I admit I didn’t see the president’s speech tonight. I was on a plane to Washington DC to appear tomorrow night in a Webcast put on by the Family Research Council on Obamacare.
But I have read it. I’m tired and have to get up early tomorrow, and so I don’t want to write a long missive since there was really very little that was new. But a few points stick out in their sheer disingenuousness (and I am being polite). From the speech:
And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.
But one of the first things his Administration did was to move to revoke the Bush conscience clause! His “support” for conscience may result in existing protections for dissenting health care workers being materially eroded.
Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.
Oh sure!
Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true.
Beyond the rank—and desperate sounding—fear mongering, there he goes again. The choice isn’t between this monstrosity and “doing nothing,” and POTUS knows it.
He offered an equivocal commitment to investigate whether to support “tort reform,” and is squishy on the public option. But having read the speech, I still don’t know exactly his “my plan,” consists of. And he didn’t suggest opening health insurance to a nationwide market that would really ramp up competition and bring down prices. No, he wants companies—some of which are non profit, by the way—to remain locked in the same closed system and compete with the government.
Odd: Even after this speech and all its anger, in many ways, the president remains aloof.
