President Obama's Health Care Speech

Health Care Reform Speech
President Barack Obama's prime time speech Wednesday night, to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, on the issue of health care is expected to be important. It’s an important national issue and major political platform he is dedicated to pursue. The congress has been bickering long enough and the need for federal regulation of health insurance companies to prohibit them from denying coverage or charging higher premiums because of a person’s medical history or current condition needs to come to an end. All summer it was made clear that the Republicans were standing almost unanimously in opposition to the Democratic approach of health care reform. The reform bill was at a stand still and Obama believes, “it so important to get a deal”. The liberals want one kind of bill, the moderates want another kind, and the conservatives want no bill. It’s total gridlock. So, Obama is smart and plans a prime time speech that he knows all Americans are interested in and will tune in to watch.
President Barack Obama's speech on the issue of health care reform is getting lots of reaction from U.S. lawmakers, and more importantly, the general public. This very complex subject of health care reform affects everyone. President Obama said, “The current system has led the country to a breaking point, imposing hardships on middle-class Americans who struggle to pay for health care, who are unable to obtain it”. Boy, is this the truth. I have several older family members who are retired but still have work to get their medical insurance. The cost of medical insurance on their own (without an employer) is astronomical. Therefore, they are forced to work to be insured. The president was very careful in his language to clarify what reform proposals would do (and not do), promised to continue seeking bipartisan support, but said the time for playing politics with health care has ended. The entire problem with congress is their loyalty to their party. The President also stated clearly that the time for bickering is over. He states, “Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care." Amen! We’ll see if they can put their party loyalty aside and come together for their constituents. In his speech, he touched on many topics: It is estimated that the reform proposals could cost $900 billion over 10 years. Obama pledges that health care reform can be achieved without adding to the federal deficit? He states that savings will be achieved by eliminating hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and abuse. However, he does not go into detail on how this will be obtained? This is easy to say but often hard to achieve. Republicans complain that he failed to deliver specifics, and re-stated criticisms that Democratic proposals would impose new tax burdens on Americans and small businesses. As you can see this is very complex and will take along time to resolve. He also cleared up rumors that have been circulated about his plan. The mistruths or “scare-tactics’’ he commented on were: this does not add a dime to our deficit, no Medicare money will be used to pay for this plan, Medicare will stay as is and is doing well, and illegal aliens are not covered by this plan and that citizenship is a requirement. His ending point was clarifying that “rather than a radical shift that would disrupt health care Americans now have, he favors building on what works and fixing what doesn't.” Who knows, maybe America is inching closer to overhauling its health care system.
The immediate effect and reaction of the speech was typical bi-partisan bologna. The Republicans complained and were knocking all of his ideas and the Democrats were applauding his efforts and fortitude. The biggest effect of this particular speech was the outburst of a Republican lawmaker Joe Wilson, R-S.C when he shouted "You lie" at President Barack Obama during his speech. The incident came directly after Obama said, "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally." "You lie!" Rep.Wilson, shouted from his seat on the Republican side of the chamber. Everyone was stunned and quite surprised. It was the talk on all the major networks and newspapers. He went from rude villain to a man with a passion. He was ridiculed by both sides, Democrats and Republicans, for his outburst. Everyone believed it was rude and disrespectful to shout during the President's very important, and televised speech. This is one of the few times both parties have agreed on something in a long time. When the President is giving his speech, the Vice President and Speaker of the House always sit directly behind him. When Rep. Wilson made his outburst, you could visibly see the reaction of Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelossi. Their mouths dropped and they turned their heads toward the sound. Their reaction summed up the rest of Congress and the American people's reaction to this outburst. He has since apologized to the President and the President publicly accepted his apology. As of today, it has been reported that Congressman Wilson has received over one million dollars in campaign donations via the internet. These funds are intended to help him win his next re-election bid for congressman in South Carolina!

As you can imagine, politicts is a prime example of "Everything an Argument". Every party has different views and therefore anything the President says, there will be arguments as to whether it was good or bad. With the President's Friday night speech, there was a lot of argument between the Democrats and Republicans.

Sources:
CNN Television News Commentary
Headline News Commentary
New York Times Online Newspaper