The Daily Background
| My immediate reactions from Obama’s address to Congress
by Arlen Parsa
So, Obama’s speech wasn’t bad I thought, with a couple of exceptions.
Expectations were pretty low at least from progressives, that I think I was heartened by the number of times he called out Republicans’ lies and distortions. Also, the absolutely pitiful and hobbling televised Republican response from Rep Charles Boustany (a doctor he was careful to mention– about ten times), made Obama’s speech look that much better, at least in my opinion.
One of the major questions was how much he would defend a robust public option which he’s previously stated support for, or whether he would back away from it, instead lining up behind a so-called “trigger” option which would establish a public option if private insurance fails to meet a certain threshold. Thank goodness he didn’t do the latter (as Chuck Schumer has pointed out, any reasonable health care quality trigger has already been met ten times over). But he didn’t exactly do the former either.
Instead, the president put forward a plan which would only extend the public option to those who don’t have private health care and can’t afford to join so-called insurance cooperatives, an in-between choice which would be extended to everyone. He said only 5% of Americans would likely sign up for such a public option, with the rest of the uninsured likely joining the proposed cooperatives.
Other items of importance:
- Obama mentioned a mandate although did not mention specifically how it would be enforced
- He did a good job I thought at addressing the disinformation out there, but what he did say on the cost of the program wasn’t new and probably won’t change a huge number of minds that are already decided about that aspect of the program
- His appeal to Americans’ morals was totally unexpected, as most news reports suggested he was going to appeal more towards their pocketbooks
- And yes, that one stupid moment where somebody (a member of Congress? somebody in the gallery?) shouted “lie!” when the president said his plan wouldn’t cover undocumented immigrations will be played over and over again on cable news. If you missed it the first time, don’t worry, you’ll be sure to see it. Again and again and again.
Overall I agree with you. There will be no death panels. And I do agree with many of the plans provisions: portability, no dropping the sick, no preconditions and no lifetime max. About illegal immigrants, we already pay for their medial care in emergency rooms. Maybe covering them would be cheaper. Although, they shouldn’t be here in the first place…but that is another discussion.
That crazy Republican was showing that this is an emotional and frustrating issue. He apologized immediately. And other Republicans agreed that he made a mistake. When was the last time that Democrats did the same…although I do have a selective memory at times.
Many people feel that once there is a public option, employers will simply pick that one. It would be too easy and likely cheaper.
Sometimes I think that health insurance should be only *catastrophic* health insurance.
And sometimes I think *everyone* should be *required* to have full coverage.
Yes, I’m schizophrenic. This is a complex issue.
Randy
Although the details are not clear, the impression I got from the speech last night was that Obama was proposing a public option so limited that only those who meet a certain threshold would be able to join it. It seems likely that those with employers would go one of the other routes.
OK.
Like President Obama said last night, “There are still a few details to work out.”
I think that was the only part of his speech that both sides agreed with and got a laugh.
Randy