The Obamacare Show: Two dissenting docs challenge Dear Leader
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Photoshop: Reader Rachael in Ky
Here’s your open thread for the ABC News/White House Obamacare Show, which broadcasts at 10pm Eastern.
No John Stossel, it appears, but the ABC News press relations office just sent out word that a few skeptical doctors did put President Obama on the spot.
Celebrate diversity!
EXCLUSIVE: President Obama Defends Right to Choose Best Care
In ABC News Health Care Forum, President Answers Questions About Reform
By JAKE TAPPER and KAREN TRAVERSPresident Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people — like the president himself — wouldn’t face.
…Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.
Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.
The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother I always want them to get the very best care.”
“There’s a whole bunch of care that’s being provided that every study, that every bit of evidence that we have indicates may not be making us healthier,” he said.
Gibson interjected that often patients don’t know what will work until they get every test they can.
“Often times we know what makes sense and what doesn’t,” the president responded, making a push for evidence-based medicine.
…Another neurologist, Dr. John Corboy of the University of Colorado Health Science Center, asked the president, “What can you do to convince the American public that there actually are limits to what we can pay for with our American health care system and if there are going to be limits, who’s going to design the system and who’s going to enforce the rules for a system like that? ”
Obama, however, didn’t directly answer the question.
We’ll have to wait and see what kind of unvetted sob stories and pro-Obamacare propaganda slipped by the ABC lapdogs…
***
Update:
Things the Obamercial taught me…
*More government = less paperwork and less bureaucracy!
*Dear Leader proclaims: “The stars have aligned.” (This from the oaf who wrongly mocked Nancy Reagan for holding seances in the White House. Reminder: It was Hillary who did that.)
*”We can’t afford not to act.” Like we haven’t heard such empty apocalyse-now haranguing a gazillion times over the last year.
***
Update: Ed Morrissey spotlights Obama’s Michael Dukakis moment.
And Jeff Poor recaps the ABC/White House presidential filibuster.
See what others have said
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Trackbacks
- Simplifying the Health Care Debate « NEOAVATARA
- Obama avoids direct answers to skeptical doctors during the ABC ObamaCARE infomercial | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
- Obama will get the best health care possible for his family, even if you can't | The Lonely Conservative
- Health Care BS - FREE MARKET? WHAT FREE MARKET?
- ObamaCare=Public Plan=Single Payer=Socialized Medicine « Nice Deb
- Major Papers Remove Obama’s Comment: ‘I’ll Be Honest, There Are Countries Where a Single-Payer System Works Pretty Well’ « Jim Blazsik
- The Fallacy Of Healthcare ‘Reform’ : Conservative Nation
- More on the Media and Obama’s Sleight of Hand | Pirates! Man Your Women!
- Obama Health Care; A Native American Warning, the Ta’Shon Story « VotingFemale Speaks!
- Obama’s Primetime Defense of Healthcare, and the Curious Case of the “Socialist” Market of Ideas « Submitted to a Candid World
- ObamaCare for All — Except for Liberal Elites and When The Government Decides It Isn’t Worth It | Axis of Right
- Obama challenged on Healthcare : ObamaIsDumb.com
- Cheat Seeking Missiles » Unsold On Obamacare
- Single-Payer Means Everyone Pays « Finding Ponies…
- Obama Would Not Pledge His Family to His Own Healthcare Plan : Stop The ACLU
- Health Care Reform Clearly a Huge Gamble, Too Experimental to Pass Without Big-Time Manipulation « Quick Daily Hits — Politics and Such
- The Strident Conservative
- Journalist Doing His Job: Jake Tapper Challenges Obama on Socialized Health Care (video) « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- Canada has a Boom in Private Health Care Business « Goodtimepolitics
- Government Health Care Lunacy - Simply Explained | The Patriot's Mind
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Categories: Health care
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“no answers are forthcoming”
The only answer not provided at this point is how to pay for it. The rest have been made known. Again the reason Obama is in trouble on this thing is because answers have been made known and folks don’t like what they see.
???Straw man???
15 years billing insureres/patients in private practice taught me plenty about how the system works.
See above.
Do you wish to let “Obamacare” pass?
If not, do you have a different way from the political “process”, with all of its hype, games, BS, etc. , to stop “Obabmacare”, and thus prevent worsening the situation?
Staw man? You mean like your “…some evil empire darth vader making decisions in Obama’s dark shadow…”?
It won’t be Darth Vader. It WILL be Ernestine; “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company”. Except that the phone monopoly had customer service.
No, js, you show your statist proclivity here on this subject. You endorse the idea of someone on a committee deciding when we die, when we have had enough medicine, etc.
I repudiate that, as you know. You and I are at swords-points on this.
Yep, that is another question that should be asked. What are the elements and variables used in that equation? Even if an equation will be used to determine who will be treated, or not.
Pres Obama should be pressed on this.
Details, details, details….
http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/
But, in a market economy, we each do one of those with every dollar we spend.
It is ours to do, not some bureaucrat who has a completely different set of criteria.
Why? BECAUSE IT IS OUR F’ing MONEY, NOT OBAMA’s,
NOT js’s, and not anyone else’s.
It won’t be Darth Vader. It WILL be Ernestine; “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company”. Except that the phone monopoly had customer service.
No, js, you show your statist proclivity here on this subject. You endorse the idea of someone on a committee deciding when we die, when we have had enough medicine, etc.
__________________________________
Yep, straw man. Good example.
Nope, not a statist. I have worked in all aspects of the health care industry in terms of being on the delivery side and on the payment side. I am telling what reality is. Like it or not. Describing it is not endorsing it.
You seem to get those things confused in your rush to be pissed off.
You seem to not want to be bothered with reality.
Much of what you and others are describing as “might” happen, is already in place and has been for some time.
Decisions have been made for you regarding your health care IF you want it paid for by your insurance for decades. The option for you to pay for it if you want it but your insurance won’t pay for it has always been a viable and present option.
There is nothing new about that concept and as a concept Obama’s health plan is not introducing it.
I have worked with folks on the Medicare side, this darth vader administrator types you seem to think will take over. They are as a majority decent caring intelligent and great folks.
You make a couple of fair points. The most profound is that you accept the premise that your insurance company may elect not to pay for care that you want.
Said, another way, Government and Insurance Companies should not come between you and your healthcare decisions. Agreed?
Absolutely, if you want to pay for something yourself, you should be allowed to do it.
Unfortunately, I am not aware that any of the things in the Clinton Plan from the ’90’s is going to be in the current plan. Heck, I don’t even know what is in the current plan. Does anyone? Maybe we should demand to see the plan and be allowed to comment on it.
Yet, another question for Pres Obama.
BECAUSE IT IS OUR F’ing MONEY, NOT OBAMA’s
Well then you want a system that allows you to decide if you want to spend YOUR money on MY great grandpa’s hip replacement when at the same time he has been bed ridden for 15 years.
Yes?
Silly, Rabbit. The speculation may have forced ABC to ensure such questions were asked.
“Do you wish to let “Obamacare” pass?”
Seems to me my position on that is obvious.
And based on your postings and what you are inventing to get upset about, you didn’t pay much attention during those 15 years there granite.
Wrong. Nobody needs to press Obama about a flawed concept. His answers are meaningless anyway. Defeat the bill. Period.
“Heck, I don’t even know what is in the current plan. Does anyone? Maybe we should demand to see the plan and be allowed to comment on it.”
Why don’t you know? I posted one link, there are many, that detail the current plan. Acting like no one knows or can’t know is unfounded.
About the only thing that is unclear is how the plan will be paid for. In the government documents most of then at that juncture of the legislation when it comes to payment say “To be determined at a later date” in those sections.
“Nobody needs to press Obama about a flawed concept.”
Yes on one level. When you keep asking someone to explain a thing it assumes there will eventually be an explanation that allows the “it” to make sense. There is no explanation that will allow this fiasco to make sense. So it is futile to keep asking IF the point is to have it make sense.
However IF the point is to continue to expose Obama’s mindset, his goals, then by all means keep asking and pressing. The more that is out in the open about Obama the better.
Errah BHO response to them should have been, “No late term abortions for you then!
Certainly. Like the folks at the IRS, the DMV, the local welfare office, your local elementary school, or any other government or quasi-government monopoly.
Is there any question about this?
You are a statist, and your posts reflect it clearly.
Should I pay for your grandpa’s hip replacement. Uh, no. But I…and many millions of Americans would voluntarily help Grandpa with his hip replacement if he could not pay for it.
We have for over a century.
We’ve been over this ground before. You work in a distorted system. It has been distorted by government intervention in the market.
It can only be fixed by REMOVING government intervention. NOT BY VASTLY ENLARGING IT.
Is that really in question here?
http://w3.newsmax.com/a/catastrophe/
Here is Dick Morris trying to sell his book but none-the-less some of the facts of Obamacare.
Agree with you 100%.
zyggy implies that the right questions will help Obama create a good system.
“It can only be fixed by REMOVING government intervention. NOT BY VASTLY ENLARGING IT.”
And I don’t need to lose weight, I just need to be a foot taller.
“You are a statist, and your posts reflect it clearly.”
The idea that you can make such a judgment based on posts here reflects poorly on you rag.
Medicare and its impact on health care is not going away. It is a pipe dream to decide the only fix you will support is getting the government out.
Like it or not it is what it is. The only way this is going to work is for folks who don’t want socialized medicine to work from a platform of reality.
Well stated, Ragspierre.
Watching BHO trying to justify his position proves that we need to fix the system…not healthcare, just Washington.
The only reason the libs need socialized medicine is the gov’t can’t afford medicaid and medicare. These 2 programs will break the bank when boomers retire. Therefore they need more money. If everyone pays to be in the program there is more money. Obama and all don’t care whether medical care is any good, they just don’t want to be the party that cuts medicaid.
That’s my thinking anyway.
“zyggy implies that the right questions will help Obama create a good system.”
Yep. He is operating from the delusional assumption that the Obama plan some how is actually a good idea. We just need to ask the “right” question. There is no “right” question to tie it all together IF Obama’s stated goals are his real goals.
His plan does not accomplish what he says it is for.
However his plan does accomplish something. That “something” is probably his real goal. And that something has nothing to do with better more affordable health care. It has to do with centralizing power and his mindset that government is the answer.
“These 2 programs will break the bank when boomers retire.”
Its already breaking the bank. No need to wait for all of us baby boomers to hit the roster.
rag…
You didn’t answer my question sir.
BECAUSE IT IS OUR F’ing MONEY, NOT OBAMA’s
Well then you want a system that allows you to decide if you want to spend YOUR money on MY great grandpa’s hip replacement when at the same time he has been bed ridden for 15 years.
Yes?
“We have for over a century.”
Cause if that’s your answer, you are most inconsistent sir.
Uncle Ted, I was looking for your comments on Sanford’s adultery…I figure a man with your VAST experience in this area is worth listening to!!!
You do not increase freedom by vastly increasing taxes, government bureaucracy and putting government in charge of the most fundamental life decisions of 300 million Americans!
You do not decrease costs by putting the government in charge of anything.
You do not improve service by limiting competition. You do not improve service by putting the government in charge of anything.
The government doesn’t “own” me. The government has no right to make my health care decisions for me. I am a citizen of the United States. I am not a “worker.”
Every government program enacted in the last 70 years has been poorly planned and poorly executed and has cost vastly more than promised and these programs have bankrupted the nation. We “owe” people 55 to 100 TRILLION dollars that we do not have! That is 3 to 8 times the annual GDP of the entire nation!
Government has never worked better than the market. We have proven this over the last 200 years. Why are we still having this debate?
Wake up and vote for conservatives. Reject Marxist Democrats and socialist Republicans. They are in it for their benefit and not ours!
You do not decrease costs by putting the government in charge of anything.
You do not improve service by limiting competition. You do not improve service by putting the government in charge of anything.
_________________________________
I think that should be the m.o. for conservatives and folks opposed to socialized medicine. I think they should pose the question as a conditional.
“We will vote for you health care proposal when you show me 2 areas of a similar nature where the government taking over has lowered cost and improved service. Please show me those 2 areas and you will have our vote for Obamacare.”
I would love to see that challenge given to the left.
Why, EXACTLY, is it a “pipe dream” to work toward reversing the process that has broken our systemssssss?
There is only one choice here: return our nation to one where individuals have liberty…expressed by their market choices…, or continue down the same road to perdition.
It really is just that simple.
Appointing a committee of “experts” to decide who lives and who dies, as js suggests as a fix, is morally reprehensible.
Especially since it is not an inevitability.
Why, EXACTLY, is it a “pipe dream” to work toward reversing the process that has broken our systemssssss?
I believe you already answered yourself rag…
It went something like this….
“We have for over a century.”
Do you find it boring to ask and answer your own questions?
“as js suggests as a fix,”
You really gotta work on those comprehension skills rag…
The only suggestion I have made regarding anything close to the idea of a “fix” was just posted in terms of the m.o. conservatives need to follow in opposing Obamacare.
Sorry, but that’s just stupid. Do you not recognize that Americans CHOOSE to be charitable?
That is a MARKET choice, like any other. We do it because we VALUE it.
The only suggestion I have made regarding anything close to the idea of a “fix” was…
exactly what I said you said.
I’ve read your posts here before this thread.
“Appointing a committee of “experts” to decide who lives and who dies…”
Also need to point out again that this sentence illustrates the same principle those pushing for socialized medicine are using.
Deciding what health insurance pays for is not then determining what health care a person receives.
Health insurance coverage, both in how many are covered and what it covers, is not the same as health care delivered.
The underlying operating belief is this: “I want to decide what I want for me and my family AND I want an insurance company or the government or someone else to pay for it.”
It is now as it always has been and probably will be. IF you want it and your insurance doesn’t pay for it, you can always pay for it. Health care insurance coverage is not the same as what you want for health care delivery.
So lets see a conservative principle is I want what I want but I demand to be free to make that choice and force someone else pays for it? Really? That’s conservatism?
We have for a very long time been receiving health care insurance coverage based on a set of rules applied by others then ourselves based on medical necessity and what is contractually covered. Decisions made by someone that is not me. If that is morally reprehensible, it is been morally reprehensible for quite some time.
Like it or not, it is what it is.
“Americans CHOOSE to be charitable?”
Medicare and taxes taken for it is by choice? You have been asked personally if Medicare can spend you money and you give them the green light cause you care? Really?
Again you are most inconsistent. Its okay to forcibly take money from folks to pay for grandpa’s unnecessary hip replacement and your only explanation is because that’s simply the way it has been for a century?
I know you read them rag. What you don’t do is bother to comprehend them.
Not new with your replies.
So rag, are you not going to answer this basic and simple question?
Are you for or against a system that allows you to decide how your money will be spent? If your money is going to be spent on unnecessary diagnostic and medical procedures do you want a system that allows you to choose to spend your money or not spend your money?
Or do you believe that all diagnostic test and procedures being done in this country are necessary?
That’s the whole point. All of the criteria can be changed with a penstroke from a low level flunkie with no Congressional oversight.
This will effectively hand over EVERY decision involving our health care to a person completely disconnected from the process. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will love this because it will give them a neverending supply of complaints of institutional racism.
Um… No.
A conservative position is like this:
I want what I want, but I have scarce resources with alternative uses (see, that’s the definition of economics…allllll economics). So, I have to decide how I will allocate my resources (see, that is the choice alllllll economic systems have to address).
In a market system, I decide how to allocate my resources according to my health care needs, consistent with my other needs. Kind of like I do with my grocery purchases.
If Grandpa needs/wants things Grandpa can’t find the resources to purchase (groceries or a hip replacement), I have a choice to help Grandpa. He IS my Grandpa…family.
If his need for resources exceeds MY ability to help, I may ASK others to join in helping Grandpa.
Americans for over a century have organized the things called “charities” for that very purpose. We did it WITHOUT anybody telling us to give them money at the point of a gun…or a law.
This is a form of socialism…or the spreading of the load among the larger society. But it is NOT STATE socialism, which is COMPULSORY, rather than voluntary, and destroys liberty.
Another form of spreading risk out over a large pool of people is called “insurance”. People who sell insurance have STRONG motivations to shape their products to their consumer’s demands, and to provide service.
Consumers don’t have to buy any insurance that does not meet their needs.
See? That is what a conservative position looks like.
You hit the nail on the head. Eventually, life and death decisions for you, me and my kids will be made by some functionally illiterate GS-5!
I don’t want a functionally illiterate GS-5 who most likely spends his entire day playing World of Warcraft on his government issued Pentium II computer deciding whether my kids get the treatment they need.
I am a citizen of the United States! I get to run my own life. Not Obama! Not Biden! Not Geithner! Not Bernanke! I am not a serf! I am a free man! Get it!
Spot on!
There are millions of people who think that Xbox 360, beer, drugs, etc. are a more important place to allocate their resources than on health insurance and the Dems are doing what they do best, trying to replace common sense with law.
Which is a MASSIVE disservice to people, from a number of directions.
One of the great things about liberty is that it REQUIRES us to learn from our bad choices. So, we do.
I sure have…do…and will.
CAN people make sound purchasing (and other) decisions regarding their own health.
Well, HELL yes! One great way to enhance that is to INSIST that they make the choices and EAT THE CONSEQUENCES.
Americans do it with what they eat, when they buy a computer, when they do any number of things.
Although, less and less every day…
Well, that is certainly a good example of ‘what doesn’t make sense’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWIW3ueUjSo&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmichellemalkin.com%2F2009%2F06%2F25%2Fa-test-for-denver-international-airport%2F&feature=player_embedded
Good…!!!
Ragspierre–what happened? I couldn’t get it to play.
D’oh.
spacey,
worked for me. You can find it on Michelle’s Denver Airport piece.
What doth it profit a network to sell its integrity…
for dead last in the ratings…
The “Got Talent” lead-in helped NBC’s new drama “The Philanthropist,” 4.8/8, get off to a decent start at 10, winning the hour in viewers and adults 18-49 despite a slightly higher household number for “CSI: NY,” 4.9/8, on CBS. An ABC News special with President Obama drew a 3.1/6.
la toilette…
THE EASIEST WAY TO CURE MOST OF OUR SOCIAL PROGRAMS PROBLEMS IS TO MAKE OUR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS LIVE WITH THEM. MEDICARE FOR YOU, CONGRESSIONAL HEALTH CARE FOR ME. SOCIAL SECURITY FOR YOU, CONGRESSIONAL/GOVERNMENT RETIREMENT FOR ME. ETC.
Well, they’re dumbing down our universities, so why not dumb down the school of hard knocks also?
Precisely why “the Nanny state” is so appropriate. We are MATERNALIZING our population.
My Okie grandpa (who made good in California back in the depression) used to talk derisively about the “sugar tit”, which was a rag with a little sugar wrapped in it that would pacify a fussy kid. Seems to be all the rage now.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/25/ramirez-and-the-answer-is/
This says it all, so well.
1 + 1 = More government
What’s the capital of Hawaii: More government
Down with Marxism!