"Obama health plan... is a conscious departure from the path former President Bill Clinton took"

[ClarkUSA]

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's prescription for the nation's ailing health care system comes with Medicare cuts and tax hikes — usually poison pills that doom any overhaul effort in Congress.

But the budget Obama proposed Thursday is not a finished blueprint for overhauling health care. Rather it's the opening bid in a tough negotiation. Anybody who's been in a bargaining session knows you never end up with your opening bid... Half the money would come from tax increases on upper-income earners; the other half from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Private insurance plans serving Medicare seniors would take the biggest hit, but hospitals, drug companies and home health agencies also face cuts.

Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats are sure to disagree with Obama's specifics, but they may quietly applaud his determination to pay for health care reform, instead of adding to the deficit... Obama's approach is a conscious departure from the path former President Bill Clinton took in the 1990s. Clinton's 1,300-page health care bill tried to answer every question and ultimately went nowhere. Obama is asking Congress to fill in the blanks... Clinton's top priority was to get everybody covered quickly. Obama has framed the problem differently, focusing on how to slow rising costs, so that everybody can eventually be covered.

"What the president is doing is bold, but it's not overreaching," said economist Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute research center. "The administration is coming to grips with the reality that this will cost a lot of money, and it's committed to paying for it."

Learning is interpreting knowledge and transforming it into wisdom. President Obama is exhibiting the highest form of wisdom: learning from someone else's mistakes. For America's sake, let's all hope we can get it right this time.

[FrenchieCat]

1. See Medicare Part "D".......

Which will not "Cut" benefits, but will be a conduit to increasing coverage for more, and will reduce Medicare cost.....

Read here for information on that http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8206100

[ClarkUSA]

15. Thanks for the information.

[biopowertoday]

2. The WH has been in secret talks with the health care industry--

Only conyer's plan is a true single payer health plan than the US needs.



edited for typo.

[ClarkUSA]

4. Source, link?

[biopowertoday]

7. see post 5

[biopowertoday]

5. Link here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=428675&mesg_id=428680

[ClarkUSA]

9. Thanks, but I trust Sen Kennedy to do the right thing by us. It's not as if he's Dick Cheney.

:eyes:

Soon enough, everything will be transparent. This legislation will be fought out in the open. Republicans will be whining from the
rooftops about it, I'm sure... and Democrats will respond. Also, I am quite sure the public will have access to the final bill's text
many months from now.

[FrenchieCat]

12. We will not begin with a Single Payer Health Plan,

but what we know is Obama's plan for Health reform will eventually find itself at the Single payer health plan. Ask Dr. Dean, he'll tell you about that.

There is a reason that Barack Obama, WHO WON THE ELECTION, did NOT campaign on instituting a single payer health plan....however, that does not preclude his understanding on how we get there in not very long.

People who are informed about such things understand this post. Those who rely on sound bytes,
and are into idealistic dogma of the impossible without a clear path of getting there won't.

[Metric System]

3. An interesting article and THAT is what you choose to highlight?

[biopowertoday]

6. no surprise!!

[ClarkUSA]

8. What's wrong with highlighting the historical aspect of presidential healthcare reform?

I think it's great that President Obama has learned from President Clinton's mistakes. It's important to get it right this time.
Too many Americans are suffering.

[biopowertoday]

10. Single payer is NOT even on the table. but lobbyests are!!

[ClarkUSA]

11. Show me where the legislation favors lobbyists. Do you have a link to the final text?

Single-payer is not politically feasible at the moment -- but national healthcare is -- as anyone with any sense knows.
It's all about taking one legislative step at a time, unless all you're interested in is being a rigid ideologue or shit-stirrer.

[biopowertoday]

13. my point that they are at the table and single payer is NOT even ON the table.

[ClarkUSA]

14. Presently, single-payer is not politically feasible but national healthcare is. One step at a time.

I think your implication that healthcare lobbyists meeting with Sen. Kennedy's staff is somehow wrong is ridiculous.
Sen. Kennedy isn't Dick Cheney, ya know. I think it's safe to say that Kennedy's staff has liberals' interests at heart
on this matter and won't be selling out to the right wingnut insurance industry. :eyes:

As Obama said during the campaign season, lobbyists will have a seat at the table, but they will not be able to buy
the whole table. Pro-national healthcare lobbyists will have their say, too.

[FrenchieCat]

16. You need to study up on what including Medicare on the menu

of health insurance covering actually means.


Ignorance of facts and preference of buzz words and dogma will not be rewarded at this time....on either side of this issue, as the times are too serious.

Treading lightly and slowly closing the gaps in coverage is important, say Democratic leaders, but won't in itself bring about universal coverage.

The crucial leap that must be made, say Democrats, is the creation of a public plan that can compete with private plans, driving down costs and giving the uninsured another option.

"It's the ability of people to buy into a public plan and their ability to be able to have more portability," Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) says is the most important step. "What we'll have to do, hopefully with the leadership of Senator Kennedy, is begin to lower the boom and bust up some of the silos of profit that are a big hindrance to us getting to a single-payer system."

Dodd, as Kennedy's best friend in the Senate and a senior member of the health committee, will be a major player in the push forward. "There's probably going to be a time before you get universality," he says. "We won't get there, obviously, with just passage of a bill. It'll take time for this to kind of meld in and work."

Before withdrawing his name from consideration for Health and Human Services secretary over unpaid taxes, Tom Daschle had advocated such an incremental approach, relying on a health care board to monitor progress and oversee the melding system.

Dodd thinks the approach will work. "Once you've established the major points of this -- the public-private feature -- I think then, once you get over those hurdles, whether you go with an individual mandate or you go with an attractive financial opportunity for people" -- subsidies to encourage obtaining coverage -- "then I think the board can manage this."

Asked to clarify what the greatest hurdle would be, he says, "The public option. But if you talk about it in terms of a partnership, then I think it becomes more acceptable."

The public option is "on the table," says Baucus. "Forty-seven million Americans don't have health insurance. Twenty-five million Americans are underinsured. So there's plenty of opportunity for public and private plans."

Getting everybody covered, however, won't solve the problem, Democrats insist.

"If anybody thinks that if we gave everybody a card tomorrow, the problem will be solved, they're sorely mistaken," says Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont. "Having the ability to get health care doesn't mean you have the capability to get it. If you're a working-class person making thirty thousand a year, the odds are you'll have a hard time even finding a doctor to go to."

Sanders, along with Majority Whip Clyburn in the House, hopes to close the access gap by quadrupling funding for existing community health care centers.

This is just an excerpt, but read the entire article from beginning to end, and then you may understand the plan afoot: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/18/how-well-get-to-universal_n_167654.html

[biopowertoday]

17. I am aware of the proposal. It's not good enough. bye

[ClarkUSA]

18. So it's your way or the highway, eh? Thank goodness Team O aren't rigid ideologues...

Because they actually want to accomplish something more than foment ill-informed outrage.

:eyes:

[lunatica]

19. Why is he trying to re-invent the wheel?

It's not like universal health care isn't common in a dozen countries.

:wtf:

[ClarkUSA]

20. What are you talking about?

A dozen other countries are socialist economies that have tax rates up to 2.5 times that of ours, too, with populations
nowhere near as big. Apples and oranges. And other countries don't have to deal with partisan Republicans nor a
system of checks-and-balances government anything like ours.

[lunatica]

22. Apples and Oranges?

So you think your tax dollars are better utilized for the military budget? He could take a fraction of that spending and use it for real universal health care

[ClarkUSA]

25. Yes.

He could take a fraction of that spending and use it for real universal health care

Um, Barack is planning on taking "a fraction of that spending and use it for real" national healthcare, according to
the very liberal firebrand Rep. Barney Frank, head of the financial services committee, on MSNBC yesterday.

[Every Man A King]

21. hey lunatic

he isn't the king of america...

[lunatica]

23. What does that have to do with universal health care?

Your very poor attempt at insulting me is laughable. But not as much as your non-sequitur of a statement. What does 'king of America' even mean when talking about universal health care?

[Teaser]

24. Yeah, it was a laughable attempt, but it was you getting laughed at.

.

[Hutzpa]

26. You know something Clarkie,

there are times when I tend to disagree with you, not this time, you are absolutely
spot on, this man is evolving and he is in total control of what he does.

Your quote says it all;

Learning is interpreting knowledge and transforming it into wisdom.

wonderful... :fistbump:

[ClarkUSA]

27. Thanks!

...this man is evolving and he is in total control of what he does.

Amen! :fistbump: