It's almost time for the Obama Town Hall in New Hampshire. The setup has several dozen people standing behind the podium.
You can watch the town hall here at 1:00 PM:
MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
C-SPAN: http://www.cspan.org/...
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/...
I'm going to continue posting here, but to go to a fresh diary to comment, you can go here: http://www.dailykos.com/...
I'll try to live blog the questions and answers the best I can below...
12:55 pm: Delivering the invocation now.
1:00 pm: Singing the national anthem now
1:02 pm: Lori(?) Hitchcock, uninsured woman and former small business owner now speaking. Says she has Hepatitis C and is thus uninsurable.
So far it's been a very respectful crowd. Lots of clapping. No booing, etc.
1:05 pm: Lori introduces President Obama to standing ovation and cheering.
Obama Opening Statement: It's great to be back in NH, but most of the memories of this state are cold, so it's great to be there in August.
We're going to pass health insurance reform in 2009.
Six months ago, we were in worst recession in our lifetime. We were losing 700,000 jobs per month. Economists feared 2nd great depression. That's why we passed recovery act. 1/3 of money went to tax cuts or middle class families and small businesses. Another 1/3 went to things such as unemployment benefits, made cobra cheaper, and gave assistant to states. Other 1/3 went to other projects such as repairing highways and providing services that create and keep jobs done by private businesses.
We've seen good signs, but we're not out of the woods yet. We need to build and economy that works for everybody.
HCR is one of the things we need to be able to do that. 46 million Americans don't have health insurance. If something happens, they don't get care or go bankrupt. But we also need to help those who have health insurance. We have system that works better for insurance Cos than the American people.
Let me set record straight:
. if you like your doctor, you can keep them
. if you like your plan, you can keep your plan
. you won't be waiting in lines
. health care choices should be between you and doctor
. gov. bureaucrats shouldn't mettle, but neither should insurance co bureaucrats
. past 3 years - 12 million have been discriminated by insurance cos due to pre-existing conditions.
Under our reform, Insurance Co's will be prevented from denying or dropping your coverage due to pre-existing condition or when you get sick. They won't be able to water down your coverage.
Insurance co's won't be able to put a cap on how much coverage you get in year or lifetime, we'll put cap on how much you have to pay out of pocket.
We'll do this w/o adding to deficit by cutting out things that don't help.
Vigorous debate is healthy, but people should talk with each other and not over each other.
People who oppose reform like to create bogeymen who aren't real.
We are closer to achieving health care reform than we have ever been.
Broad agreement in Congress on 80% of the issues.
But now is the hard part: special interests start running ads, start misleading and scaring people, etc. We can't let them do it this time. But the riskiest thing is to do nothing.
I never said change was easy. And it doesn't change in Washington, it starts in places like this.
Now time for questions...
Q: State Rep from Dover. Has. gov. run plan called Medicare. You've been striving for bipartisanship, but if GOP actively refuse to participate in a constructive way, shouldn't we go ahead and do it without them.
Obama: Talks about how that if Medicare can work, then government can have a constructive role in health care otherwise. We want to create a set of options for health care, which is the same choice that members of congress has. A public option included with that would keep the insurance companies honest.
Some GOPers sincerely are trying to work constructively on a health plan bill. However, we have to get it done. Hopes it will be bipartisan, but above all we have to get it done.
Q: Saw lots of signs saying mean things about health care reform. How can we know what is true.
Obama: Let's be clear on a few things. Some people are claiming that House voted for "death panels" that will "pull the plug" on grandma because she's too expensive to cover.
This arose out of a provision that allows Medicare to reimburse for end of life care counseling in regards to living wills, etc. Irony is one of the chief sponsor of this provision is a GOP Senator. Adds that he is not in favor of "death panels."
People do have concerns that if we are reforming health care, it will mean government rationing care. Medicare is inefficient, but it has nothing to do about benefits, but has to do with things like insurance subsidies that do nothing.
Right now: insurance Co's are rationing care by telling you what is covered or not. Why would people prefer insurance cos rationing care as opposed to allowing you and your doctor making decisions?
Q: ON NH Medicade. On Lipitor, but it was denied after was already on it. I'm on gov. health care but I'm still having trouble getting the drugs I need.
Obama: Obama clarifies that it was a situation where the state tried to have him switch to a generic, but he didn't do as well on that and had to switch back to brand name.
Obama says that most people would do just as well as a generic, and it is still important that he was able to get back on the brand name when he needed it.
Q: On Medicare, is on supplement. But if something happens to husband, will lose supplement.
Obama: Another myth is that we're going to be cutting Medicare. AARP would not endorse bill if it undermined Medicare. We're not seeing best practices, and we want to reward results.
Prescription drug companies already put up $80 billion on prescription drugs. We might be able to get more than that.
Q: A republican. Doesn't know what he's doing there but he's there (lol). Obama has been quoted in past as saying that he was supportive of "universal" plan (I think he meant single-player). Is he still open to private industry playing a role. Doesn't think any private insurance can compete with a government plan.
Obama: Difference between universal plan vs. single-payer plan. Have not said he was a single-payer supporters because. Transitioning to single-payer would be too disruptive. I'm not promoting a single-payer.
Am promoting a plan that allows everyone to get health insurance at affordable price. If you don't have health care, you can go to exchange like what members of Congress has to choose from several private health care plans. Also applies to small businesses. Having a public a public option in the exchange would provide additional competition.
If private insurance companies can provide a good option, and public option has to be self-sustaining, then there shouldn't be any problem with private insurance competing. UPS and Fed-Ex are doing fine vs. Post Office, for example.
Q: Been teacher for 37 years. If every American who needed it got good mental health care, what would be impact on society.
Obama: Mental health has always been undervalued. Someone with depression can have a more dangerous and debilitating illness than someone with, say, a broken leg. Would like to see mental health component of a package that people are covered under.
Q: Lots of misinformation about how we're going to pay for this. How can we do this without raising taxes on middle class. Don't want inflation.
[crap! be right back!]
Ok back, just heard stuff about not raising taxes on those under $250,000 didn't hear much more.
Missed the current question.
(paraphrase of question by HopefulOkie:
"What about the panels that will determine what care I get and if I get it. And what about the issue of you taking money from medicare to pay for health reform." )
Obama: If we have panel of doctors that can create guidelines about how to deliver care more efficiently. We can make health care more efficient.
We need to take steps to deal with shortage of primary care doctors and nurses. We can reimburse doctors providing primary care along with surgeons.
Final Q: References "turning himself in" to White House form. Asks why hasn't he chastised Congress for having such a wide difference between health care Congress gets and what everyone else gets.
Obama: Mentions that if someone heard something that sounds wrong about hcr, someone can report that claim, and that turns into "Obama creating an enemies list!" All we're trying to do is answer questions.
Congress gets good deal, but it's the same deal as all other federal employees. It drives down costs because everyone is part of the same pool. They get a menu of private or not-for-profit plans and they get to select which plan they wanted. But if you wanted to be part of menu, you can to meet certain requirements.
That's what we want to do for health care reform for everyone else.
There are legit concerns about costs and public option (such as you don't think government should be involved) but Obama disagrees with that concern. But status quo is not working.