Obama on healthcare: SOS

Realizing that his plans to "reform" the nation's healthcare system are, to put it mildly, in distress, Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress last night in a last ditch effort to pursuade the American people of the particular wisdom of his vision on health care.

How'd he do? He screwed the pooch. Basically, it was the Same Old Shit.

He simply repeated, albeit more forcefully, the same arguments that a majority of voters have already rejected as phony. Obama said, "nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have." As Pajamas Media's Vodkapundit Stephen Green correctly pointed out, "require" is one of those "weasel words." Yes, not "required" in the strict sense of the word, but once a public option plan is made available, that is cheaper than an employer's current offering, one can easily expect that the employer will pay the premiums (or penalties) and simply dump his employees into the public option. You can't keep your employer-sponsored health insurance if your employer no longer offers it.

As to how he was going to pay for the expanded coverage in his plan, Obama again offered nothing new:

[W]e've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system - a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. . . . In fact, I want to speak directly to America's seniors for a moment, because Medicare is another issue that's been subjected to demagoguery and distortion during the course of this debate. . . . The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies - subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care. . . . These steps will ensure that you - America's seniors - get the benefits you've been promised. They will ensure that Medicare is there for future generations. And we can use some of the savings to fill the gap in coverage that forces too many seniors to pay thousands of dollars a year out of their own pocket for prescription drugs. That's what this plan will do for you.

I see, Obama's going to waive his magic want, and convert fraud and abuse into untold riches which are going to pay for the expanded coverage in the plan. Vintage Obama, grand promises without any specifics that would make them meaningful. By the way, why do we need further legislation to trim fraud and abuse?

With respect to the public option, Obama said:

But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Let me be clear - it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.

Again, only until their employers stopped offering their own plans, that is. Obama is right that a "broad concensus exists" on things like prohibiting insurers from dropping sick people, or denials for preexisting conditions, or allowing an insurance market exchange, or for tax credits for those who can't afford insurance. If it were true that only 5% of American would sign up for the public option, which is the most controversial part of Obama's plan, why risk this broad concensus for this 5%? Unless this is, of course, a trojan horse by which the government will ultimately assert control over the entire health care industry (as Obama, Barney Frank, and other liberals have so franly admitted).

In the end, I don't think anybody was fooled. Obama promised greater coverage at no extra cost. He refused to walk away from the public option and only offered, incredibly, that it would have no effect on anyone else's quality or choice of care.

I don't see how he changed anyone's mind. The only question now, is whether Obama, Pelosi and Reid can muster enough votes to ram this down our throats through a reconcilliation process. We'll see.