Scarborough ignores Obama's fiscal case for health care reform
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SUMMARY: Joe Scarborough suggested that President Obama's remark that "we are out of money" was at odds with Obama's health care reform proposal. However, Obama has argued that health care reform is essential to the long-term economic health of the country.
On the May 29 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host Joe Scarborough suggested that President Obama's May 22 remark that "we are out of money" was at odds with his call for immediate congressional action on health care reform. After co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Obama is warning that if Congress doesn't pass health care legislation by the end of the year, the opportunity will likely not come again," Scarborough interrupted her and said, "And he's right, because we've got all this extra money right now, so if we're going to do it, we have to do it now." He added, "I'm just saying -- no, seriously, now is the time. It's not like he said this past weekend that we've run out of money." However, during the May 22 C-SPAN interview in which Obama said "we are out of money," Obama also said that this was "a short-term problem" that is "dwarfed by the long-term problem" of "Medicaid and Medicare." Fixing that problem, he said, requires immediate action to "reduce long-term health care inflation substantially."
As Media Matters for America has noted, many media figures have claimed or suggested that given the size of the current and projected U.S. federal debt, the Obama administration's health care reform proposal is untenable. However, in making such statements, those media figures did not address the argument Obama has repeatedly made in response to such claims: that health care reform is essential to the long-term economic and fiscal health of the country.
Indeed, in his May 22 interview, Obama rejected "do[ing] nothing" soon after saying "we are out of money now." From a discussion about the costs of health care reform from Obama's interview with C-SPAN political editor Steve Scully:
OBAMA: Health information technology, for example, can be a huge cost saver, because it can eliminate duplicative records, reduce medical errors, but it's going to take some time for us to build out the infrastructure so that every provider, every small community hospital has these things in place. And that's part of the role that the government can play.
But the key point here, which I think I want to emphasize again, is if you've got health care -- I don't want to take away your choices. I want to add your choices. I want you to be able to keep your doctor, keep your health care, but I want to be able to drive down costs. And if you are dissatisfied with your health care, I want to make sure you get some other options out there.
SCULLY: Yet, it all takes money. You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?
OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.
So we've got a short-term problem, which is we had to spend a lot of money to salvage our financial system, we had to deal with the auto companies, a huge recession which drains tax revenue at the same time it's putting more pressure on governments to provide unemployment insurance or make sure that food stamps are available for people who have been laid off.
So we have a short-term problem and we also have a long-term problem. The short-term problem is dwarfed by the long-term problem. And the long-term problem is Medicaid and Medicare. If we don't reduce long-term health care inflation substantially, we can't get control of the deficit.
So, one option is just to do nothing. We say, well, it's too expensive for us to make some short-term investments in health care. We can't afford it. We've got this big deficit. Let's just keep the health care system that we've got now.
Along that trajectory, we will see health care cost as an overall share of our federal spending grow and grow and grow and grow until essentially it consumes everything. That's the wrong option.
I think the right option is to say, where are the game changers, the investments that we can make now that are going to reduce costs, even if they don't reduce them this year or next year, but 10 years from now or 20 years from now, we are going to see substantially lower costs.
And if -- one of the very promising areas that we saw was these insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, all these stakeholders coming together, committing to me that they would reduce costs by 1.5 percent per year.
If we do that, it seems like small number, we end up saving $2 trillion. $2 trillion, which not only can help deal with our deficit and our long-term debt, but a lot of those savings can go back into the pockets of American consumers in the form of lower premiums. That's what we are driving for.
From the May 29 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
BRZEZINSKI: Meanwhile, President Obama is warning that if Congress doesn't pass health care legislation by the end of the year, the opportunity will likely not come again.
SCARBOROUGH: And he's right, because we've got all this extra money right now, so if we're going to do it, we have to do it now.
BRZEZINSKI: Joe, I'm doing the news.
SCARBOROUGH: No, I'm just saying --
BRZEZINSKI: You can [inaudible] your commentary for after.
SCARBOROUGH: -- no, seriously, now is the time.
BRZEZINSKI: The com --
SCARBOROUGH: It's not like he said this past weekend that we've run out of money.
BRZEZINSKI: The comments came as the president returned from a West Coast fundraising trip.
Gotta love that liberal logic.
When I first read your reply, I thought you were joking. But then I realized you are not.
You made my point. There won't be any. It'll all be spent on paying down the ridiculous debt created by spending money we don't have now.
Obama has zero credibility regarding cutting costs. Zero. Zilch. Nada. All Obama does is say one thing and do the opposite. His cutting government cost plan so far is similar to someone spending $40,000 per year cutting costs by one dollar.
If you believe the Obama administration now will reduce government spending in the future, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that will also save you money. Buy it now and it'll save you money in 15 years.
Do you have links to back up your claim that RR and GWB had the two greatest increases percentage wise in spending?
President Obama's pledge to halve the budget deficit by 2013 is hardly ambitious. The budget deficit will quadruple in 2009 to $1.75 trillion, and cutting that level in half would still leave deficits twice as high as under President Bush. Furthermore, three expected developments—the end of the recession, withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and phaseout of temporary stimulus spending— would halve the budget deficit by 2013. The President's budget shows deficits averaging $600 billion even after the economy recovers and the troops return home from Iraq.[13] That is not good enough.
President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama's budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016— nearly double the amount accumulated under President Bush over the same number of years. Overall, the public debt level would double over the next decade to $15.4 trillion ($12.5 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars). (See Chart 1.) At 67 percent of GDP, this would constitute America's largest debt burden since immediately following World War II.[14]
http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/bg2249.cfm
Is that with or without the war costs of Iraq and Afghanistan?
The Coburn bill is revenue neutral — requiring no net increased taxes or spending; whereas Obama’s plan will cost $1.5 trillion over 15 years and maybe more - even though they both achieve the same goal. (I’ll explain this truly fascinating result in a future Alert.)
The Coburn bill makes coverage more universal by shifting tax benefits from those who earn more to those who earn less — precisely what Obama has committed to from the get-go.
The Coburn bill liberates millions of poor people from Medicaid rationing and gives them access to the same kind of insurance middle-income families have, whereas Obama’s plan would do to reverse.
The Coburn bill gives people strong incentives to control costs and they might actually work, whereas Obama’s $150 billion a year in extra spending will almost certainly add to health care inflation.
In some ways, this is the most “liberal” proposal on the table made by the most conservative senator on Capitol Hill; and it achieves all of Obama’s goals as well or much better than Obama’s own plan!
http://www.worldhealthcareblog.org/2009/05/28/health-alert-the-republican-health-plan/
Coburn's plan makes one mention of pre-existing conditions, but neglects the other two issues...
"A non‐profit, independent board would penalize insurance companies that cherry pick healthy patients while rewarding companies that seek patients with pre-existing conditions. This solution would ensure health insurers compete based on superior products and the lowest price."
WOAH, that's sounds suspiciously simliar to "big government" socialism taking control and dictating to the free market, does it not? Just what does Coburn mean by "penalize"?
You don't even want to go there, aa! The kind of insurance this "middle-income" has haggled over my wide's diagnostic tests for cellulitis, and finally selected the diagnostic center for her (gotta love that conseravtive mantra of "choosing your own doctor," don't you?). The kind of insurance my sister-in-law's "middle-income" family has fought paying for her chemo while she is fighting aggressive breat cancer, and has only allowed the treatments after approximately two months. All a matter of priorities, aa; profits over all, even at the expense of patients' livges...
If you think some bureaucrat in Washington will do a better job, respond in a more timely fashion, and give you and your family more freedom of choice, then we simply disagree.
Precisely. The heart of the problem is that profit and treating people are mutually exclusive goals. You cannot maximize both at the same time.
Insurance policy holders have absolutely no say in the inner workings of a private insurance firm.
Without real reform, Medicare will simply cease to be - tell that to your elderly relatives and see how happy that makes them.
Insurance companies now tell us when and what they will cover - excluding those people who need medical attention the most (because it hurts their bottom line). Guess who ends up paying for that medical care? Taxpayers.
Insurance companies routinely pay about one fifth of the amount billed for health care on insured patients. Uninsured patients either pay the entire amount billed, or they run out on the bill. This means that those uninsured patients who actually pay their bills are paying for the health care of insured patients. Meanwhile, the HMOs and the Insurance companies are still 2 of the top 10 profit centers in American business.
If we spend the money now, we will save billions of dollars over the next several years and provide better health care for a larger share of our population.
Of course, if you don't think we can afford to do what France, Canada, England, and scores of "poorer" nations are doing...
I guess you don't think much of your country.
I personally reject any government plan that says we spend money now to save money in the future. It is simply a gimmick as the government has shown it always spends more "in the future" on government handout programs, including medicare, ss, and medicaid.
Gotta love that snarky childish comment at the end. Nice try. Your opinion of me means nothing to me.
Have a good weekend.
The Republican plan is a gimmick, my friend. It is an attempt to put out a brushfire with a squirt gun.
Again, you really do seem to be saying that the USA, the wealthiest country in the world, can't afford to do what all of these "inferior" nations have been doing for years. If you think that it is "snarky" for me to say that demonstrates how little confidence you have in your country, you aren't really worht my time - you obviously haven't too much experience in logic (even though, rather impressively, you managed to bring up the straw man.
Now, lest you accuse me of an ad hominem attack, let me just say that you aren't special enough for that. I am attacking all the geniuses in this country who claim to love their country, who claim that it is the best nation in the world, then turn around and say we can't do what so many other nations do quite well.
The Republicans, in case you haven't been paying attention in the past several years, make a lot of "revenue neutral" claims that are simply not true. They are also the same party that reduced the number of government employees by paying even more for contract employees and by subcontracting. Do you get it? They aren't telling you the truth. They are selling you a bill of goods in the hopes that you (and others like you) won't look at the fine print.
I actually don't have too much trouble with doctors' billings, but I do find it interesting that a lot of physicians and nurses are starting to back a single-payer program. I think they know they would do better than they currently do with the insurance providers.
The problem is in that same old conservative dictum that eschews the common good; our health as a society, our mutual responsibility and demands a price tag be placed on every aspect of your life. The problem with our country is that radical conservative philosophy that says, "Oh, you got laid off and can't afford COBRA? Sorry. You're on your own. You're locked in a job you hate because the benefits are good? Too bad. What's that? Our Republican plan ends tax incentives ends for employer provided medical insurance and would throw you to the wolves? Get a better education (if you can afford it) because YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN!"
"we've got all this extra money right now, so if we're going to do it, we have to do it now... It's not like he said this past weekend that we've run out of money."
Simply put, the greatest danger to the safety, security, and well-being of this nation has never been outside enemies like Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, etc., it's always been the enemies from within who puff up their chest with phony patriotism and call themselves "Conservatives", "Republicans", and "Right-Wingers".
They are, quite literally, traitors to everything this nation was founded upon.