The Lies and Story Behind the President's Speech

The following are excerpts from the President's speech to Congress on 9.9.09 with my comments following.

Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem.

- Actually, it is a part of the deficit problem, but how is spending more money and resources going to fix the problem?

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already
have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing
in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the
doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change
what you have.

- Unless he is talking about a new, unseen bill, this is not true. Your healthcare plan would be required to change. At the most, your plan COULD be the same as it is now for up to five years. Of course even mentioning this ignores the fact that my healthcare plan is MY business, not the business of the government. The tone of being some benevolent dictator is revolting. My healthcare is MY business and the Constitution does not give the government the right to interfere with it.

What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for
you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny
you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill,
it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when
you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able
to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given
year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for
out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should
go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to
cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like
mammograms and colonoscopies

- See this is the problem. Sometimes politicians don’t seem to live in the real world. This is all fluff that sounds really good, but what it really means is $$$$$$$$$. Insurance companies have to show a profit. If you cover more things, you limit deductibles… you have to increase premiums. Costs don’t magically disappear. They are real. They are legitimate. And they are going to SKYROCKET! Or, your health insurance company will go out of business. Guess that could affect the coverage you currently haven’t couldn’t it?

This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do
it right

- If these are such a good idea, why not start them now? Why wait four years? Oh wait, when they fall flat or become an obvious Trojan horse for a government run plan it will be too late. President Obama’s last election will already be over.

Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those —
particularly the young and healthy — who still want to take the risk and go
without coverage. There may still be companies that refuse to do right by their
workers. The problem is, such irresponsible behavior costs all the rest of us
money. If there are affordable options and people still don't sign up for health
insurance, it means we pay for those people's expensive emergency room visits.
If some businesses don't provide workers health care, it forces the rest of us
to pick up the tab when their workers get sick, and gives those businesses an
unfair advantage over their competitors. And unless everybody does their part,
many of the insurance reforms we seek — especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions — just can't be achieved.That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance — just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be
required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the
cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who
still cannot afford coverage, and 95 percent of all small businesses, because of
their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements.
But we cannot have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees.
Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part.

- Okay, just to make sure I read that right, because you are alive, you will be required to have health insurance. Now, I understand about car insurance, after all you are placing other people at risk, but you don’t have to drive it you don’t want to, and hence, you don’t need to buy car insurance. But if you are a living, breathing American you will be FORCED to buy health insurance? Why not just FORCE people to pay their emergency room bills? Garnish their wages until their bill is paid. And I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, mandating coverage does not MAGICALLY give businesses the money to pay for it. Even larger businesses that don’t insure their workers will look at the cost and say one of two things, either they have to lay off some workers to be able to afford it, or simply close up shop and move the business off shore. Oh yah, this should help unemployment.

The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts,
but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the
power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it
weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

- Actually it’s not a lie. Of course, no government actually calls them death panels, but what the bill proposes, or use to propose before a Senate committee withdrew it, is a panel to determine guidelines for appropriate care, much like those that exist in the UK. Only they aren’t only for older people, they are for all people. Like this baby that was born premature at 21 week and 5 days. The NHS rule book for premature babies is that only babies born after 22 weeks or later will be provided for. So this baby survived for two hours while his mother begged and pleaded with doctors to help him, but he passed away without any medical attention. Now, would you call the panel that makes that decision a “death panel?” I think the name is understandable.

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal
immigrants. This, too, is false — the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to
those who are here illegally.

- As the congressman pointed out, this is a lie. There is no stipulation in the bill that beneficiaries of any of these changes must be US citizens, therefore the door is open to all.

And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no
federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will
remain in place.

- I really wish this one were true, but HR3200 makes it very clear that minimum coverage will be determined by the department of Health and Human Services and whoever is the commissioner or czar or whatever you want to title them, that is put in charge of the application of the system. Half a dozen amendments were proposed and voted down (on party lines) that would have kept the Hyde Amendment in place, prohibiting abortions. If the bill would have kept abortions from being funded then why not just approve the amendment? Well, the President and half of Congress needs to make sure they live up to the promises that they have made to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the rest of the pro-abortion lobby.

So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has
been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition.
Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by
five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one
company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality
goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their
customers badly — by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to
drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by
jacking up rates.

- This was probably the biggest lie of the night. Did you catch it? The president affirms that his guiding principle with the ‘public option’ is about competition. Now he is right that consumers do better with competition, but his plan doesn’t provide that. It provides a government option. That’s not competition, that’s a government take over. If the President wanted consumers to benefit from competition he would make the healthcare market a national one by breaking down the state and local barriers and letting all insurance companies compete in any market. End local mandates and local monopolies. THAT is competition! Not a government option.

Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don't like this
idea. They argue that these private companies can't fairly compete with the
government. And they'd be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public
insurance option. But they won't be. I have insisted that like any private
insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient
and rely on the premiums it collects.

- REALLY!? Now even without public subsidies, would the government insurance provider have to pay the same taxes that the private companies do? No. Would they have to maintain the same capital requirements that the private companies do? No (look at Fannie and Freddie as an example). So would the government plan be undercutting the private insurance companies? Yes.

And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company
bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need.

- If the government is supplying insurance, then by definition, there will be a bureaucrat or panel that will decide what will be covered and what won’t. A patient may say that they absolutely have to have a sex change in order to live a healthy, normal life, but will the public option cover that? Or that they have to have an abortion because they can’t afford a baby. Will that be covered? Who is going to make that call?

Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one
dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. Period. And to prove
that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to
come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't
materialize. Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked
in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last
decade were not paid for — from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care.

- Quite frankly he is already predicting TRILLION dollar deficits EVERY year, so there is very little integrity to back up this statement, but in any case, how can you extend insurance to another 30 MILLION people without costing any more money? Again, I think we need to remember this is the real world, not fantasy land.

Second, we've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding
savings within the existing health care system — a system that is currently full
of waste and abuse. Right now, too much of the hard-earned savings and tax
dollars we spend on health care doesn't make us healthier.

- Can you really say that you are serious about this if you are not asking for tort reform? The extra tests that most doctors do are to cover their bottom lines if and when they get sued. If you aren’t talking tort reform, then you really aren’t serious about bringing down these costs.

Now, because Medicare is such a big part of the health care system, making
the program more efficient can help usher in changes in the way we deliver
health care that can reduce costs for everybody.

- Didn’t the President just expound on the fact that government run insurance will be so much cheaper and more efficient than private insurance companies? Now he is saying that the system that the government already runs and controls needs to be improved to be more efficient? What he doesn’t mention is that the cost cutting measures in Medicare include reductions in fees paid to physicians, which will cause more physicians to refuse to treat Medicare patients, or up their costs to their non-Medicare patients.

Finally, many in this chamber — particularly on the Republican side of the
aisle — have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help
bring down the cost of health care. I don't believe malpractice reform is a
silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive
medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we
move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let
doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration
considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these
issues. It's a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human
Services to move forward on this initiative today.

- Lip service to tort reform. Read it this way, “I know you want me to say the words tort reform, but I just can’t bring myself to do that, so I’m going to tell you that my Health and Human Services Secretary will look into this problem. I’m brushing tort reform off, but hey at least I kind of mentioned it.”

And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth
of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion
over the long term.

- CBO numbers do not back this up. Not even close. They predict a deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars related to HR3200.

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit
will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More
Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more
will die as a result. We know these things to be true.

- Read it like this, “I don’t like scare tactics unless they help me.”

One of the unique and wonderful things about America has always been our
self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our
healthy skepticism of government. And figuring out the appropriate size and role
of government has always been a source of rigorous and sometimes angry debate.

- This is in the middle of a section where he uses the memory of the late Ted Kennedy to drive home the emotional aspect. I completely agree with the statement, but it runs counter to the government based plan that the President just laid out.

I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further
down the road — to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term.

- That must be why the plan takes four years to kick in.

Basically the President gave a good speech that laid out the same things that he has been saying all summer. Looking at the legislation, many of his points are misleading, disingenuous or out right lies. The speech was more of the same and was really just about reasserting himself into the center of the debate.