-By Dan Scott
President Obama complains about misinformation out from the opponents regarding the health care debate, however, it seems he is a major source of misinformation himself. Here is a brief and by no means exhaustive examination of President Obama’s comments at just one town hall meeting.
Mischaracterizing Senator Isakson of GA over end of life legislation.
It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, et cetera. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready, on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything. This is I guess where the rumor came from.
The irony is that actually one of the chief sponsors of this bill originally was a Republican — then House member, now senator, named Johnny Isakson from Georgia — who very sensibly thought this is something that would expand people’s options. And somehow it’s gotten spun into this idea of “death panels.” I am not in favor of that. So just I want to — (applause.) I want to clear the air here.
The Senator responded this way to Obama’s statement:
U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today denounced comments made by President Obama and his spokesman regarding Isakson’s alleged connection to language contained in the House health care bill on “end-of-life counseling.”
Isakson vehemently opposes the House and Senate health care bills and he played no role in drafting language added to the House bill by House Democrats calling for the government to incentivize doctors by offering them money to conduct “end-of-life counseling” with Medicare patients every five years. Isakson also strongly opposed the House bill language calling for doctors to follow a government-mandated list of topics to discuss with patients during the counseling sessions.
By contrast, Isakson took a very different approach in July during the Senate HELP Committee hearings on the Senate version of the health care bill. Isakson’s amendment to the Senate bill says that anyone who participates in the long-term care benefit provided in the bill – if they so choose – may use that benefit to obtain assistance in formulating their own living will and durable power of attorney.
Isakson’s amendment, which was accepted unanimously by all Republicans and Democrats on the Senate HELP Committee, empowers the individual to make their own choices on these critical issues, rather than the government incentivizing doctors to conduct counseling on government-mandated topics. Isakson ultimately voted against the Senate health care bill.
“This is what happens when the President and members of Congress don’t read the bills. The White House and others are merely attempting to deflect attention from the intense negativity caused by their unpopular policies. I never consulted with the White House in this process and had no role whatsoever in the House Democrats’ bill. I categorically oppose the House bill and find it incredulous that the White House and others would use my amendment as a scapegoat for their misguided policies,”
Apparently President Obama doesn’t realize that Isakson is a Senator not a House Representative. How can a Senator be making changes to House bill HR3200? If Obama and his advisers can’t even understand what the Senator says and can’t understand the difference (nuance) between the two positions then can anyone who listens to Obama speak about healthcare reform trust what Obama says is accurate, never mind truthful? Sincerity is not truth nor does sincerity vouch for accuracy. President Obama is asking the public to trust the accuracy of his pronouncements because he is the President of the US. The Imprimatur argument is a fallacy no matter how important a person or agency is. Why should anyone believe anything he says when he can’t even get that a senator does not craft legislation in the House of Representatives?
One can possibly accept that President Obama was misinformed by his advisers, however, if he is fully depending upon his advisers for accurate information then how is he any different than them? There is a disconnect between what Obama says and what he even knows. It is easy to ascribe malicious intent to Obama due to his arrogance, as the ignorant are absolutely sure of what they know, however, Obama’s blind demagoguery is just plain incompetence. The American people can see what is written in HR 3200 does not in any way reflect what Obama says. Like all agreements, whatever the salesman says is in no way relevant to what is written down in the contract; only the written word is enforced by the Law.
If you continue to look at the transcript of the Portsmouth Town Hall, here Obama makes contradictory statements regarding Medicare at the very same meeting. This becomes an interesting study in cognitive dissonance.
So this is what reform is about. For all the chatter and the yelling and the shouting and the noise, what you need to know is this: If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. (Applause.) If you do have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need. And we will do this without adding to our deficit over the next decade, largely by cutting out the waste and insurance company giveaways in Medicare that aren’t making any of our seniors healthier. (Applause.) Right. (Laughter.)
So Medicare is so well run that there are billions in waste and inefficiency available to mostly fund those who are uninsured? And that’s not addressing the over $10 billion a year in fraud. http://www.insurancefraud.org/stats.htm
Our deficit will continue to grow because Medicare and Medicaid are on an unsustainable path. Medicare is slated to go into the red in about eight to 10 years. I don’t know if people are aware of that. If I was a senior citizen, the thing I’d be worried about right now is Medicare starts running out of money because we haven’t done anything to make sure that we’re getting a good bang for our buck when it comes to health care.
Medicare is going broke because the money in the trust fund is IOUs from Congress taking this money and using it for other purposes. What Obama is really doing is covering up a tax increase to pay for the misappropriation of funds by Congress on social programs that never gave a penny of return on investment. Is it not the responsibility of government to run a sound actuarial program? If they can’t run Medicare sustainably then how can they run a government sponsored health care program for the uninsured any better?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me make a couple of points. First of all, you make a point about Medicare that’s very important. I’ve been getting a lot of letters, pro and con, for health care reform, and one of the letters I received recently, a woman was very exercised about what she had heard about my plan. She says, “I don’t want government-run health care. I don’t want you meddling in the private marketplace. And keep your hands off my Medicare.” (Laughter.) True story.
And so I do think it’s important for particularly seniors who currently receive Medicare to understand that if we’re able to get something right like Medicare, then there should be a little more confidence that maybe the government can have a role — not the dominant role, but a role — in making sure the people are treated fairly when it comes to insurance. (Applause.)
So now he’s claiming Medicare is done right yet he claims the spending is unsustainable? So which is it?
We do think that systems like Medicare are very inefficient right now, but it has nothing to do at the moment with issues of benefits. The inefficiencies all come from things like paying $177 billion to insurance companies in subsidies for something called Medicare Advantage that is not competitively bid, so insurance companies basically get a $177 billion of taxpayer money to provide services that Medicare already provides. And it’s no better — it doesn’t result in better health care for seniors. It is a giveaway of $177 billion.
Now, think about what we could do with $177 billion over 10 years. I don’t think that’s a good use of money. I would rather spend that money on making sure that Lori can have coverage, making sure that people who don’t have health insurance get some subsidies, than I would want to be subsidizing insurance companies. (Applause.)
Except that the point of getting seniors to take HMO insurance policies like AARP United Health Care was to give seniors MORE coverage including Rx coverage that otherwise would not have been available under standard Medicare. Those private plans were allotted the SAME amount of money per person, as those on standard Medicare thus there is no waste or give away. Also please note that all those seniors who are happy with their current plan will lose their choice contrary to President Obama’s promise not to do so. http://www.medicare.gov
Now, we may be able to get even more than that. But think about it. When the prescription drug plan was passed, Medicare Part D, they decided they weren’t going to negotiate with the drug companies for the cheapest available price on drugs. And as a consequence, seniors are way over-paying — there’s that big doughnut hole that forces them to go out of pocket. You say you take a lot of medications; that means that doughnut hole is always something that’s looming out there for you. If we can cut that doughnut hole in half, that’s money directly out of your pocket. And that’s one of the reasons that AARP is so supportive, because they see this as a way of potentially saving seniors a lot of money on prescription drugs. Okay?
Except that Part D is self-funding via current annual premiums from seniors, so says the Social Security Trust Fund Report EVERY YEAR and is the only part of Medicare not in financial trouble. The point of the doughnut hole is to give seniors the financial incentive to use generics and be involved in making choices about their treatment whereas before these reforms they had no choices. If President Obama actually did some reading instead of asserting the party line he might just learn something: The premise that Medicare negotiates is a farce. Medicare does not negotiate with any medical provider they unilaterally set prices. By their track record they under reimburse thus forcing those providers to over charge elsewhere to make up the difference, which is why our insurance premiums are higher than they should be. Price controls as imposed by Medicare will not lead to cheaper drugs; it leads to less of them and more expensive ones for the rest of us.
About two-thirds of those costs we can cover by eliminating the inefficiencies that I already mentioned. So I already talked about $177 billion worth of subsidies to the insurance companies. Let’s take that money, let’s put it in the kitty. There’s about $500 billion to $600 billion over 10 years that can be saved without cutting benefits for people who are currently receiving Medicare, actually making the system more efficient over time.
That does still leave, though, anywhere from $300 billion to $400 billion over 10 years, or $30 billion to $40 billion a year. That does have to be paid for, and we will need new sources of revenue to pay for it.
So now he is advocating dumping private insurance for those on Medicare such as AARP United Health Care, who get more service than under standard Medicare in order to get more service? Any idea of savings will be quickly used by demographic realities of the baby boomers retiring in greater numbers. The point of the tax increase is to cover up the coming increase in cost of Medicare.
The bottom line here is that every person over 65 who uses PPO and HMO plans like AARP United Health Care are going to lose their insurance coverage for an inferior standard Medicare plan…and you wonder why most of the people at Town Hall meetings who oppose ObamaCare are seniors? For a leader who claims his ideas will save the country from bankruptcy and higher costs, he is totally ignorant of the facts regarding Medicare and in fact following his path would lead to less choice and less service. President Obama’s lack of knowledge regarding health care is scandalously incompetent making him the source of most of the misinformation out there regarding health care reform.
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Dan Scott calls himself a “Member of the Global Capitalist Cabal preaching Capitalism and personal responsibility as the economic solution to world poverty.” He is also a member of the 14th Amendment Society — victimhood is a liberal code word for denying the civil rights of others. He is also a proud member of the Global Warming Denier Cabal, insisting that facts not agendas determine the truth.
Dan can be seen on the web at http://www.geocities.com/fightbigotry2002/ as well as http://www.geocities.com/dscott8186/saidwebpage.htm, And can be reached for comments at dscott8186@yahoo.com.
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