Did the President's speech on health care move anyone?

It moved Joe Wilson to yell “lie”.

I hope Wilson is greeted appropriately by howls of execration. It was a hell of a speech, and I hope it changes the complexion of the debate.

It didn’t change my opinion at all.
My opinion being “I don’t understand the healthcare system at all, so I may as well not pretend that I do”
but I did watch the speech

I didn’t watch it :( is this a reliable site? http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/09/68498648/1

I thought it was fantastic. He did what a lot of people wanted. He defined what he wanted in clear terms and he treated people as adults.

The Republican response was a bit.. Umm, shitty.

Has Wilson officially taken “credit” for the outbursts? Guess he was still in town hall disruption mode rather than President addresses Congress mode.

I watched the President’s speech tonight. I was very interested in what details he was going to offer about the health insurance reform, but in the last few minutes in which he recalled the long standing goals of Ted Kennedy in establishing such a program as a moral imperative, I was quite unexpectedly moved to tears.

I think his speech was very good, but he did a poor job explaining how everything is going to get paid for.

it was rather annoying that the audience applauded every 2 minutes. dammit, guys, you can applaud all you want after the speech, jeez

McCain is calling for Wilson to publicly apologize because of it.

I was shocked at Wilson’s outburst. Even if you don’t agree with Obama, respect his position!

Okay just reading a republican rebuttal to it..I’m still amazed at them completely ignoring what Obama says. They act like Obama is trying to take away ALL private health care. Seriously, do they listen at all?? Because he just wants an option for people, not forcing it upon anyone. That drives me nuts.

I thought his speech was excellent. He definitely seems to have found a middle ground that most Americans can get on board with. However, I’m still unsure of the plan itself and, like @critter1982 said, how it will be paid for. I need a laid out plan in detailed, yet clear and simple wording before I’m not going to be skeptical of what this is going to be like. The one thing I didn’t like that he said was how this will cost less than the Iraq war… that did not drive the point home for me. Well, no shit, Obama… health coverage for most of the world would cost less than we’ve spent in Iraq, buddy! It got massive applause anyway.

I am still deeply impressed by Obama. The speech was outstanding. I think he has the potential to be the best president since JFK.

Absolutely outstanding speech. I was moved to tears, actually. But don’t tell anyone.

It’s very exciting to know that this is actually going to happen…and if you want to help, check it out.

On the subject of Joe Wilson…completely unacceptable and there was no call or place for it. My hat is off to John McCain for marching straight to Larry King and calling the remarks unacceptable and demanding that Wilson apologize (which he soon did).

It was an excellent speech. It is nice to have a president who can be presidential. I still fail to see why anyone would be opposed to the optional public option. Only those who can’t afford private insurance or can’t get it through work or through military service would need it. Obama’s speech said this would be about 5% of the population, which is very far from a “government takeover of the health care system.”

The Republican rebuttal sounded as if they wrote it without having listened to Obama’s speech at all.

I didn’t watch the speech however in reading the responses to the question I find myself wondering once again is everyone here of like mind. I find I learn as much from opposing views as I do from one that concurs with me. While I don’t doubt the sincerity of the answers I do wonder how is it that the President’s approval rating is dropping.

It isn’t dropping at our house. We are still in support of him and his policies.

@mponochie, his approval rating is largely dropping because he’s been pretty silent about the health care issue and has largely delegated it to a dysfunctional Congress. This has completely upset the liberals who worked to get him elected, myself included.

The speech was good, though, so I’m guessing it will go back up.

@mponochie Its also dropping because there hasn’t been an instantaneous turn around in the economy. Many people are still unemployed and more are becoming unemployed, even though the rate is slowing. The damage that’s been done in the past (most of the businesses closing now have been in trouble more than just the last 8 months) has come to whatever end result its going to come to and recovery will happen, but its not going to happen right now. Americans aren’t that good with the whole patience thing. Thus the polls.

It moved me to watch something else. I can’t fucking stand politics.

I was busy with life. I made dinner, I took my daughter to her tumbling class, I had a parent meeting at the high school for sophomore students that will be taking driver’s ed, I read to my daughter and tucked her in, I supported my husband by helping him with his dream of getting us out of poverty…

I moved myself.

I only heard part of it, but it was eloquent and well-reasoned.

Unfortunately, when a person or a group of people is dead-set against supporting you, their minds will not change, no matter how rational or well-spoken your argument might be.

I guess it could be fun to watch the Republicans simply repeat all the arguments that Obama refuted in clear terms. But more likely it will be upsetting.

I’m a huge Obama supporter and have also worked in not-for-profit health care for most of my life. I’ve been an active advocate of improvement in health care quality, covering the insured and under-insured as well as overall reform.

I was moved by Obama’s speech, mostly because it was impassioned and it’s clear that steps will be made to move forward. I still am pretty skeptical though, of keeping such a robust system of insurances in place that inflates prices and alienates patients from the true cost of care. Having studied this for years, I’m fairly certain there’s not 900 billion dollars-worth of low-hanging fruit in the form of eliminating duplication and waste from the current system to pay for it. I see a ‘coverage’ option on the horizon, but not a lot of systemic reform. There needs to be accountability to drive down costs and hold organizations accountable for quality in order for true reform to happen, and I don’t hear a lot about that. It concerns me.

Maybe these details will emerge as the reform particulars crystallize, but this feels like a middle-of-the road band aid to me. Admittedly, that’s better than nothing, or at the minimum, a good start.

For anyone who’s interested, this article in the Atlantic is long, but is great about explaining some of the problems with insurance.

A trillion was easy to come up with when we wanted to bomb Iraq.

Anyone got a link to a video for those of that were asleep? I can’t seem to find one.

The government does nothing effective. Social Security going bankrupt. Medicare going Bankrupt. The DMV is a disgrace. The post office is 3 billion in the hole. He asked the debt ceiling to be lifted to 13 trillion! Now they want to run your health care. Please be very careful what you wish for.

@lisa16, so you think Medicare should be privatized?

Are you going to a public school?

@Qingu: It has nothing to do with privatizing these things. It’s the fact that our government tells us that these programs are going to cost something and VERY rarely are they ever even close (typically millions/billions of dollars off). They say we won’t raise your taxes and then spend trillions of dollars we don’t have. In Obama’s speech last night he said that much of the $900 billion cost of this new public healthcare option will be funded by inefficiencies in the medicare system. Either the medicare is EXTREMELY inefficient which I doubt, since it is already in a financial crisis (and I would have assumed that they would have fixed these inefficiencies already) or Obama is lying to us and the funding for this program will eventually come out of our taxes. I think if the government was capable of running programs efficiently and under budget, the backlash you see by a lot of people would be minimized.

isn’t medicare being run more efficient than the private insurance companies?

When did Obama say he’d pay for the $900 billion just from efficiency?

I was under the impression that some bills do call for raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for some of it, and/or taxing insurance companies in exchange for providing them with lots of new customers. Which would be wonderful.

Please support your assertion that he said what you claim he is lying about.

@PerryDolia JFK is widely considered by historians to have been a mediocre president at best. I lived through his administration, and I remember it being distinctly flawed, not least by the Bay of Pigs failure and by his escalation of the war in Vietnam. I would prefer that Obama become a much better president than that.

@Qingu: Google Obamas address to a joint session of congress on health care.
In his speech he states, “Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.”

@ragingloli: I’m not sure what exactly you mean about efficiency but with respect to administrative costs Medicare spends more per beneficiary than private insurance companies do.

Well, I rescind and admit he may be overstating his case.

Though you are making two contradictory claims:
• Government programs are completely bloated and inefficient
• Increasing efficiency in government programs could not save a lot of money.

@Qingu: I didn’t state that improving efficiency in government wouldn’t save a lot of money. It is pretty matter of fact that improving efficiency, saves money. However I don’t believe that inefficiencies in health care are capable of producing anything close to $900 billion.

yeah, I have to admit, I don’t get it. I’m having trouble digging up any good numbers.

The White House does say “Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized. Under the plan, if the savings promised at the time of enactment don’t materialize, the President will be required to put forth additional savings to ensure that the plan does not add to the deficit.”

Though I have no problem with paying for it by enacting tax hikes for the wealthy. Do you?

Well I don’t think I would have an issue with the wealthy subsidizing the program with tax hikes but as Obama stated it is to be a stand alone program being completely self sufficient by relying on the premiums that it collects. President Obama wants to run this business to put pressure on insurance companies to keep their premiums low in areas where competition is scarce. What I don’t understand is why we can’t have insurance companies compete nationally across state borders. That would be something that we could do right now and would cost the government and tax payers nothing.

• Obama doesn’t want to “run this business.” He wants to create a public insurance option and run that. In the same way that running a public college alongside private colleges isn’t “running the education business.”

• Competition is not a magical solution to the unique problem of health insurance, especially when many of these companies have monopolistic tendencies anyway. But the main problem is the incentive structure. Allowing increased competition among profit-oriented companies won’t change the fact that such companies are incentivized to deny coverage to sick people, which is arguably the main problem with the insurance industry.

• Also, insurance companies have to abide by individual state laws. You’re a conservative! Don’t you want to preserve state sovereignty?

Actually, @critter1982, would you support nationwide competition for insurance companies if it meant they’d have to follow new federal regulations instead of the state regulations they’re in?

I would.

Edit: probably. Might be some regional inequalities that need addressing.

@Qingu: Agreed, perhaps my wording was a bit off. I understand that he wants to create a public insurance option and run that.

I don’t think competition is some magical solution but it does provide another check to keep prices in line with costs. Denying coverage to sick people is another issue altogether which just plain should not be allowed and federal laws can be written up to stop that.

Just because each state has individual laws doesn’t mean they can’t compete nationally. They would just have to compete around a different set of laws. The same way companies compete internationally. Countries have a huge variation in laws yet international companies manage to get by and still make profits. I would support federal regulations instead of state regulations.

I mean, I’m pretty sure the issue with allowing companies to compete across state lines is that they’d all just move their HQ to whatever state had the least stringent regulations, like credit card companies did by moving to Delaware.

So I don’t know why we wouldn’t allow interstate competition if we’re forcing fed regulations on the companies anyway. Actually, this makes me wonder about two things:

• If this explains the length of the bill—because it’s individually tailored for 50 different sets of state-level regulations

• If the reason why we’re not floating total federal regulations for interstate competing insurance companies is because of conservative resistance to “big government regulation” or something.

Because it seems like a no-brainer to me, though I don’t know if it would save that much money.

Doesn’t matter what side you’re on it was just words.

Meaningless.

^^ also just words.

@Noel S Leitmotiv: All ideas start out as words.

Go visit your local US Internal Revenue Service Office to see what you can come to expect in terms of service, USPS a little better. Then again. I have never been a big fan of waiting until I get sores on my ass, then get insulted.

well, i wish i had insurance.

why, I always found it cheaper to pay out of my wallet vs paying the premiums assuming you are relatively healthy. If not, I am a big proponent for major medical and catastrophic care coverage for all, it saved my ass when I was broke-can’t get it now, if you want your contraceptives, or want a bogus antibiotics for a viral sore throat pay for it yourself.

It was a most impressive performance – as theatre, as politics, as social activism. You should be proud, having him for President.

@Garebo, what’s wrong with the USPS? I get my Netflix on time.

Also, you do realize that Medicare is by far the most popular insurance organization, yes? There’s a reason the elderly are paranoid about having it taken away.

I wish conservatives would learn that making half-assed comparisons is not actually an argument.

those who can’t do, criticize.

USPS is the cheapest delivery service in America.

The USPS’s cheapness doesnt make it good.

I’d rather pay for greater quality. (FedEx, Ups)

There’s a reason the lazy attidudinal freakshow is at the post office instead of the privately run shippers.

I don’t want to experience similar when i’m visting the doctor or hospital.

I have had very few problems with USPS. I rely on it for my business. So far the only package truly mishandled out of thousands I have shipped was misplaced by the French postal service. OTOH, I have had problems with UPS, although not with FedEx.

I also know relatively few “lazy attitudinal” postal workers, and I know a lot of postal workers.

The USPS has financial issues. There are several reasons all including and not limited to limited price increases with significant rising costs (hence your lower costs), top heavy management, minimal accountability, and declines in volume. UPS and FedEx have innovated and are remaining profitable.

didn’t move me one way or the other. I have no insurance ,so whatever happens with this is only going to be on the upside if anything. But I ain’t holdin my breath waiting. They will pass something. It will be a greatly watered down version of what would really help most people. There will still be millions who will fall into that area where it will be useless to. But after a long and brutal fight the tiny progress that comes of it will be regarded as a GREAT victory for both sides. They will feel good about this tiny progress but in the end it will amount to a lot of money spent for very little gain. But the leaders will still be able to crow about how they fixed health care and use it as points to get elected….again. I hope I am wrong about this forecast but I fear I will be right…..again.