President Obama on Health Care Reform: Urgency and Determination
July 5th, 2009
The President, Speaker Pelosi, and Leadership from the House of Representatives emerge from a meeting together with a new target on moving forward with health reform: pass legislation through the House by July 31st. The President speaks to the press in the South Drive at the Oval Office. May 13, 2009. (Public Domain)
One day our children and grandchildren just might say to us “what the hell is wrong with you people? Why did you elect this person? Look what he’s done to this country. What were you thinking?”
We’ll be having this conversation while waiting hours in an emergency room, with no job, hoping a government bureaucrat will approve a medical procedure.
The only way socialized medicine would save money in this country is to do what every other country in the world does: restrict access. Government bureaucrats would be able to cut costs—but only by shrinking access to health care, as they do in Canada, Britain and France. It’s a nightmare of overflowing emergency rooms, a lack of doctors and yearlong waits for treatment.
Obama promised that his massive deficit spending would create jobs and keep the unemployment rate from going above eight percent. Where are our jobs?
Today, unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent. Lst week, another 614,000 people applied for unemployment insurance benefits. Job losses totaled 467,000 jobs in June, far more than forecasters had expected.
The nation now has the same number of jobs it did in 2000, meaning that nine years of employment gains have disappeared.
I’m still so glad we elected Obama instead of McCain.
The answer to this problem is simple economics 101. Obama must of missed this course. This is a supply and demand problem. Tort reform will resolve the supply side. Obama’s plan will result in fewer healthcare professionals. Tort reform will protect healthcare professionals and result in more access and lower costs. Eliminating free emergency room healthcare to 25 million illegal aliens will address the demand side of this issue.
pelosi is a suck up
A86:
Agreed — and likewise;)
There are many things we can do to control health care costs
1) Offer tax credits to incentivize people to take out health care plans (especially younger people — who tend to think they don’t need it)
2) Have competition across state lines
3) Tort Reform (cap on medical lawsuits), it lowers cost of malpractice insurance that is an astronomical cost to health care providers
But it is nice to have a calm and respectful debate with a conservative. You’re a very nice change from too many conservatives I run into lately.
Here’s a more recent one:
(dot) pubmedcentral (dot) nih (dot) gov/ articlerender (dot) fcgi ? artid = 2231416
Health care is actually more expensive here than it is in Canada, hence the “rationing” (by way of whether or not people can afford it) here is worse. To illustrate better about how many Americans are without care:
18% of Asian Americans, 21% of African Americans, 35% of Hispanic Americans and 30% of Native Americans are uninsured or not adequately covered.
A86:
I’m not try to be disrespectful to you —
1) That article was from 1993
2) These are northern border people going there illegally because it’s “free”
3) They’re going there because it’s free — not because of rationing in the U.S. such as taking months for radiation treatment
Actually thousands of Americans run to Canada to get treatment:
(dot) nytimes (dot) com/ 1993/ 12/ 20/world/ americans - filching - free - health- care - in -canada (dot) html
Thousands also run to the EU for care.
A86:
And of course the U.S. health care system has flaws as well — I believe a key factor to look at is there are MANY Canadians who’ve crossed the border into America to receive immediate care on serious illnesses — never the other way around
Perhaps. The Canadian system has its flaws, it’s certainly not perfect.
A86:
There’s still the issue with “how” their needs are being met — perhaps not using the most potent drugs to fight certain types of cancer
According to the Canadian cancer society only 11.3% of Canadians with cancer are not having their needs met, compared with 14.4% of Americans with cancer.
A86:
What? They’re “official” statistics & work in conjunction with the CDC
Canadian health stastics are not contradictory to ours — both agencies receive each other’s statistics — otherwise, it would be impossible to compile
The US National Center for Health Statistics isn’t the best place to go for information about health in Canada. The source is biased towards privatized deregulated healthcare because that’s what the current political climate on Capitol Hill is for.
“according to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group and the Canadian Cancer Society…fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent) admit unmet health care needs.”
Since this is a joint effort it’s probably more accurate.
US National Center for Health Statistics
A 16% higher cancer death rate in Canada
* An eight week wait for radiation therapy for cancer patients
* 42% of Canadians die of colon cancer vs. 31% in the US
* Cutbacks in diagnostic testing in Canada
* The best meds for chemo therapy are not available
(dot) denverpost (dot) com/ recommended/ ci _ 12523427
“there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S. for all cancers combined”
A86:
Here’s one article with some of the stats I mentioned:
realclearpolitics . com / articles / 2009 / 05 / 14 / death _ of _ us _ healthcare __96474 . html
Do you have an article about that? I’ve never heard that claim about Canada. I’m sure there are flaws with the Canadian system, because no system is perfect, but from everything I’ve read overall it’s rated higher than the US system.
People in other countries with nationalized healthcare are interviewed and most of them will tell you they’ve never even spoken to a medical bureaucrat, let alone seen one.
A86:
Death rates from cancer are substantially higher in Canada — among other diseases. They literally bar certain drugs that are proven to fight particular diseases, purely due to the cost
Did you hear what Obama said about seniors? He basically said the GOVERNMENT would tell doctors & patients that it may be better to take a pain pill instead of receiving surgery
YouTube Search:
“Obama seniors pain pill surgery”
Costs spent per person on healthcare in US: $8000
Costs spent per person on healthcare in Canada: $3400
Percentage of GDP spent on healthcare in US: 15%
Percentage of GDP spent on healthcare in Canada: 9.7%
(dot) nchc (dot) org/ facts/ cost (dot) shtml
I really don’t get US conservatives. Most conservative parties in just about every other industrialized nation supports nationalized healthcare. They realize human health is not a market commodity to be bought and sold and that your health shouldn’t depend on your wallet size. The US is one of the only industrialized nations that doesn’t have nationalized healthcare. No coincidence that we’re also 37th place in healthcare quality and accessibility. Near the bottom of the industrialized world.
joewp116
Doesn’t matter how many trillions Obama borrows or prints, it’s all right with you.
You haven’t seen the comparisons between Bush and Obama with reguards to spending, or you wouldn’t be commenting. Right? Go ahead and admit it so I might help you see the error of your ways.
Yeah, I’ve fought this fight before.
Get informed. Your hero is just another villain in disguise.
I didn’t like Bush’s spending either, but Obama’s spending makes Bush look rather good.