The President looks back to the bipartisan Patient's Bill of Rights, a bill that was defeated in Congress at the hands of special interests and their supporters, and notes that health insurance reform covers the same ground and much more in terms of giving the consumers the upper hand over their insurance companies. He calls on the Senate to allow an up-or-down vote, and for those opposing reform to stop using parliamentary maneuvers to drag it out.
I know there has been a huge discussion/argument about whether this bill would do what needs to be done... I don't know. I don't have the answers. I do know that I still trust my President. I don't believe he has sold us out, I don't believe he has failed us.. He has been involved, just as he is here..
He has made trips to Capitol Hill, numerous phone calls, had members of the Senate and the House at the White House talking to them about this, and stated over and over again exactly what he wanted. He has been, I think very clear.
Yet, still people think he hasn't done enough. They wanted him to be more like FDR, LBJ and Clinton. Well, lets look at what they got.
FDR tried to pass Social Security, he finally got it done, but it was nothing like it is today. It was very limited in scope and only covered a very small percentage of the population. Including minorities, who were excluded from coverage. There was no disability, there was nothing like what we have now. And FDR had a great majority of Democrats who were more liberal than anything Pres. Obama has.. They still passed a flawed bill and it has been fine tuned in the years since.
LBJ and JFK worked to pass Medicare... finally it was done.. but nothing like it is now. It was very limited in scope and coverage and it didn't contain anything like it does now. It was a very flawed bill and has been improved since.
Bill Clinton, threatened Congress with a veto pen.. He even stood in the Chamber and held up a pen and said, I will veto any bill that doesn't have Universal Health Care. He and Hillary wrote the bill and took it to Congress. It never reached a floor vote.
So, yeah.. let's make Pres. Obama just like FDR, LBJ, and Clinton. They couldn't get this passed. At least Pres. Obama has gotten us to the point we are voting on it. The House has passed their version of the bill, and now we are debating in the Senate and waiting on them to vote.
You may not like his style, he may not have been your first choice for President.. but he is getting the job done.
Shades of 1990, no, I think it is shades of the 1960's and the battle to pass Medicare.
I was perusing the web and found some things I thought was interesting. Since people seem to think this is Pres. Obama's fault we can't get Health Care done, because he hasn't been strong enough, and hasn't spoken out enough about the Public Option, and that's why there are so many problems getting it done, I thought I would see how history treated things and compared to what was happening now.
Here is the Op-Ed Michael Steele, Chairman of the RNC had in the Washington Post today. He titled it Protecting Our Seniors GOP Principles for Health Care.
Americans are engaged in a critical debate over reforming our health-care system. While Republicans believe that reforms are necessary, President Obama's plan for a government-run health-care system is the wrong prescription. The Democrats' plan will hurt American families, small businesses and health-care providers by raising care costs, increasing the deficit, and not allowing patients to keep a doctor or insurance plan of their choice. Furthermore, under the Democrats' plan, senior citizens will pay a steeper price and will have their treatment options reduced or rationed.
Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care. We also believe that any health-care reform should be fully paid for, but not funded on the backs of our nation's senior citizens.
The Republican Party's contract with seniors includes tenets that Americans, regardless of political party, should support. First, we need to protect Medicare and not cut it in the name of "health-insurance reform." As the president frequently, and correctly, points out, Medicare will go deep into the red in less than a decade. But he and congressional Democrats are planning to raid, not aid, Medicare by cutting $500 billion from the program to fund his health-care experiment. The president also plans to cut hospital payments and Medicare Advantage, all of which will mean fewer treatment options for seniors. These types of "reforms" don't make sense for the future of an already troubled federal program or for the services it provides that millions of Americans count on.
Second, we need to prohibit government from getting between seniors and their doctors. The government-run health-care experiment that Obama and the Democrats propose will give seniors less power to control their own medical decisions and create government boards that would decide what treatments would or would not be funded. Republicans oppose any new government entity overruling a doctor's decision about how to treat his or her patient.
Simply put, we believe that health-care reform must be centered on patients, not government.
Third, we need to outlaw any effort to ration health care based on age. Obama has promoted a program of "comparative effectiveness research" that he claims will be used only to study competing medical treatments. But this program could actually lead to government boards rationing treatments based on age. For example, if there are going to be only so many heart surgeries in a given year, the Democrats figure government will get more bang for its buck if more young and middle-aged people get them.
Fourth, we need to prevent government from dictating the terms of end-of-life care. Many of the most significant costs of care come in the last six months of a patient's life, and every American household must consider how to treat their loved ones. Obama's government-run health "reform" would pay for seniors' meetings with a doctor to discuss end-of-life care. While nonthreatening at first, something that is quite normal for a family to do becomes troublesome when the government gets involved. Seniors know that government programs that seem benign at first can become anything but. The government should simply butt out of conversations about end-of-life care and leave them to seniors, their families and their doctors.
Finally, we need to protect our veterans by preserving Tricare and other benefit programs for military families. Democrats recently proposed raising costs for the Tricare for Life program that many veterans rely on for treatment. Republicans support our veterans and believe that America should honor our promises to them.
Barack Obama campaigned on "post-partisanship." As president, however, Obama has shown that he is beholden to his party's left-wing ideologues. It's not too late for him to honor his pledges for bipartisan health-care reform. Reversing course and joining Republicans in support of health care for our nation's senior citizens is a good place to start. Doing so will help him restart the reform process to give Americans access to low-cost, high-quality health care.
This is very similar to the argument that was given to people by none other than Ronald Reagan, back in 1961, however it was a Radio Address, rather than an Op-Ed and you can listen to it via the YouTubes if you like... He laid it all out, the scare tactics, telling everyone how Medicare was going to be "Socialized" medicine and would be the death of us all.. It would be the end of America as we know it, and it would be terrible for the Senior Citizens in our country.
Here is the hero of the right.. Ronnie Raygunz....
And then... there is the AMA, who unlike now, is on our side.. So even though Pres. Obama has failed as the CW is saying... he has brought them around.. But, in 1962, when John Kennedy and LBJ, who everyone keeps saying Pres. Obama needs to be more like, was trying to get Medicare done.. the AMA was working against them.. Click here to see a copy of an ad the AMA ran in the New York Times.
It calls Health Care a Hoax, Millions will be left not covered, there will be limited benefits.
Sound familiar?
They took out a huge, (for that time) buy on television, and tried to blanket the airwaves with the news that this was a takeover of the health care system by the government. All except Boston, and they were terribly upset that Boston wouldn't buy into their scare tactics.. lol
So, as you see, everything we are seeing is nothing new.. and for everyone to say that it is the President's fault this is happening, I think is just a little naive. Yes, he was a little slow maybe in hitting back at the Republicans, but that is his style, he did the same thing to Hillary, and to McCain.
He wouldn't be who he was, if he came out swinging, that's just not his style...
I truly hope the members of Congress after this break can come together and after hearing our voices will do what we the people want. We have spoken to them, now they just need to do the correct thing.
From one of my favorite bloggers, Bob Cesca, he says some of the same things I have pointed out here.. If you think I am wrong or have misstated how Pres. Obama has mishandled this health care, go read some of Bob's stuff.. but his take on FDR and LBJ and Jack Kennedy are here and he says the same thing I do.. it is way overrated to think they were any different than Pres. Obama has been. So to say he needs to be more like them is just not correct and is just being silly... they settled for way less than what the president is asking for...and then the bills were added to later. That's not what the President wants, that's not what he is trying to do.. if that's what he wanted, this could have been done a long time ago.
To say the President has mishandled this health care reform debate is just not correct.. he has handled it just as he is.. in his own way.. He is the man we elected and nothing more. To demand him to change now is just silly on our part.. That's not what I expected or thought he would do.
If you thought he was going to be different.. then YOU didn't know Barack Obama.
