President Obama on Health Care:

The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so that we can avoid illness and disease in the first place. That starts with each of us taking more responsibility for our health and the health of our children. It means quitting smoking, going in for that mammogram or colon cancer screening. It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside.

It also means cutting down on all the junk food that is fueling an epidemic of obesity, putting far too many Americans, young and old, at greater risk of costly, chronic conditions.

Does this mean that if we don't do these things we pay more?

Answer:

OBAMA:

It will take doctors telling us what risk factors we should avoid and what preventive measures we should pursue. And it will take employers following the example of places like Safeway that is rewarding workers for taking better care of their health while reducing health care costs in the process. If you're one of the three quarters of Safeway workers enrolled in their "Healthy Measures" program, you can get screened for problems like high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And if you score well, you can pay lower premiums. It's a program that has helped Safeway cut health care spending by 13 percent and workers save over 20 percent on their premiums. And we are open to doing more to help employers adopt and expand programs like this one.

OBAMA:

Despite what some have suggested, the reason we have these costs is not simply because we have an aging population. Demographics do account for part of rising costs because older, sicker societies pay more on health care than younger, healthier ones. But what accounts for the bulk of our costs is the nature of our health care system itself - a system where we spend vast amounts of money on things that aren't making our people any healthier; a system that automatically equates more expensive care with better care.

A recent article in the New Yorker, for example, showed how McAllen, Texas is spending twice as much as El Paso County - not because people in McAllen are sicker and not because they are getting better care. They are simply using more treatments - treatments they don't really need; treatments that, in some cases, can actually do people harm by raising the risk of infection or medical error.

Does this mean the government or so called experts will decide (instead of our doctor) what treatments are done?

Answer:

OBAMA

That starts with reforming the way we compensate our doctors and hospitals. We need to bundle payments so you aren't paid for every single treatment you offer a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for how you treat the overall disease.

OBAMA:

The second structural reform we need to make is to improve the quality of medical information making its way to doctors and patients. We have the best medical schools, the most sophisticated labs, and the most advanced training of any nation on the globe. Yet we are not doing a very good job harnessing our collective knowledge and experience on behalf of better medicine.

Does this mean Doctors will be told what they should do instead of making that decision on their own?

My Answer:

OBAMA:

 As a result, too many doctors and patients are making decisions without the benefit of the latest research. A recent study, for example, found that only half of all cardiac guidelines are based on scientific evidence. Half. That means doctors may be doing a bypass operation when placing a stent is equally effective, or placing a stent when adjusting a patient's drugs and medical management is equally effective - driving up costs without improving a patient's health.

After all that, Obama says....

Let me be clear: identifying what works is not about dictating what kind of care should be provided. It's about providing patients and doctors with the information they need to make the best medical decisions.

Hate to say it but I think he just flipped flopped.


OBAMA

Replicating best practices. Incentivizing excellence. Closing cost disparities. Any legislation sent to my desk that does not achieve these goals does not earn the title of reform.

Actually Mr President, the only thing I see being REFORMED is the patient's actions, and their cost of premiums because of more patients getting given some coverage.  We either 'get healthy' or spend more on our health care.

Otherwise sir, you would be telling me that Joe Smith will be paying the same amount for his health care as Susie Smith does. 

I don't see anything that is hurting the doctors, nurses, hospitals or clinics or insurance companies.  In fact I see the opposite being done.  According to your plan, they will be doing less procedures, less work(paper to computer), for more money (more insured).

President Obama, this idea that we will be able to keep our current policy and pay less -- where are YOUR facts to back this up sir?  How will you force companies to continue offering the same insurance - for less cost to their employee?


OBAMA

That's why we need to introduce competitive bidding into the Medicare Advantage program, a program under which private insurance companies offer Medicare coverage. That will save $177 billion over the next decade.

Isn't that called Privatizing Medicare?

Lastly sir, you say by cutting what is paid to hospitals and doctors for medicare patients will actually save seniors money.  In what way sir?  Every time Medicare decides to lower what they will pay the hospital or doctor, seniors either pay the difference out of their own pockets or pay more on their monthly supplemental insurance.

Sorry President Obama, you've not convinced me ( I voted for you), so how will you conviince others that didn't?