Deconstructing Obama’s Portsmouth Health Care Townhall Meeting
Comments (1) So much to tell from the only town hall meeting that had people shout “Yes We Can!” No boos, no jeers, no outraged Americans.? Is it possible that thare are no Katy Abrams in New Hampshire? ( Townhall to Senator Arlen Specter: This is about the systematic dismantling of this country)
Lets the Obama obfuscations begin!
“I don’t want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants in here”
Except there was a little girl who was a PLANT - we’ve seen this before (Plants found in Obama’s Online Healthcare Town Hall!).
Does he really think the American people are this stupid? Answer = Yes, because he said this whopper of a lie:
“I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter”
Really Mr. President? How about when you DID say you support a single payer system?
So I don’t want anybody saying somehow that I’m pulling the bait- and-switch here. I said very specifically I thought we should roll back Bush tax cuts and use them to pay for health insurance. That’s what I’m intending to do. All right? (Applause.)
Who applauds a tax increases? I hope you don’t have any capital gains or plan on making money – because Obama WILL raise taxes on more people than those making $250,000 a year.
Point number two: In terms of these expert health panels — well, this goes to the point about “death panels” — that’s what folks are calling them. The idea is actually pretty straightforward, which is if we’ve got a panel of experts, health experts, doctors, who can provide guidelines to doctors and patients about what procedures work best in what situations, and find ways to reduce, for example, the number of tests that people take — these aren’t going to be forced on people, but they will help guide how the delivery system works so that you are getting higher-quality care. And it turns out that oftentimes higher-quality care actually costs less.
Explain to me how the government as a single payer (Medicare, Medicaid and now a “public plan”) would not have an incredible chilling effect on peoples care by issuing recommendations to “guide how the delivery system works.” If you are a doctor you won’t want to risk being on the outlier list for the biggest (only?) payer. You willtow the company line to avoid being censured, or dropped as a provider. MAKE NO MISTAKE that this is what it will come to.
Finally, there is this disturbing Q+A that PROVES THE POINT that government controlled health care means you will replace the insurance company decisions with the Government’s decision – and I hope you like the kind of service this man received, because Obama called it a good result! Read on! (bold my emphasis)
Q Good afternoon, Mr. President. Bill Anderson from New Hampshire. In reference to what you just said — I’m presently under the New Hampshire Medicaid system and I have to take a drug called Lipitor. When I got onto this program they said, no, we’re not going to cover Lipitor — even though I’d been on that pill for probably 10 years,based on the information my doctor feels is right for me. And I had to go through two different trials of other kinds of drugs before it was finally deemed that I was able to go back on the Lipitor through the New Hampshire Medicaid system. So here it is, the Medicaid that you guys are administering and you’re telling me that it’s good — but in essence, I’m dealing with the same thing, and you’re telling me the insurance companies are doing. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that’s a legitimate point. I don’t know all the details, but it sounds to me like they were probably trying to have you take a generic as opposed to a brand name. Is that right? And it turned out that you did not have as good of a reaction under the generic as the brand name, and then they put you back on the brand name. Is that what happened?
Q Correct, to save money.
THE PRESIDENT: Well — right. Look, there may be — in nine out of 10 cases, the generic might work as well or better than the brand name. And we don’t want to just subsidize the drug companies if you’ve got one that works just as well as another.
The important thing about the story that you just told me was — is that once it was determined that, in fact, you needed the brand name, you were able to get the brand name. Now, I want to be absolutely clear here: There are going to be instances where if there is really strong scientific evidence that the generic and the brand name work just as well, and the brand name costs twice as much, that the taxpayer should try to get the best deal possible, as long as if it turns out that the generic doesn’t work as well, you’re able to get the brand name.
Note how it becomes the TAXPAYERS money, not YOURS! This is the fundamental problem with the debate – they think its THEIR MONEY when it should be yours buying your own private policy. Once it becomes THEIR money you are SCREWED!
So the basic principle that we want to set up here is that — if you’re in private insurance, first of all, your private insurance can do whatever you want. If you’re under a government program, then it makes sense for us to make sure that we’re getting the best deal possible and not just giving drug makers or insurers more money than they should be getting. But ultimately, you’ve got to be able to get the best care based on what the doctor says.
READ THAT SENTENCE AGAIN! ….. focus on the word ULTIMATELY. This is a weasel word – it means EVENTUALLY. After you file your appeals and prior authorizations and try five other drugs that don’t work but are cheaper.
And it sounds like that is eventually what happened. It may be that it wasn’t as efficient — it wasn’t as smooth as it should have been, but that result is actually a good one. And you think about all the situations where a generic actually would have worked — in fact, one of the things I want to do is to speed up generics getting introduced to the marketplace, because right now drug companies — (applause) — right now drug companies are fighting so that they can keep essentially their patents on their brand-name drugs a lot longer. And if we can make those patents a little bit shorter, generics get on the market sooner, ultimately you as consumers will save money. All right? But it was an excellent question, so thank you.
I somehow don’t think this man though that his experience dealing with side effects was a GOOD THING! And note Obama’s enthusiasm to reduce drug patents to speed generics along. Sounds like a great plan until the drug industry loses its profit motive and spends less on R+D to find amazing new cures. I WANT the drug companies making money so they keep developing new medicines.
The complete text of the Obama Portsmouth town hall can be found HERE
