The White House on Health Care Reform: The "Obama Plan in Four Minutes"

The White House has unveiled a new video, culled from President  Obama's recent address before Congress that is claimed to explain the president's health care reform plan in four minutes:

"In an address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama explained how health insurance reform will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, coverage for those who don’t, and will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government."

• Read the full transcript of the President's remarks.
• Watch the full video of the President's remarks.
• Read the full plan for health insurance reform.
• Download a concise, printable version (pdf).

"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

Progress

• The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act on February 4, 2009, which provides quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured.
• The President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act protects health coverage for 7 million Americans who lose their jobs through a 65 percent COBRA subsidy to make coverage affordable.
• The Recovery Act also invests $19 billion in computerized medical records that will help to reduce costs and improve quality while ensuring patients’ privacy.
• The Recovery Act also provides:
  • $1 billion for prevention and wellness to improve America’s health and help to reduce health care costs;
  • $1.1 billion for research to give doctors tools to make the best treatment decisions for their patients by providing objective information on the relative benefits of treatments; and
  • $500 million for health workforce to help train the next generation of doctors and nurses.
   
  

Guiding Principles

"President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform in his first year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans."

• Learn about the fundamental health insurance consumer protections included in reform.

"Comprehensive health care reform can no longer wait. Rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family, business, and government budgets. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases. This forces families to sit around the kitchen table to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying health premiums. Given all that we spend on health care, American families should not be presented with that choice. The United States spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person – nearly twice the average of other developed nations. Americans spend more on health care than on housing or food. If rapid health cost growth persists, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2025, one out of every four dollars in our national economy will be tied up in the health system. This growing burden will limit other investments and priorities that are needed to grow our economy. Rising health care costs also affect our economic competitiveness in the global economy, as American companies compete against companies in other countries that have dramatically lower health care costs.

"The President has vowed that the health reform process will be different in his Administration – an open, inclusive, and transparent process where all ideas are encouraged and all parties work together to find a solution to the health care crisis. Working together with members of Congress, doctors and hospitals, businesses and unions, and other key health care stakeholders, the President is committed to making sure we finally enact comprehensive health care reform.

"The Administration believes that comprehensive health reform should:

• Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
• Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
• Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
• Invest in prevention and wellness
• Improve patient safety and quality of care
• Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
• Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
• End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

"Please visit www.HealthReform.gov http://www.HealthReform.govto learn more about the President’s commitment to enacting comprehensive health reform this year."

The Obama Plan: Stability & Security

for all Americans

"It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government."

– President Barack Obama

If You Have Health Insurance

More Stability and Security

• Ends discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions. Over the last three years, 12 million people were denied coverage directly or indirectly through high premiums due to a pre-existing condition.  Under the President’s plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny coverage for health reasons or risks. 
• Limits premium discrimination based on gender and age. The President’s plan will end insurers’ practice of charging different premiums or denying coverage based on gender, and will limit premium variation based on age. 
• Prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage when people are sick and need it most.  The President’s plan prohibits insurance companies from rescinding coverage that has already been purchased except in cases of fraud.  In most states, insurance companies can cancel a policy if any medical condition was not listed on the application – even one not related to a current illness or one the patient didn’t even know about. A recent Congressional investigation found that over five years, three large insurance companies cancelled coverage for 20,000 people, saving them from paying $300 million in medical claims - $300 million that became either an obligation for the patient’s family or bad debt for doctors and hospitals.
• Caps out-of pocket expenses so people don’t go broke when they get sick.  The President’s plan will cap out-of-pocket expenses and will prohibit insurance companies from imposing annual or lifetime caps on benefit payments. A middle-class family purchasing health insurance directly from the individual insurance market today could spend up to 50 percent of household income on health care costs because there is no limit on out-of-pocket expenses.
• Eliminates extra charges for preventive care like mammograms, flu shots and diabetes tests to improve health and save money. The President’s plan ensures that all Americans have access to free preventive services under their health insurance plans. Too many Americans forgo needed preventive care, in part because of the cost of check-ups and screenings that can identify health problems early when they can be most effectively treated. For example, 24 percent of women age 40 and over have not received a mammogram in the past two years, and 38 percent of adults age 50 and over have never had a colon cancer screening.
• Protects Medicare for seniors. The President’s plan will extend new protections for Medicare beneficiaries that improve quality, coordinate care and reduce beneficiary and program costs.  These protections will extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund to pay for care for future generations. 
• Eliminates the "donut-hole" gap in coverage for prescription drugs.  The President’s plan begins immediately to close the Medicare "donut hole" - a current gap in its drug benefit - by providing a 50 percent discount on brand-name prescription drugs for seniors who fall into it.  In 2007, over 8 million seniors hit this coverage gap in the standard Medicare drug benefit.  By 2019, the President’s plan will completely close the "donut hole".  The average out-of-pocket spending for such beneficiaries who lack another source of insurance is $4,080.

If You Don't Have Insurance

Quality, Affordable Choices for All Americans

• Creates a new insurance marketplace – the Exchange – that allows people without insurance and small businesses to compare plans and buy insurance at competitive prices.  The President’s plan allows Americans who have health insurance and like it to keep it.  But for those who lose their jobs, change jobs or move, new high quality, affordable options will be available in the exchange.  Beginning in 2013, the Exchange will give Americans without access to affordable insurance on the job, and small businesses one-stop shopping for insurance where they can easily compare options based on price, benefits, and quality. 
• Provides new tax credits to help people buy insurance. The President’s plan will provide new tax credits on a sliding scale to individuals and families that will limit how much of their income can be spent on premiums.  There will also be greater protection for cost-sharing for out-of-pocket expenses.
• Provides small businesses tax credits and affordable options for covering employees. The President’s plan will also provide small businesses with tax credits to offset costs of providing coverage for their workers.  Small businesses who for too long have faced higher prices than larger businesses, will now be eligible to enter the exchange so that they have lower costs and more choices for covering their workers.
• Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice.   The President believes this option will promote competition, hold insurance companies accountable and assure affordable choices. It is completely voluntary.  The President believes the public option must operate like any private insurance company – it must be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects. 
• Immediately offers new, low-cost coverage through a national "high risk" pool to protect people with preexisting conditions from financial ruin until the new Exchange is created.  For those Americans who cannot get insurance coverage today because of a pre-existing condition, the President’s plan will immediately make available coverage without a mark-up due to their health condition. This policy will offer protection against financial ruin until a wider array of choices become available in the new exchange in 2013.

For All Americans

Reins In the Cost of Health Care for Our Families, Our Businesses, and Our Government

• Won’t add a dime to the deficit and is paid for upfront.  The President’s plan will not add one dime to the deficit today or in the future and is paid for in a fiscally responsible way.   It begins the process of reforming the health care system so that we can further curb health care cost growth over the long term, and invests in quality improvements, consumer protections, prevention, and premium assistance.  The plan fully pays for this investment through health system savings and new revenue including a fee on insurance companies that sell very expensive plans.
• Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized. Under the plan, if the savings promised at the time of enactment don’t materialize, the President will be required to put forth additional savings to ensure that the plan does not add to the deficit.
• Implements a number of delivery system reforms that begin to rein in health care costs and align incentives for hospitals, physicians, and others to improve quality.  The President’s plan includes proposals that will improve the way care is delivered to emphasize quality over quantity, including:  incentives for hospitals to prevent avoidable readmissions, pilots for new "bundled" payments in Medicare, and support for new models of delivering care through medical homes and accountable care organizations that focus on a coordinated approach to care and outcomes.
• Creates an independent commission of doctors and medical experts to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system.   The President’s plan will create an independent Commission, made up of doctors and medical experts, to make recommendations to Congress each year on how to promote greater efficiency and higher quality in Medicare.  The Commission will not be authorized to propose or implement Medicare changes that ration care or affect benefits, eligibility or beneficiary access to care.  It will ensure that your tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors.
• Orders immediate medical malpractice reform projects that could help doctors focus on putting their patients first, not on practicing defensive medicine.  The President’s plan instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on awarding medical malpractice demonstration grants to states funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality as soon as possible.
• Requires large employers to cover their employees and individuals who can afford it to buy insurance so everyone shares in the responsibility of reform.   Under the President’s plan, large businesses – those with more than 50 workers – will be required to offer their workers coverage or pay a fee to help cover the cost of making coverage affordable in the exchange. This will ensure that workers in firms not offering coverage will have affordable coverage options for themselves and their families.  Individuals who can afford it will have a responsibility to purchase coverage – but there will be a "hardship exemption" for those who cannot.

All information provided by the White House

Limbaugh Still a thorn In the Republicans Side

So the Republicans have had enough of the black shirted, bellicose CPAC speaker, and self declared leader of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh; or at least the one's who consider themselves moderates and blamed the White House (on) Sunday (Talk shows) for orchestrating the conflict."

Speaking for the moderate 'voice' of the GOP, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said on CBS's "Face the Nation" with a new found concern for fixing problems he had a hand in creating: "This was a distraction created by the White House to divert people's attention from the spending binge they've been on the last six weeks."

Yeah, right, spending binge; I wonder how many 'fiscal conservatives' remember Mr. Boehner's over dramatized behavior when he shed tears in the well of the House accusing Democrats of not spending enough to keep the 'necessary war in Iraqi terrorism alive' when Democrats had balked a few years ago regarding throwing good money after the Republican's failed invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Then there's the genius of political hatchet jobs and political bomb thrower extraordinaire, Newt Gingrich, who appeared on "Meet the Press," the NBC public affairs show who declared of Limbaugh; he is "not the leader of the Republican party," and then went on to scold President Obama for allowing his administration to 'focus on "small things." Well Gingrich should know about focusing on small things because if I remember correctly the former member of Congress once declared women should not be allowed in foxholes as combat soldiers for something i believe having to do with sanitary napkins or for some other similar lamebraied reasoning.

Gingrich choose his appearance on "Meet the Press" to once again demonstrate his myopic partisan vision when he one of his 'insightful' political observations: "The president promised to focus on large things not small things," Gingrich said. "He promised to bring us together, not divide us. And I'm assuming here that he is not responsible for the Limbaugh game, I'm assuming it's Emanuel."

Interestingly, none of the Republicans who appeared on the Sunday talk circuit could find any fault with Limbaugh's role in the controversies he has created, including his malicious remarks about Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is bravely fighting brain cancer "won't live to see its passage, telling his audience that: "Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill."

Despite the GOP smokescreen that it's really the White House; and in particular Obama and Emmanuel who are demonizing Limbaugh by using him for "target practice for more than a week, with no letup in sight."

But what really irks the GOP is that the targeting of Limbaugh and making him the face of the Republican Party is working.

"By the poll numbers, crowning Mr. Limbaugh, the bombastic radio host, as king of the Republican Party has worked as well as any election maneuver that Rahm Emanuel employed in helping Democrats win back majority status as chairman of their House campaign committee," John Harwood explains.

What Emmanuel and his fellow Democratic operatives have succeeded in doing has been to establish the GOP as "the party of no."

Of course the other critique the Republican moderates are rolling out has to do with the fact that the demonizing of Limbaugh will chase moderates away from supporting Obama's agenda. The only thing wrong with this cockamamie critique is that moderate Republicans benefit when Obama's agenda succeeds; because for the most part moderate Republicans hail from Obama -won blue states.

Listen if you will to the convoluted logic Senator Olympia J. Snowne, from Obama-won blue state; Maine, when Snowe is forced to is forced to feign her complaint that: “It doesn’t help, frankly,” said Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine who serves as a fulcrum in contentious debates on Capitol Hill. “It sidetracks all the major issues they’re facing.”

"One such issue is Mr. Obama’s budget. Ms. Snowe opposes it, even though she cast a crucial vote enabling passage of the Obama stimulus package last month.

"And to achieve the consensus necessary for action on energy, health care, Social Security and Medicaid, Mr. Obama will need not only Ms. Snowe but also a broader group of Republican backers" so says John Harwood "— most of whom share more views with Mr. Limbaugh than Ms. Snowe ever will.

What Ms Snowne fails to include in her critique of the Democrats Anti-Limbaugh strategy are moments when Ms. Snowne benefited tremendously when President Obama signed the Lillian Ledbetter legislation into law which increased Senator Snowe's popularity in Maine.

"Ms. Snowe has never been a Limbaugh-style Republican," Harwood explains. "She favors abortion rights and rejects conservatives’ view that refundable tax credits for low-income earners represents socialist wealth redistribution. She has spoken out on the need for her party to shift toward the political center after two consecutive election routs.

“We’ve gotten the signal — the sledgehammer signal,” she said. Yet she insists Mr. Obama gains little by stomping on that internal Republican divide.

Suddenly there are Republicans who seek to fix the many wrongs they were responsible in the first place; and they are so committed to fixing those mistakes that they are willing to attack Obama for his exposing the unseemly underside of GOP ideologues who drove the party and hence the nation into the quandary and crisis it finds itself in today. One only need ask: Where was Snowne when Bush and talking heads such as Limbaugh were driving America into unprecedented levels of debt and using noxious rhetoric to fuel their designs?

"Not only do other potential Republican partners represent many Limbaugh fans, but Ms. Snowe herself has strong reservations about Mr. Obama’s budget.

Harwood contends that Snowe "... supports his plan to end President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, a move that other Republicans attack as a tax increase.

"But, (Snowe) said of the budget, “I question whether there’s a strong foundation for true deficit reduction,” adding, “It definitely needs to be reworked.”

Harwood explains that there are two sides to the Obama attack on Limbaugh: "... Mr. Emanuel — a former Clinton White House aide and House member from Illinois — pointed to last week’s health care meeting as evidence that Mr. Obama was continuing to reach out to Republicans even as his aides were throwing darts. The participants included Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, a Finance Committee member who is personally close to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, the ailing champion of health care reform.

"Despite his reservations about White House strategy, Mr. Breaux," according to Harwood, "says Mr. Obama may yet achieve much of what he seeks, notwithstanding the rising political din.

"White House aides argue," in Mr. Harwood's estimation, "that Congress can complete action on a health care overhaul this year. Mr. Breaux considers that unrealistic, but he predicts passage in 2010 so long as Mr. Obama sustains his approach of “spreading the hurt” among different parts of the industry. (In his current role as a lobbyist, Mr. Breaux represents health care companies keenly interested in pain management.)

'Mr. Hatch, Senator Robert F. Bennett of Utah,

and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa'

" in Mr. Harwood's estimation, "all represent important potential allies. Even asSenator John McCain of Arizona

rips “earmarks” in a spending bill Mr. Obama supports, Mr. McCain may provide crucial support on a “cap and trade” program to limit carbon dioxide emissions.

"Ms. Snowe, too, remains optimistic that the national atmosphere of crisis can break the recent pattern of “miniaturized” debates in Congress.

“I think we’re moving closer, in spite of the outward political rhetoric,” she said. “I have more hope than maybe I should have. We’ve got to leave the radio commentators to be radio commentators. Let’s do our jobs.”