Posted on 03/05/2009 10:19:04 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama says federal officials for years have only "talked and tinkered" over health care reform while problems have gone unresolved.
Opening his conference on health-care, Obama complained that the soaring cost "now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." He was speaking Thursday to over a hundred experts and policymakers invited to the White House, including some who opposed the Clinton administration's health-care overhaul.
Obama told the White House Forum on Health Reform: "We have tried and fallen short, stalled time and again by failures of will, or Washington politics, or industry lobbying."
He said the country can't afford to wait for the economy to recover before tackling out-of-control medical costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Save billions by throwing out the illegals.
Uhhhhh....20,000,000 illegal aliens and 50,000,000 people on welfare not contributing....
There you go Barry! You Affirmative-Action imposter Kenyan!
Obama’s policies will cause a bankruptcy in America every three seconds. That’ll sure be change.
Translation: “Now that I’ve destroyed the financial services sector, it’s time to get to work devastating health care and pharmaceutical companies!”
We are just starting to get in the bills for my kids near death experience. So far, they are in the low six figures and we haven’t seen the end of this.
Sure, insurance pays some, but not all, and for those who have marginal insurance or none, this is a bankruptcy walking.
The system cannot continue as it is. The costs are astronomical and going higher each year.
First thing to do — Save billions with tort reform.
Except we know who the lawyers support don’t we.
So let us screw this up as bad as we did the housing market.
YEAH...get GOVERNMENT and LAWYERS out of healthcare....and we might have a reasonable system. (Hope your son is okay now.)
That comes out to 1,048,320 for just Health Care Expense?? I would like to see the source of his claim. Sounds Bogus just like the speaker.
Taxes cause a lot more bankruptcy than health care. Maybe those ought to be reformed first.
He’s getting there, thanks. This is going to be long haul.
It’s reallly hard to look at your almost 40 year old and see this fragile person who needs to be protected and cared for like a child.
He will recover and regain most of his ability and strength, but this has been a real corker.
anyone check his numbers?
According to my TI Pocket Calculator, that would be 1,051,200 bankruptcies per year being caused by the health care system. Seems kind of high.
“We have tried and fallen short, stalled time and again by failures of will, or Washington politics, or industry lobbying.”
Right. So it’s time to get moving. Repeal and eliminate EVERY Federal law, regulation, statute and program concerning health care.
Um, I call bullcrap.
A bankruptcy ever 30 seconds is 1,051,200 bankruptcies a year.
In 2006 there were just under 600,000 personal bankruptcies filed. In 2008, that figure rose to just at 1,000,000.
If the President is correct, we will match that number in 2009 for just those who have to file because of medical costs?
Bullcrap.
Why doesn’t he do something first for the health care of the soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan missing arms and legs, psychologically wounded, getting shabby help from the VA, shut out from of unable to hold employment.
As a read a Vet from LA say, “I gave my country 100%. All I ask for is 100% in return.”
And lets not forget the families of the over 4,000 who have been killed.
THEY’RE the ones who deserve a fixed system.
(Apologies for venting)
He read it in the newspaper, moron.
In the spirit of bi-artishanship......close Medi-Care!
I agree with you. Having been on the wrong end of the health care industry’s pickpockets for too long, I support serious changes.
Instead of raising the rest of the population's care to that of the levels of congress, et al... why not lower theirs to our level.
It has been the government's intervention and tinkering with the health care system in the USA that has caused the escalating cost. The government keeps increasing demand by adding in mental health care, care for everybody including illegal aliens, AIDs health care, birth control, abortions, cosmetic surgery, obesity, addiction, and on and on. All to be paid for by the healthy and working people. And the government is going to fix this sad situation? The government now run by those with disordered minds (Democrats) whose solution is rationing and supporting the culture of death?
Connect the dots. Health care has only gotten worse and worse under the misguided and moronic leadership of the Democrats. They do not understand the problems but are going to fix it anyway. Good luck!
Oh we can only talk about race.
Well get this Obama, I’ll get to that one right after I get done opposing your dangerous health care takeover, your wacko carbon tax, your quadrupled deficit, and a few others.
>>>In the spirit of bi-artishanship......close Medi-Care!
That’s what we need to do if we want large savings. Of course, we have to be willing to possibly accept a shorter life span. As Victor davis Hanson recently wrote:
The cost of our health care is soaring because, to be frank, that health care is usually very good, and it does things routinely that almost no one else in the world contemplates such as providing 83-year-olds with heart-valve replacements, 78-year-olds with hip and knee replacements, and those who drink, smoke, and are chronically obese with drugs and weekly doctor visits.
When I grew up in rural California in the 1960s, an obese uncle in his early 70s had heart trouble. That translated into some nitroglycerin tablets, and otherwise about the same regimen offered President Eisenhower after his in-office heart attack: Try to quit smoking, eat less, more bed rest and good luck!
Forty years later, that same patient would have a bypass, and an expensive battery of medications and weekly follow-up doctor visits and would make it not to 73 years old (as my uncle was when he died), but to 78 or 80, or even 90.
If we wish to get health-care costs under control, then we should at least be honest with the American people and admit that we are all paying a collective fortune largely for three reasons: (1) to keep functioning into their 60s those who drank, smoked, and ate too much and in a past era would have passed on at 60; (2) to give us all an extra three to five years of mobility and functionality after we reach 75; (3) to fit us up with IVs, feeding tubes, and respirators so that in our last six months of life we can die in a rest home or among machines and specialists in a hospital rather than in our own home with a few morphine tablets for pain and a bowl of soup with a straw on the nightstand.
He is most likely factually incorrect....but he doesn’t care, it sounds good.
I agree it is nonsense but I know a lot of twenty-somethings working at maintenance jobs and even well-paying jobs who are deliberately not purchasing health insurance. They are playing the odds their health will hold out and, in the event of a catastrophic illness or accident, they consider bankruptcy a financial strategy.
The first result of the Usurper’s initiative will be the rapid decline of Healthcare industry stocks, driving the Dow even lower. He’s done everything to destroy banking, insurance, and the auto industry. Now it’s health care’s turn. If we survive until the next election it’ll be a miracle.
A report on FNC said the claim that it causes a bankruptcy every 30 seconds is false.
This is an editorial, not a news story. Wonder what kind of health care arrangements they have in whatever place this writer comes from.
One every 30 seconds. Does nobody do even the simple math? That’s 1,051,200 anually.
In 2008 there were 1,086,130 personal bankruptcies.
Business filings were 64,318.
1,150,448 total bankruptcies in 2008.
1,051,200 (91%) due to medical costs (according to Obama)
Essentially he is attributing virtually all bankruptcies to health care costs. 91% of bankruptcies are NOT medical related. No way.
“Pay for someone elses boob job...”
Prior to 9/11, you’d be amazed at how many were done in the military because the MD’s had to do them to keep their board certifications.
“First thing to do Save billions with tort reform.”
You think the insurers are going to hand to you those profits?
Obama’s policy is like others, Insurance company boondoggle.
Are you in favor of socialized medicine?
+1
Ultimately, yes. In order to be competetive, prices would come down. Remember, insurance companies don't make money on the premiums, they make money investing the premiums until they are paid out in claims. DId you ever wonder why AIG was hurting and continues to hurt? Its not that they lost their customers overnight. Their investments went south with everyone elses.
Another lie, exposed by Major Garrett.
“Remember, insurance companies don’t make money on the premiums, they make money investing the premiums until they are paid out in claims.”
They make money every way they can. If they did not, they would be breaking their obligations to shareholders and decreasing their bonuses. They make money on “premiums” and they work most to NOT pay claims.
“DId you ever wonder why AIG was hurting and continues to hurt?”
Yes. It has nothing to do with their regulated and solvent insurance business, but the London office’s playing around with unregulated Credit Default Obligations, invented to get around insurance laws and done in order to increase profits.
They can laugh at the “deregulation” groupies all day knowing the same will be paying through tax dollars by “socializing the risk.”
You’re right. And now, many of them may be related to the drop in the stock market—but wait, he can’t worry about that! It’s like a silly political poll!!
Don’t forget, he has gone after our domestic oil/gas companies(which employ over 9 million people in this country), our defense contractors/industries and farmers in his new budget too.
But Government is also the answer in making it "affordable".
Kinda makes your head spin a bit doesn't it?
Oh, so he’s proposing tort refom to reign in the costs? Good for him.
It’s getting hard to keep track of the Great Pretender’s attacks on America, they’re coming so rapidly.
it is cold and heartless, but do away with insurance... let the costs reflect what they truly are and if one cannot afford it...
let them seek the aid of family and friends... that is what government is trying to do and be... for everyone and it is not cost effective...
teeman
“Its getting hard to keep track of the Great Pretenders attacks on America, theyre coming so rapidly”
It looks like that is part of the plan. Who can keep up with an outrage an hour?
Save trillions by throwing out Obama.
This is going to sound heartless. I don’t mean it to be. In England they would have saved the cost of your child’s health care by delaying it so long that your child’s experience would not have been “near death”. Gripe about the bills if you like, but you got the treatment you needed without it being rationed.
Didn’t your insurance cover at 100% once you met your out of pocket expenses?
That isn’t the point. The point is that the costs are out of control.
On the basis of the increases over the past decade, costs will be prohibitive for everyone in the future.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.