At lunch today I happened across an Obama speech he was giving in Indiana. It was a good speech. He had the crowd going along with him, chanting along in-between sentences and phrases, and your could hear the electricity in the crowd.
But what kept me listening was the similar theme between his campaign these days and Pedro’s attempt to become student body president in Napolean Dynomite.
In one glorious speech, Pedro proclaimed, “Vote for me and all of your wildest dreams will come true.”
The speech I heard today was pretty much the same. His healthcare plan sounds great. Seriously, if you listen to what Obama says he’s going to do with the healthcare system, you’d be an idiot not to agree with his plan:
- First, he wants everyone to be insured that’s not insured. And not just “insured” the way Safe Auto gives up auto insurance at a “only insured enough to not break the law,” but to provide the same insurance coverage for the uninsured that “members of congress have.”
- Second, no more restrictions of coverage based on pre-existing conditions. That’s right, under Obama’s plan, if you continue to smoke 2 packs a day while you have lung cancer, your insurance company can’t drop you, or deny you coverage. What’s more, they won’t even be able to raise your premiums. (which brings us to…)
- Third, Obama’s going to give those without insurance the coverage on par w/ congress, eliminate pre-existing conditions from consideration of your premiums, and make sure that everyone that currently has insurance not only doesn’t pay a dime extra in premiums or coverage, but SEES A REDUCTION IN THEIR PREMIUMS!
- Lastly, in case you were wondering by the reduction of premiums, giving everyone healtchare, and getting rid of pre-existing conditions, Obama also promises that this health care program won’t cost the taxpayers any additional money! That’s right, based on his economic plan, he’s figured out a way to do this without it costing anyone anything, and in fact REDUCE THE DEFICIT VIA SURPLUS!
So we’re going to give everyone coverage, decrease the industry’s ability to price out its coverage, and we’re going to do this at the same time we’re making it cheaper for everyone and pay for it without raising taxes, spending more on the deficit, and actually reduce government spending?
Thank you Pedro for your inspiration on the campaign trail. It appears that Obama was listening during your speech and figured that if it worked for you, it will work for him. …And it just might!
….One other thing. There’s been a lot of rhetoric by Obama these days in defense of his tax plan. He keeps coming back to the fact that what he’s proposing is to be more “fair” to the working class. Also, when asked about his stance on Capital Gains taxes, and when pointed out that the change would result in less revenues for the government, he again said that he didn’t care because it was more “fair” to tax these than other forms of income. With all of this being done to make things “fair” in America, I wonder if he’d be in favor of the “fair/flat” tax. I consider myself an undecided voter (undecided as McCain vs. no vote because McCain keeps giving me reasons not to vote for him, even though Obama scares the hell out of me during a financial crisis at the helm of a Democratic congress), but if he, or anyone was actually in favor of killing the current tax code and going towards something like that (not to mention a balanced budget!!!) I’d be all over it!
08/10/2008 at 2:20 pm Permalink
Wow. Tell us how you really feel
So I wonder if Obama’s campaign is built on false promises. Time will tell. I don’t think McCain is getting elected. You might as well not vote.
Right or wrong, the scenerio is this:
In America’s eyes:
-Palin was a bad choice, McCain is old - and their party stands for “more of the same” no matter how much they try to distance themselves from Bush.
-Obama is black, but it seems like most educated people are willing to take that off the table. His VP is tenured and respected. Besides, Obama stands for change…and that’s really the bottom line.
My two cents anyway….
By the way, I’m still undecided.
08/10/2008 at 3:01 pm Permalink
You know my thoughts on Palin. I think she’s better than the media makes her out to be. You can make anyone look stupid for 2 minutes if you record a 4 hour interview with them. She’s held her own via speeches & the debate.
I think you’re right about people thinking McCain stands for “more of the same.” Although listening to Obama, I’d take more of the same vs. the socialistic/marxist country he wants to turn the US into.
But, it looks like Obama is probably going to win…
…and if you’ve been paying attention at all with the whole ACORN thing, even if I don’t vote I still might actually vote! ACORN offices in Las Vegas were raided and they found that Tony Romo had been registered by them to vote in Nevada!! So, after it’s all said and done, ACORN might just take my name and vote for me in the 49 other states. Long live voter fraud!
08/10/2008 at 3:09 pm Permalink
I am not as detailed with Obama’s health care plan as i probably should be to make a truly intelligent retort. I’m willing to admit this. A big part of the cost for the plan would be that All companies will be asked to pay for insurance for their workers. His plan does not in any way warrant health care for every adult but he will have an open clause that no child will be denied health care coverage. Part of paying the cost will be put on employers.
I for one think that pre exisiting conditions should not stop you from being able to get health care. To me that is a very nice selling point for Obama’s plan. It is more costly then McCains though that seems easy to see.
I wish i had more time to look into this but unfortunately I actually have to get back to work (it is not the norm lol). Here is an interesting website that seems unbiased and presents some facts about both McCain and Obama’s plan they are quite different and i’m not sure which one would work best.
I will say that I do not think Obama’s plan is quite as Pedro esque as you give him credit for.
http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/08/18/obama-vs-mccain-health-care-policies/
I am voting for Obama. Shocking I know. To be honest i was leaning towards Obama but keeping an open mind until Palin entered the picture. I can not sleep well knowing she is in office. I never thought there could be someone worse then Dubya, but Palin might just prove to be if she were to gain the presidency via something unfortunate happening to McCain.
08/10/2008 at 3:43 pm Permalink
It is scary how similar the giving loans to everybody scenario is to the giving health care to everybody scenario. The only difference is that there is no rebound from health care sinking our system. There will not be foreclosed houses that will regain value. Just a bunch of sick people continuing to drain the system. I wished I understood how other countries do it… it seems like it would bankrupt even the most wealthy of countries.
I guess the only solution is to stop frivolous law suits against doctors and restricting people from going to the doctor so much. Everybody should be forced to get a “physical” every year (kind of like we force people to get drivers liscences). I know it seems socialist but this might be the only way to have affordable healthcare so that we can catch diseases before they are so expensive to cure. It is just too expensive to go to the doctor b/c of the above things right now. We must bring the cost down!
08/10/2008 at 7:10 pm Permalink
Soitgoes, I think you made my point. Even you, an Obama supporter, realizes that SOMEONE has to pay for it. But Obama didn’t say that today. He said it would have zero impact on everyone.
And the employer thing is a great example. When you boost employer healthcare costs, who do you think pays for that? Sure, the employer foots the literal bill, but increased costs can decrease work forces, or limit employee growth in companies. And the increased overhead is passed onto the consumers of the products.
I’ll leave Obama out of this one because although he wants to tax the hell out of corporations, it’s more of a Democratic party line to screw the corporations, and these days there are plenty of Republicans joining in on the game. It sounds warm and fuzy to ordinary people to tax evil corporations like Exxon, Microsoft, Walmart,. But, when was the last time a company/industry faced increased taxes and said, “gosh, our profits are going to suffer because now we’re getting taxed more?” Almost never. It gets added to the price and shifted onto the consumer. So you tax the companies and pay for it at the register. It’s basic economics. The problem is, basic economics doesn’t sound too good in a political speech.
…I don’t want to get into the specifics of a healthcare plan, or a tax plan. I just wanted to point out that Obama basically fed these people a big pile of crap and they ate it up. Not to say that the same thing doesn’t happen on the McCain side, but he wasn’t on the radio today. I have plenty of beef with him, but I’ll save that for another article where we can focus on his misgivings.
09/10/2008 at 7:08 am Permalink
Obama is simplifying the payment of the plan. I have seen that from the beginning. Let’s be honest though someone is going to pay if things are going to change. Obama made a statement as you said that we would not see the increases but his plan would actually create more of a deficit in the long run because with the companies paying for it he would kick money over to those companies particularly small businesses who don’t always provide healthcare. So we are not talking about major corporations who already provide healthcare for workers. His plan would force other smaller companies to provide healthcare and in doing so assist those companies to do it. Now of course with him doing that to force the small companies who don’t he will have to kick some to the big companies that already do as well.
In essence I agree Obama saying that it will not cost anything is a lie, he defends it by saying he will cut cost in other areas (see ending our occupation of IRAQ). I don’t think he will be able to cut enough cost to do it. That’s just my opinion.
All that said i still think his Pedro Comparison is a Karl Rove Esque statement.
I also am not 100% convinced I think his plan is the best thing to do. I just don’t think it should be ruled out because it is an option. You won’t solve the healthcare problem by not spending more money. It is not an easy problem to tackle.
09/10/2008 at 9:19 am Permalink
There’s a “fundamental” difference between us on the healthcare issue. I’m probably going to piss off a lot of people by saying this, and if I ever run for office I’m sure these comments will be spread across the papers, but here goes:
I believe we, as US citizens, were given the rights of life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness. We have the right to live, do what we want, and achieve all that we desire. Of course, there has to be some laws governing this so we don’t just rape and pillege each other in the name of liberty, but I like to think that the 10 commandments serve as a good rule for the laws of our country. Not to be religious here, it just so happens that the 10 things layed out in this simple list do a good job of covering bad things. Stealing is stealing, whether it’s shoplifting or embezzeling. Don’t get hung up on the religous reference.
With that being said, I put healthcare in the “persuit of happiness” category. I don’t believe we have the right to affordable healthcare. I beleive we have the ability to pursue afforable healthcare, and would not like the government taking that over and nationalizing it. Which it would eventually do under Obama’s plan. It’s a slippery slope in that first you subsidize the small business. You basically have taxpayers footing the bill here because they won’t be able to afford it. I’m not sure what the actual size of the companies you work for (except for Admin working for a company bigger than the governement!), but I deal with mostly medium and small business on a daily basis. Not to mention tons of non-profits. Most of them can’t afford a huge increase in healthcare costs–if they could, they would do it because it would help them with employee recruitment and retainage–which means the governement will foot the bill.
Actually, you could take the above paragraph and just replace “Obama’s plan” with most healthcare reform plans and the same would apply. It’s not necessarily a knock on Obama, but on the way the government is currently approaching the problem.
Admin and I had a conversation about this last week, and he has some good ideas on the subject. Sure we differ a bit, but at the core we both agree that something needs to change.
One approach could be the deregulation of the healthcare industry. By this, I simply mean removing restrictions that are currently in place that limit you from pricing out insurance outside of your current state. This would allow you to shop for better plans and create a more free-market approach to healthcare costs. Deregulation in this sense does not mean abolish all regulations like some Dems argue. They’ll still be regulated the same way, but just remove this one restriction.
Second, after you deregulate, allow for full transparancy in the healthcare system. Allow consumers to view costs of medical procedures at hospitals and allow them to price out their best options. This will make people more cost-conscious, and will pit hospitals against each other to provide services in a cost effective means. Plus, it will lower an insurance company’s ability to strong-hold hospitals with regard to costs. Currently, many insurance companies have set costs that they will pay for procedures. It forces healthcare providers to increase their costs in order to adjust the payments they receive from insurance companies. For example, a hospital may charge $100 for a visit, but the insurance company will only pay $20. This leave poor average joe w/o insurance to foot the $100 bill for a service the hospital only typically receives $20 for.
Third, I have no problem w/ the pre-existing conditions thing. If you want to throw that out, go ahead. Just realize that that would cause premiums to go up a bit. After all, insurance companies have to make money to stay in business.
Fourth, why not pass a law making it illegal not to have health insurance? We do it with auto insurance. Plus, this could open the market for minimal coverage for life threatening/major procedures, as well as open up venues for comparison shopping companies such as geico and progressive in the auto insurance industry.
Fifth, we need to redirect some of this government wellness program money to focus on personal and fiscal responsibility. As evidenced by the current market crisis, Americans live in an I want it Now society and are perfectly willing to leverage their life in order to get it. And when it fails, and their financial house of cards falls apart, they expect the government to step in and make it all better. ENOUGH OF THIS!! Let’s start teaching financial responsibility in our schools. Mandatory classes in middle/high schools & college focused on teaching personal finance basics and the benefits of living within your means. Plus, provide public outreach programs for adults. This is perhaps the biggest issue here, in that I see a good bit of our societal issues stem from economic issues and our missmanagement of money at a personal level. Fix this problem (and maybe get the governement to work off of a zero-based budget), and we’ve got a shot.
That’s 5 different steps with very little governmental impact financially, or regulation wise that could revolutionize and help change the healthcare industry. Would it be tough for a few years? Absolutely, but if it was an easy process to change this stuff, it would have already been done.
09/10/2008 at 9:29 am Permalink
So…how does Obama’s healthcare plan help someone like me? I don’t work for a large company, i’m an independent contractor who already pays more for healthcare than most of you guys that have “power in numbers” at whatever company you work for.
Just doesn’t sound like it will benefit me at all.
09/10/2008 at 10:55 am Permalink
Obama’s healthcare plan is not a universal healthcare coverage. If you are looking for a plan like that you should have supported Hellory Clinton (mispelled on purpose)
09/10/2008 at 11:08 am Permalink
“Screw everybody. I say let social Darwinism take it’s course. If someone is not making sure to pay for HC for them and their family, they are stupid….they should be allowed to die. We will be a smarter society for it…..”
This Is what I would say if healthcare wasn’t so friggin expensive.
Our healthcare systems is the way it is right now because of corruption. I’m not convinced that nationalizing HC will take care of that issue…hello lobbyist etc.
However, I will say that we need change from our current system, and the only way to change is to take the first step. We need to move in some direction….right or wrong, it will force us to take corrective action. I believe the next few years is going to be terribly painful no matter what.
There are worse things than making sure that children have healthcare no matter what during that time….
09/10/2008 at 11:10 am Permalink
Agreed w/ SoItGoes. Although it could impact you if you were to move from IC to small business by bringing on some people. Then you’d be one of the employers forced to pay for health care…and then get subsidized.