snopes.com: Barack Obama on Veterans' Health Insurance
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Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Obama Not Closing Door on Possible Health Tax
WASHINGTON -- With lawmakers trying to crunch the numbers on a $1 trillion health care overhaul, President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to a new tax on employer-provided health care benefits.
Senior senators said Wednesday the benefits tax could be essential for the complex plan to be fully financed.
"I don't want to prejudge what they're doing," Obama said, referring to proposals in the Senate to tax workers who get expensive insurance policies. Obama, who campaigned against the tax when he ran for president, drew a quick rebuff from organized labor.
For Obama, the health care debate got personal during an ABC News town hall at the White House on Wednesday. The prime-time program was the latest in a string of events designed to build public support for his plan to slow the rise in health care costs and expand coverage to the nearly 50 million uninsured.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist at the New York University Langone Medical Center, challenged Obama: What if the president's wife and daughters got sick? Would Obama promise that they would get only the services allowed under a new government insurance plan he's proposing?
Obama wouldn't bite.
If "it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care," Obama said.
Earlier in the day, the administration and its allies pushed for a prominent display of progress in the Senate before Congress begins a weeklong vacation Friday.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., labored in a series of meetings to produce at least an outline of legislation that could command bipartisan support. Of the five House and Senate committees working on a health care overhaul, Finance is the only one that appears to have a chance at such an agreement.
Baucus appeared especially eager to show progress before the exodus from the Capitol begins.
Several officials said he was negotiating with representatives of the nation's hospitals, hoping to conclude an agreement that would build on an $80 billion weekend deal with the pharmaceutical industry.
Hospitals were being asked to accept a reduction of roughly $155 billion over the next decade in fees they are promised under government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, according to numerous officials.
Officials at the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals said they could not comment on any discussions.
Baucus is seeking similar concessions from nursing homes, insurance companies, medical device makers and possibly others, noting that any legislation would create a huge new pool of customers for industry providers.
At its heart, any legislation is expected to require insurance companies to offer coverage to any applicant, without exclusions or higher premiums for pre-existing medical conditions.
Overall, Baucus has said he hopes to hold the size of any legislation to $1 trillion or less, and in private negotiations there were discussions about further scaling back eligibility for insurance subsidies from the government.
Additionally, Baucus was still searching for ways to cover the cost of his emerging legislation, and numerous officials said he appeared roughly $200 billion shy of achieving that goal. They added that a proposal to make it harder for taxpayers to itemize their medical expenses was drawing renewed interest among key senators as one way to raise revenue.
Current law allows those expenses to be itemized when they exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. The proposal under review would raise that to 10 percent, officials said.
At the White House, Obama sidestepped when asked if he was open to taxing health care benefits, a proposal he opposed vigorously in the campaign for the White House.
"I have identified the ways that I think we should finance this. I think Congress should adopt them. I'm going to wait and see what ideas ultimately they come up with," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Organized labor weighed in quickly.
Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in an interview that union leaders believe Obama is "a person of his word." He was referring to Obama's opposition to taxing those benefits during last year's campaign.
"They're not going to tolerate that," McEntee said of workers' views of that proposal.
Senior senators said Wednesday the benefits tax could be essential for the complex plan to be fully financed.
"I don't want to prejudge what they're doing," Obama said, referring to proposals in the Senate to tax workers who get expensive insurance policies. Obama, who campaigned against the tax when he ran for president, drew a quick rebuff from organized labor.
For Obama, the health care debate got personal during an ABC News town hall at the White House on Wednesday. The prime-time program was the latest in a string of events designed to build public support for his plan to slow the rise in health care costs and expand coverage to the nearly 50 million uninsured.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist at the New York University Langone Medical Center, challenged Obama: What if the president's wife and daughters got sick? Would Obama promise that they would get only the services allowed under a new government insurance plan he's proposing?
Obama wouldn't bite.
If "it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care," Obama said.
Earlier in the day, the administration and its allies pushed for a prominent display of progress in the Senate before Congress begins a weeklong vacation Friday.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., labored in a series of meetings to produce at least an outline of legislation that could command bipartisan support. Of the five House and Senate committees working on a health care overhaul, Finance is the only one that appears to have a chance at such an agreement.
Baucus appeared especially eager to show progress before the exodus from the Capitol begins.
Several officials said he was negotiating with representatives of the nation's hospitals, hoping to conclude an agreement that would build on an $80 billion weekend deal with the pharmaceutical industry.
Hospitals were being asked to accept a reduction of roughly $155 billion over the next decade in fees they are promised under government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, according to numerous officials.
Officials at the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals said they could not comment on any discussions.
Baucus is seeking similar concessions from nursing homes, insurance companies, medical device makers and possibly others, noting that any legislation would create a huge new pool of customers for industry providers.
At its heart, any legislation is expected to require insurance companies to offer coverage to any applicant, without exclusions or higher premiums for pre-existing medical conditions.
Overall, Baucus has said he hopes to hold the size of any legislation to $1 trillion or less, and in private negotiations there were discussions about further scaling back eligibility for insurance subsidies from the government.
Additionally, Baucus was still searching for ways to cover the cost of his emerging legislation, and numerous officials said he appeared roughly $200 billion shy of achieving that goal. They added that a proposal to make it harder for taxpayers to itemize their medical expenses was drawing renewed interest among key senators as one way to raise revenue.
Current law allows those expenses to be itemized when they exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. The proposal under review would raise that to 10 percent, officials said.
At the White House, Obama sidestepped when asked if he was open to taxing health care benefits, a proposal he opposed vigorously in the campaign for the White House.
"I have identified the ways that I think we should finance this. I think Congress should adopt them. I'm going to wait and see what ideas ultimately they come up with," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Organized labor weighed in quickly.
Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in an interview that union leaders believe Obama is "a person of his word." He was referring to Obama's opposition to taxing those benefits during last year's campaign.
"They're not going to tolerate that," McEntee said of workers' views of that proposal.
Who are the uninsured? Health Care Reform
Who are the uninsured?
A closer look at the 46 million reasons for ObamaCare
By now, you have probably heard a lot about the sad army of the "uninsured" from President Obama and every other elected Democratic Party official in these United States. This is simply political fear-mongering designed to pass a national government-run health-care plan, which has been a union and liberal agenda item since the late 1940s. So the "solution" isn't new and neither is the "crisis."
Let's look at the facts. First of all, the uninsured do receive high-quality medical care. Virtually every state requires that hospitals treat people regardless of their ability to pay. Talk to any hospital executive, and he will tell you that treating people who either cannot or will not pay is actually quite costly -- forcing up medical bills for the rest of us. So the uninsured are treated, and the rest of us are treated to the bill.
This leads us to ask: Who are the uninsured? In 2006, the Census Bureau used a Department of Labor survey to estimate that there were 46.6 million uninsured people -- about 15.5 percent of the population.
Fourteen million of the 47 million are already eligible for government insurance, Medicaid, but have not signed up. (Pre-existing conditions do not exclude someone from joining Medicaid.) Those 14 million have not signed up because they do not want to pay the small monthly premium that Medicare charges. As a result, many who are eligible for Medicaid wait until they need care before they register. They are effectively insured at all times even when they are not formally enrolled in the program.
What about the uninsured who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid? Most are not in dire financial straits. After all, 27 million of the uninsured have personal incomes of more than $50,000.
True, there is a group of people who are borderline poor but not eligible for Medicaid, but the group is relatively small and many (if not most) of those people are illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, government surveys never ask respondents if they are legally in the United States.
If you exclude those who are essentially covered by Medicaid, nearly 70 percent of the remaining uninsured lack insurance for less than four months. Many of those temporarily uninsured are simply switching jobs and waiting for human resources departments to process their paperwork. In addition, two-thirds of the uninsured are between 18 and 34; these folks, on average, have few health problems and are uninsured by choice.
The truly uninsured are, thus, largely young people who can afford insurance but who make the decision to temporarily go without it as they move between jobs. This tends to be for very short periods of time.
As the late, great senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, used to say: "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts." The sensationalized plight of the uninsured is not a valid reason for enacting national health care
A closer look at the 46 million reasons for ObamaCare
By now, you have probably heard a lot about the sad army of the "uninsured" from President Obama and every other elected Democratic Party official in these United States. This is simply political fear-mongering designed to pass a national government-run health-care plan, which has been a union and liberal agenda item since the late 1940s. So the "solution" isn't new and neither is the "crisis."
Let's look at the facts. First of all, the uninsured do receive high-quality medical care. Virtually every state requires that hospitals treat people regardless of their ability to pay. Talk to any hospital executive, and he will tell you that treating people who either cannot or will not pay is actually quite costly -- forcing up medical bills for the rest of us. So the uninsured are treated, and the rest of us are treated to the bill.
This leads us to ask: Who are the uninsured? In 2006, the Census Bureau used a Department of Labor survey to estimate that there were 46.6 million uninsured people -- about 15.5 percent of the population.
Fourteen million of the 47 million are already eligible for government insurance, Medicaid, but have not signed up. (Pre-existing conditions do not exclude someone from joining Medicaid.) Those 14 million have not signed up because they do not want to pay the small monthly premium that Medicare charges. As a result, many who are eligible for Medicaid wait until they need care before they register. They are effectively insured at all times even when they are not formally enrolled in the program.
What about the uninsured who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid? Most are not in dire financial straits. After all, 27 million of the uninsured have personal incomes of more than $50,000.
True, there is a group of people who are borderline poor but not eligible for Medicaid, but the group is relatively small and many (if not most) of those people are illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, government surveys never ask respondents if they are legally in the United States.
If you exclude those who are essentially covered by Medicaid, nearly 70 percent of the remaining uninsured lack insurance for less than four months. Many of those temporarily uninsured are simply switching jobs and waiting for human resources departments to process their paperwork. In addition, two-thirds of the uninsured are between 18 and 34; these folks, on average, have few health problems and are uninsured by choice.
The truly uninsured are, thus, largely young people who can afford insurance but who make the decision to temporarily go without it as they move between jobs. This tends to be for very short periods of time.
As the late, great senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, used to say: "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts." The sensationalized plight of the uninsured is not a valid reason for enacting national health care
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