The President's Health Care Speech

Many of you may have watched President Obama's address last night to a joint session of Congress. Maybe it's just me, but I did not see very many new ideas. What we did see is some change in rhetoric, but largely it's the same old stuff the president has been touting all summer. In the end, it's all rhetoric. The real test will be the language in the final bill. To President Obama's credit, many of the things he spoke of sounded great. However, given his track record I'm not going to hang my hat on his words. Randy Pausch gave some dating advice to his daughter in his book, The Last Lecture, saying "when it comes to men that are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do. It’s that simple. It’s that easy." The same can be said for politicians, and yes, it's that easy. Here are some random thoughts on the speech.

President Obama said last night "Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close. These are the facts. Nobody disputes them." Um, what about $800 billion "stimulus" packages and $700 billion bank bailouts? And what about Congress raiding the Social Security Trust Fund and replacing dollars with IOUs in the form of Treasury Bills? I could fill pages upon pages with accounts of wasteful government spending programs that sit at the core of our deficit problem. These are the facts, and we most certainly dispute those which the president is attempting to present. Apparently the president didn't hear anything about the town hall meetings held throughout the month of August that were comprised largely of people disputing the "facts" that the president would like us to believe. Much to the president's dismay, something does not become a fact just because a politician says it.

I took particular note of the president's mentions of "one man from Illinois" and "another woman from Texas" each having trouble because they were denied coverage by their insurance companies. Notice how he doesn't use names. It's an easy CYA (Google it if you don't know what it means.... it's the first result) to use so that it's more difficult to investigate his claims. Apparently he learned from the S-CHIP debate to tread carefully when citing individual cases.

President Obama said that his health care reforms "will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance." Actually, that's not true. Like most Americans, I get my health insurance through my employer. If these reforms are passed then I will actually feel less stable and secure, because I'll be worried that my employer may drop my health coverage. The bills include huge economic incentives for employers to do so, because many of the changes implemented will make private insurance much more expensive. Going back to the August town hall meetings, it's clear that I'm not the only one concerned about this matter.

Of course, we can't have any sort of bill passed in Congress that doesn't include some sort of welfare program. The president stated last night that "for those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, [the government] will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need." The new term for welfare in Washington is "tax credits." If you didn't know that then please take note. It's wealth redistribution, plain and simple.

President Obama also announced the creation of "a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange." I can't help but be a little cynical when I say Wow, a government program that doesn't make a profit! Who ever heard of such a thing? You mean Medicare and Medicaid don't make profits? Oh, that's right, they're going to be bankrupt by 2017. Of course the government option will be not-for-profit. That's the whole idea. The government program can run at a loss year after year. This is exactly how the government option proponents plan to eventually eliminate private insurance entirely and create a single payer (read: government controlled) system.

One of my favorite lines from the President was when he told the American people "if you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out." Actually, he is the one misrepresenting what is in the plan, and we are the ones calling him out. For what other reason than that would he have had to give an address to Congress last night? His statement would more truthfully be written as follows: "If you say anything that we disagree with, we will call you out, regardless of whether or not what you say is true." Going back to the "only pay[ing] attention to what they do" theme, we have already seen instance after instance of this happening over the past couple of months.

I also found it very interesting that the president asserts that "instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics." He then goes on to say:

"Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true."

Mr. President, aren't these the very scare tactics that you denounced earlier?

Finally, the president gave the appearance of bipartisanship by announcing plans to reform the tort system. He called the "demonstration projects in individual states" a "good idea" and said that he is "directing [his] Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative." This is simple lip service. If he were really serious about tort reform then he would have gone ahead and cited successful initiatives that have already been implemented in states such as Texas. He knows full well that there is no need to "test these issues." It's already been done. He and other members of Congress are simply too scared to take on the trial lawyers.

These are my thoughts. I'd love to hear yours.

*** Update 9/10/2009 ***

I was just re-reading this post and it occurred to me that I'm probably going to hear some comments like "You don't offer any solutions yourself! You only criticize and react to people!" To appease these folks I simply want you to know that I have already proposed solutions here, so go ahead and read them.