Obama: ‘If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor’ (Text of speech to AMA)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 06/15/2009 | WSJ, Barack Obama

[iowamark]

President Barack Obama’s address to the annual meeting of the American Medical Association today didn’t break new ground, but attempted to assure doctors and their patients that his prescription for overhauling the health care system would be good for them. For patients, he made a sweeping pledge that “no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. 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. My view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle: fix what’s broken and build on what works.” And according the prepared remarks, he promised doctors “we can build a health care system that allows you to be physicians instead of administrators and accountants.” For a live blog of AMA President Nancy Nielsen and President-Elect J. James Rohack responding to the Obama speech and answering questions, please check out the Heath Blog.

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery American Medical Association Chicago, Illinois June 15, 2009 From the moment I took office as President, the central challenge we have confronted as a nation has been the need to lift ourselves out of the worst recession since World War II.

[ladyjane]

Most of my doctors are not that young. I bet they’ll retire pronto rather than be part of Obamacare

Most of the physicians I know plan to retire when taxes go up above 50%.

Won't happen? Yes, it will. When you factor in some state taxes it will be above 50%. Add to that the caps on physician reimbursement, there's no way physicians are going to work 18 hours a day, take call, pay for malpractice insurance, and take home less than their kids' elementary school teacher.

[wbill]

Having just taken advantage of this....

Family Leave is for up to 12 weeks. It does NOT require the employer to compensate the employee. It can be taken for a number of things...I took 4 weeks "paternity leave" when WBill Jr. was born.

Basically, the Family Leave Act guaranteed that I'd have a job when I came back. That's it. It also gave me a legal leg to stand on with my company when I told them I'd be taking the time off. In my particular case, I did get paid for the time off by working through the issue with my company...using up vacation time, sick leave, holiday pay, and such.

Am I 100% in favor of a European-style system....where the employer pays you to be out for extended (6 month? 12 month? not sure...) periods? Heck no. But the US's model should not be confused with France's.

[TribalPrincess2U]

Well put.

[GYPSY286]

Maybe we should change the name from Obamacare to Obamascare

[Seaplaner]

Folks, folks, folks.

Isn't it time to lighten up a bit on President Obama?

Surely it is comforting to here him promise... ...“no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. 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.

And why be cynical? Why doubt the man's good intentions and sincerity?

Friends, walk with me along the shining path and just look at how our new president has followed through so assiduously on each and every promise...

- - When campaigning for president, Senator Obama promised to stick with government campaign financing, spurning the likes of Mr Soros and other prominent well-wishers.

- - Obama promised that his administration would be transparent and accessable.

- - Obama promised that his administration would have no lobbyists.

- - Mr Obama promised an end to Congressional earmarks, and promised further to go through each bill line-by-line to eliminate them (or something quite close to that.)

- - Our president promised that 95 percent of us would be getting a tax cut (everyone except for those greedy millionaires I believe.)

- - Our president announced that his economic plans have saved (IIRC) a half-million jobs!

- - And those stimulus plans? Well, things might look a little bleak, but President Obama announced just last week that the corner has been turned, and we haven' seen nuthin' yet!

So, with this partial list of promises made and kept, we can rest assured that President Obama has the integrity, the moral anchor, and the unshakable honesty of someone who would never, ever, ever lie to us...just so he could seize 15 percent of the economy for his own personal power.

.

[Signalman]

So if we decide to keep our private health plan, will we be paying for both our plan AND the government plan (via taxes)?
Sounds like a losing proposition.

[Dosa26]

Point"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Lewis Carroll

counter-point...""When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master – that's all." Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them – particularly verbs, they're the proudest – adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs – however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

[T Minus Four]

Now, how many folks in the room believed this line?

click here

[jveritas]

according the prepared remarks, he promised doctors “we can build a health care system that allows you to be physicians instead of administrators and accountants.”

But yet he wants to create a massive government bureaucracy and waste trillions of dollars in tax payers money just to have government administrators and accountants tell the doctors what to do and how much they are going to get paid.

Never before in the history of our Republic there was a President or a politician who lied with such shocking shamelessness and brazenness as Obama. It is just incredible.

[Deb]

I thought they had gotten the employers to pay. They will. That was the whole point...to destroy companies with multiple, financially draining demands.

It is ridiculous. it is NOT the responsibility of a company to do anything but make a profit. It's not there to accommodate you or guarantee you "a job" when you get back. How much do you suppose it cost your company for your leave and what happened to the person who covered your job while you were gone? What nonsense.

[swain_forkbeard]

“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period.”

How about if I don’t like ANY doctors and don’t like ANY health care plans? Do I get to choose NONE and not have to pay for anything?

[dervish]

If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor..

Who other than third world impotrs will practice medicine?

Look at UK and Canada stats on foreign medical graduates.

Medicine will be the new social work.

[whitedog57]

Until he manages to drive you healthcare insurer out of business.

This happened at a university I was out. I was on the outside plan. They wanted us to use the university hospital and overpriced doctors. So, they raised the outside plan to kill it off, forcing us to the lousy inside plan. And its lousy/expensive doctors.

[Boardwalk]

It is mandatory now in Massachusetts to have health insurance thank you very much Mitt Romney. Now the working half pays more for heath care and the illegals and those who do not work enough to pay taxes get it free too. The working half foots the bill and if you opt not to pay for your own health insurance, you get fined.

[dervish]

Like the UK and Canada they will be “Asian.”

[Boardwalk]

If you need health care just marry a Canadian because then you are covered under their plan. Fool proof.

[Jewbacca]

You can keep your doctor -— until he or she quit because doctors won’t be able to make a living under ObamaCare.

[Texas resident]

He wasn’t specific about who he was talking to about keeping their doctor. He was talking to the UAW.
The rest of us are sol big time.

[DakoKid]

He doesn't have a clue. When he said. "The second structural reform we need to make is to improve the quality of medical information making its way to doctors and patients. We have the best medical schools, the most sophisticated labs, and the most advanced training of any nation on the globe. Yet we are not doing a very good job harnessing our collective knowledge and experience on behalf of better medicine. Less than one percent of our health care spending goes to examining what treatments are most effective. " I guess he was missing how HIPAA has been preventing studies since it was signed. Researches now must get signed releases from every patient. " As I stated earlier, the reforms we propose are to reward best practices, focus on patient care, not the current piece-work reimbursement. What we seek is more stability and a health care system on a sound financial footing. And these reforms need to take place regardless of what happens with a public option. With reform, we will ensure that you are being reimbursed in a thoughtful way tied to patient outcomes instead of relying on yearly negotiations about the Sustainable Growth Rate formula that’s based on politics and the state of the federal budget in any given year. " For all you medical people out there, just suck it up, if he can tell those bankers the maximum they earn, he can sure tell you. "Third, we need to introduce generic biologic drugs into the marketplace. These are drugs used to treat illnesses like anemia. But right now, there is no pathway at the FDA for approving generic versions of these drugs. " He may have unilateral talks with Iran, but not "the Eviel Drug Companies". Why didn't he bring up State Health Mandates, that add between 20 to 40% to your insurance cost? http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/HealthInsuranceMandates2008.pdf How about liability reform, after all how much did John Edwards $64MM award fees on junk science heal anyone.

[Dosa26]

Medicine will be the new social work.

"Come to the impoverished states of america! The pay might suck but hey it's still better than you can get in your home country...now"