Posted on 06/24/2009 4:42:13 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
Live thread for commentary on the ABC News Primetime ObamaCare Infomercial tonight at 9:00 PM CT/10:00 PM ET.
John Boehner recommends this handy guide to the healthcare informercial from The Freedom Project.
A Guide to the President's Health Care Infomercial
Acknowledging that his thinking on the issue has "evolved," President Barack Obama says he could support a law mandating that individuals purchase health care coverage, with fines for those who do not, but he stressed that there must be some kind of waiver for those who are simply unable to afford it. (snip)
During the election campaign, Obama said he was opposed to a federal law mandating the purchase of health care coverage.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I missed one question during show the following is heavily paraphrased from memory.
Q. Will there be definitive cut offs for continued medical care/treatment for the elderly if that treatment is outside of recommended guidelines or will the patient’s continued quality of life be evaluated on an individual basis?
A. We want to prevent extensive/expensive treatments simply to prolong lives without really making the patient any better. In some cases, we’ll ask the patient to take the pain pills instead of getting the surgery. In those ways we’ll be able to save money for those cases (like the 105 year old mom who received a pacemaker at 95) who will benefit from the extensive treatments.
Esentia
What was Brazile’s response to George Will’s takedown of her 47-million factoid?
>Obama: “This is a situation where the stars are aligned”.
No, those are incoming NK missiles you dimwit. He should be impeached for cutting missile defense alone.
>Obama: “This is a situation where the stars are aligned”.
>WTH hell is he talking about.
You know, Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, Keith Olberman, Tom Brokaw...
ABC’s Nightline up next in a minute with continued questions for the president.
I wouldn’t waste my time or give ABC the ratings!!!
>>We do know 2 groups, the elderly and unborn.
Throw in a third group, the disabled, and you have the trifecta of what a famous socialist called “useless eaters”.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I recall Biden saying that.
Unless you have a Nielsen box or are filling out an Arbitron diary, the fact that you watch the program will not affect the ratings.
I think I saw that show! Let me guess the plot...
I rich executive (maybe even a real estate mogul) offers a chance at the High Life to a bunch of wannabees, but they have to compete in a series of charitable tasks to prove their worthiness.
-PJ
Gibson: We didn’t get to the “public option” in the previous segment, so we’ll do that now. There are questions about whether or not a government run insurance plan is necessary. Republican critics say that current public programs SS, Medicare/Medicaid are already over-extended so we don’t need another government run program, especially in this economy. What do you say to them?
Obama: They’re e wrong. What we want to set up is an insurance market place where Americans will be able to compare plans, check out deductibles, etc. to see what’s best for them. (Including the same options that Congress gets.) One option will be government insurer that isn’t profit driven to keep costs low. The argument to that is that it will run other insurers out of business and that the free market can do it better; government can’t run anything. If that’s the case, nobody’s going to choose the public option. Opposition to the public option is not practical; it’s ideological.
Sawyer to Aetna: Insurance premiums continue to rise, healthcare costs continue to rise, insurance company profits are soaring, is the president right that you need to be kept honest in keeping costs low?
Head of Aetna: Let’s make sure we’re solving the right problem. We’re committed to helping the president. It’s difficult to compete against the person who’s refereeing the game. So let’s identify the problem we’re trying to solve.
Obama: Whatever rules the government imposes on insurers, it would have to abide by under the public option. So we’re not talking about an uneven playing field. An incentive for private insurers to get involved is the pool of new customers (underinsured, uninsured).
He seems to count on every McKinsey and Monitor Group study (you know, NP/PAs doing primary care, evidence based medicine, “cost effectiveness”, etc) panning out to achieve these huge unrealized cost savings.
The system as it is ends up working well. If anything, consumers/patients should pay more OOP than they do. But this is a set of piecemeal tweaks that can be done over years, not a wholesale restructuring.
The biggest problem facing the federal government is the unfunded liability of Medicare. Obama and the Dems want to “fix” this liability by first tying our care inextricably to the government, thereby creating a political crisis. Liberals fantasize about moments of “communal awakening” where Americans communally “decide” this or that...for example, “we decided” in the 1930s that “we needed” Social Security, etc. They desire to create a political crisis around the unfunded entitlement liabilities, whereby they can impose draconian redistribution of wealth.
I’m sure the libs are counting on it.
Gibson: There are doubts whether it is a level playing field. There are 177 million Americans with insurance through employers. A recent study estimates that 2/3 of that group would go to the public option government insurance because it’s cheaper for the employer.
I went to the ABC news site to read the article about this show and the comments are pretty blasting him.
Gibson: You keep saying that if you like what you have, you can keep it. Maybe that isn’t true.
Obama: There are several ways to set up a public option to keep people from dumping their insurance and moving to the public option. One is a pay-or-pay provision, if you’re a large employer and you’re not insuring your employees, you’ll have to kick in money because it’s not fair for taxpayers to pay for your employees.
I decided to watch this last 1/2 hour. If I was Charlie Gibson I’d be telling bambi to keep his paws off me.
Doing so would open your son to getting fired and a lawsuit.
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