundation's decision to drastically reduce its exposure to health-related stocks is striking, as many of its charity grants have been disbursed to address developing country health issues. Its move comes against the background of anxiety among drugmakers and healthcare insurance firms about the potential impact of the Obama administration's proposed overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, which could put pressure on prescription drug prices.
=========================================
Yep the writing is on the wall.
Time to sell off at top dollar or else get left holding the low dollar bag. The insiders(elected officials) will sell off quietly
leaving all others to fend for themselves.
How many more Wall Street losses is anyone prepared to eat?
notajayhawk (anonymous) says…
tomatogrower (Anonymous) says…
"But a debate that spreads lies, and does not lead to solutions is not a debate"
I completely agree.
When are the Democrats gonna' stop that cr*p and enter a real debate?
zzgoeb (anonymous) says…
Putting aside the main body of Mr. Simon's essay, his comments about Castro and Cuba lead me to believe he has joined the "Tin Hat" brigade that seems to be running the Republican Party. As a liberal, I am generally happy about that state of the GOP, but when it comes to a reasonable and logical discussion of policy, which our country desperately needs, I can only shake my head. As Stanley Crouch recently wrote in his column, "Whatever the outcome of the epic war being fought over health care reform, we are now prepared to see - or recognize - lunacy first, not skin color, not religious affiliation, not sex."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2...