« How come it was important enough in 2007 ..... | Elizabeth2's Blog | Kudos to Joe Scarborough & Lindsey Graham »
Did Bill O'Reilly REALLY say this???
" I want that. I want, not for personally for me, but for
working Americans, to have a option, that if they don't like their
health insurance, if it's too expensive, they can't afford it, if the
government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives
the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks."
????
No, I didn't find this on The Onion ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/bill-oreilly-backs-public_n_290658.html
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/bill-oreilly-backs-public_n_290658.html
????
No, I didn't find this on The Onion ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/bill-oreilly-backs-public_n_290658.html
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/bill-oreilly-backs-public_n_290658.html
Advertisement
Please say it again, Bill, so I don't have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming.
September 17, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's a progressive, didn't you know?
September 17, 2009 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah, scrap that. Must have been a teleprompter malfunction.
September 17, 2009 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect Bill's a closet liberal. Did you ever catch his interview with Obama? It's interesting.
(One of my favorite moments is when Bill cuts off Obama with: "We'll assume you're gonna ratchet everything you can ratchet." Only a surly and impatient NYer would say that, LOL.)
September 18, 2009 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Someone said that the only difference between conservatives and socialists is time. The more I observe what's going on the more I agree.
September 18, 2009 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Bill. With the one caveat that I don't want my healthcare affected. And unfortunately, everything I've seen out of Congress so far will raise the cost of my existing healthcare plan, not lower it.
There's really been no focus on lowering costs. It's all been about how to get more people insured and how to raise taxes to pay for those additional people's coverages.
The real question is to ask Bill O. if he's still OK assuming his own costs will go up.
That's why I think a much larger percentage of the public wants a public option compared to the percentage of people that approve of the Obama/Baucus/HR 3200 proposals seen so far.
September 17, 2009 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an understandable fear. People who are satisfied with their insurance should not be forced to alter their policy...unless the change is simply lower premiums.
The same fear happened with the Bush prescription drug plan. There was a moment when some thought their insurance companies might drop their coverage of prescriptions because they could use the prescription plan provided by the government.
I have repeatedly heard that satisfied policy holders can not be dropped under the healthcare reforms being proposed.
September 18, 2009 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
"That's why I think a much larger percentage of the public wants a public option compared to the percentage of people that approve of the Obama/Baucus/HR 3200 proposals seen so far."
That's a good point and I agree. Although I'd be willing to absorb an "absorbable" increase to live in a country where my fellow citizens (including my children!) had health care also. (One of my children got a job as a school teacher and finally! got coverage. Went to add her husband to the policy: it would cost them $500/month!!)
What I want is reliability and a reasonable hope that both the coverage and the cost would remain stable over time -- and I have NO hope that private insurers will give us this (at least without some competition that ISN'T solely motivated by profit). They are private, for-profit corporations: their primary duty/reason for existence is to turn a profit for their shareholders. ---- So even if reasonable coverage and reasonable cost WAS achieved through by the private companies, they would then start "competing" to cut down one coverage and raise cost so as to increase their profit over the others. -- Think about how the banks acted once they had the public hooked on credit cards.
Without public competition, it's hard to see how we, the consumers, will ever be safe from future drop in services and/or price increases that bring no improvement in services, just greater profits for the companies.
That is NOT to say that I think a bill without a public option should be vetoed. There are a lot of good reforms even in a no-public-option bill and, armed with the knowledge that there could be a public option to keep them in line, the consumer/voters in even red states will be "chatting" with their representatives. (Funny-sad, the state that has the worst competitive situation - one company with 80% or so of the business -- is ruby-red Alabama.)
September 18, 2009 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you ARE Bill O'Reilly!
lol
September 18, 2009 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're wrong. I would have caveated the comment where I said I was in favor of a "public" option.
September 18, 2009 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Every now and then O'Reilly throws something in to pretend he's not an average wingnut.
September 17, 2009 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
No real surprise to find a wingnut with a sensible position on a single issue. Beck's even come out for legalized pot.
Imagine getting Drudge, Hugh Hewitt, Sean Hannity, Jon Arthur, Mark Levin, Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham, Neal Boortz, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin, all together for a dip in a big food blender.
Then mix them up into a big teabagger drink, pour off all the stinky conservative stuff that floats to the top, and you might have one good liberal swig left in the bottom of the blender.
So, who wants to go first?
September 17, 2009 11:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's a New Yorker, whaddaya expect? We New Yorkers are very generous.
September 18, 2009 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, I can't disagree with that!
Signed, another NYer
September 18, 2009 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I third that emotion.
September 18, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, so now we have a NY clique. Isn't that special? Do ya feel superior? Do ya feel awesome?
Well fuhgeddaboudit! Us New Mexicans will show you the door! ;)
September 18, 2009 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aw, shudupayouface.
September 18, 2009 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
WTF?
September 18, 2009 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ya' know ... Bill-O also said this . . .
Speaking about WMDs:
I will admit that he apologized on ABC Good Morning America... a year later Feb. 10, 2004.
But he reneged on his promise to not trust the Bush Administration again.
Buyer Beware!
~OGD~
September 18, 2009 5:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wonders never cease!!
In reporting on Bill O's rather surprising comments, Joe Scarborough -- JOE S -- starting at least acknowleding that there are reasonable arguments FOR a public option.
Could it possibly be that the waaaay right wing-nuts have gotten so unrealistic that those conservatives whose brains aren't filled with venom are starting to actually *think* about the overall problem in real-life terms?
Someone - and it may have even been Joe or Pat Buchanan (Pat Buchanan!!) -- said that if you really believed in free market and competition, then you *would* let the government be a player on the field: if it can do something cheaper and better "as O'Reilly said" then why not let them?
This is too much -- I need another cup of coffee (or perhaps to go back to sleep and let this dream continue).
September 18, 2009 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
There must be something in the Baucus plan that scares them. lol
September 18, 2009 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
And Lucy is holding the football and Charlie Brown is going to try one more time to kick it.
September 18, 2009 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, good grief!
September 18, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I liked the part where he said "not personally for me but for working Americans".
The problem with the video clip is that it ends abruptly after the quoted segment, and we don't know whether he added something afterwards that would have given his remark a different slant.
September 18, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question is: Is Bill O talking about the real public option or his guest's idea that a "public option" is merely tight regulation of the private insurance market?
September 18, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
And on Meet the Press last Sunday, Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) said, "Our goal ought to be, let's give the American people the same kind of choices that members of congress have ..."
I still think this is just another tactic, the GOP and their MSM minions pulling a reverse play, to mess with our heads. They're trying to get everyone so confused, that we won't remember who supported what and who to blame if health care reform fails.
September 18, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink