Warning: Undefined array key "adf" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 69
Warning: Undefined array key "sim_pages" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 70
As a political junkie you would expect that I would be endlessly fascinated by all things political and that I would be very excited to listen to a speech by the President (even if only to find things to contradict when I disagree with him). Once upon a time that would have been true, but not anymore. While I am still anxious to be engaged in politics and the political dialog I find that too much of politics is very formulaic and predictable. I can easily say what the speech by the President will be like without even listening to or reading the transcript or any report about it.
In his speech tonight the president will talk about the importance and of Health Care reform. He will take time to rebut some of the more ridiculous rumors that have been circulated by his opponents and he will make his approach to health care seem perfectly reasonable – in fact he will be trying to strike a balance of being bold while not rocking to boat too much. The overall effect of the speech will be to make many people more comfortable with the approach he is taking while conveniently masking the fact that nothing in the current Health Care reform proposals actually addresses the real issues that plague our system of health care.
The only thing I can’t predict is whether enough people will be assuaged (or lulled into a false sense of security) to get a health care bill passed as the President hopes. While I will always hope for every president the best of success for the nation, this effort by the President shows no indication of promoting what is best for the nation (except in his words) and so I continue to hope that this effort flounders until the leaders of the country are ready to look at the actual problem and craft a solution to that problem within the limits of their authority rather than looking at their political goals and trying to convince the rest of us that their goals will solve real problems.
2 replies on “Predictable”
I have not gone back and re-read the speech real closely, but here are some initial views on what was said (in no particular order of importance)along with some of my editorial comments:
– Healthcare Reform now is Health Insurance Reform
– The system is no longer broken, it just needs to be fixed
– No Taxes now means mandatory coverage and mandatory premiums
– $1 trillion = $900 billion (although I usually understand math, I don’t understand the math that an additional $900 billion of expenditures will not increase the deficit)
– Insurance companies are evil, and government is not weighed down by evil profits
– Government will save this
– Bipartisan still means “my plan” or else
– Obama’s plan will fix what is broken, and the way to do that is to have the government that already is wasting $500 billion run the new program
– Mandate insurance companies provide at no extra cost, costly services
– Companies and people will not be required to change what they currently have(as in the bill will not require it) but ultimately, everyone will be forced to a government plan because the insurance companies will not be able to provide the same plans they currently offer
– Tax insurance companies profits to pay for Obama’s plan
– Penalize insurance companies for offering too nice of a plan
– 45 million without insurance is now 30 million without insurance (and many of these are college age -or others who simply choose not to have insurance)
– The healthcare problem is the deficit problem–however, reform is no longer needed to get us out of the recession (at least that false linkage has been broken)
– The illegal immigrant access to healthcare is not solved, just that the government won’t pay for it when the illegal immigrants do get medical care
– Everyone will have unlimited access to unlimited care for their whole lives and at the same time cost will go down (cost will go down only because the biggest insurers, Medicare and Medicaid, will just quit paying)
– This is such an urgent matter that we will not put it into effect until after the next election in 2012
– Health insurance will become a mandated offering by companies to employees, thus a de facto entitlement (I wonder if this is somehow connected to organized labor—just a guess)
– Mandatory requirement to have insurance, and a government option for those who cannot get insurance
– The reasons for the deficit are tax breaks for the rich and the war in Iraq (notice there is no mention of Afghanistan)
– More math: 1/10th of 1% will reduce deficit $4 trillion over time. Now let’s just assume that is over 20 years. In 2007, total health care costs in US was $2.26 trillion. One-tenth of 1% is $2.26 billion, multiplied by 20 years equals $45.2 billion. How does that equal $4 trillion
– The politically safe road would be to kick the can down the road past another election (isn’t that what he is doing by making this effective in 2013, after he gets re-elected and does not have to be held accountable for this legislation)
Just some thoughts.
You can see my response to the speech at Takeaways from the Health Care Speech but to your list of thoughts I would only respond that because Obama has embraced and expanded the war in Afghanistan it naturally does not contribute to our deficit.