Posted on 06/23/2009 10:25:13 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Obama hits back at insurance companies for opposing public option.
It took a few months, but tensions between the Obama administration and private health insurers seem to be coming to a head.
In a White House press conference Tuesday, President Barack Obama described a government-run health care option as "an important tool to discipline insurance companies" and brushed aside criticism that such a plan would ruin the industry.
"If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best-quality health care," pondered the president, "then why is it that the government--which they say can't run anything--suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical."
In a letter last week to leaders of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield and industry group America's Health Insurance Plans urged him not to include a so-called public option in health care legislation.
Just last month, the president, insurers and other key stakeholders were patting each other on the back at the White House for committing to $2 trillion in health care savings during the next decade. Jeff Smokler, a Blue Cross spokesman, says the company is committed to expanding health care to everyone. However, the company and AHIP argue, a government-run option inherently tilts the playing field in favor of the government.
Obama hasn't formally committed to a public option, though he says that it "makes sense." But he acknowledged Tuesday that there's a "legitimate concern" about the public plan crowding out private insurers if it's simply "eating off the taxpayer trough." The obvious question, of course, is how to keep such largesse in check. As members of Congress consider several bills to overhaul health care, that solution hasn't been found.
Obama is at a crucial point in his first year in office. Some
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Take a look a universal healthcare in Mass. - not doing so well!
Obama says he will “control costs” by eliminating profit.
If you eliminate profits, there will be nothing but costs.
I would think that the Health Care Industry has the funds to beat the snot out of Obama in the courts.
Private Insurance tried to strike a deal with Obama.
Hope they learned something.
The Obama/ABC Big Lie Festival begins!
Never in modern political history will you hear such massive deceit, distortion, and dishonesty!
This guy is a complete leftist moron. He’s never run as much as a hotdog stand.
Obama’s one pissed off dicktator.
Time for the gloves to come off and to show the Obamacoms some brass knuckles. This isn’t Kenya! THIS IS OUR COUNTRY SKIPPY!
“If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best-quality health care,” pondered the president, “then why is it that the government—which they say can’t run anything—suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.”
It’s completely logical, Zero. With a Public option available, subsidized by the tax payers and their children and grandchildren, Businesses will opt for the Public Option to release themselves of this obligation to their employees.
Eventually this offloading will leave a customer base too small for private insurers to compete with the government.
They will go out of business, all of them. Then the public will scream for the government to ‘solve’ the problem the government created.
This is a strawman argument from the Messiah in Chief.
And how dare people that are actually in the business of providing health insurance act like they know more than someone who has never run anything in his entire life except his piehole?
If Obama threatens and intimidates the Health Care Industry like he threatened and intimidated GM, Chrysler and the banks, they ain't gonna beat the snot out of Obama in the courts. They'll roll over, get busted down to size and get taken over and swallowed whole by this reckless and power-hungry president who by all appearances makes Hugo Chavez look like a slacker.
Can 0bama name any major government program that has succeeded in solving the problem(s) said program was created to solve?
Exactly, plus they will be taxed and regulated out of business.
The moron obviously fooled enough people to have gotten this far in his march toward Socialism.
Since January, a lot of people have just jumping and screaming and cheering, and many of them along the path way have been Conservatives who have enabled this president to take over large swathes of this country's economy.
This idiot needs to be taken down a few pegs on this rush to insanity. First the Climate bill lunacy now this. If ever there was a time for Congress to assert it’s own authority over this out of control administration, it is now.
It’s also ball check time for the Republicans if they want to be a viable party anymore.
So do the insurance companies also get guns, taxing authority and the threat of imprisonment of those that cross them, just to make the competition fair? Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to think this is anything other than demagoguery of the crudest kind? Either that or this guy has the economic literacy of your average 4th grader.
This industry has 1,300 businesses, employs millions of people, and very deep pockets. They can put the hurt on Obama and if not him they will put the hurt on his people.
I Can!
The IRS solved my problem of how to spend my disposable income. They disposed of it for me.
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