Before we get to the falsehood laced Obama rhetoric I’d like to commend the Anti-ObamaCare protesters who came out in Raleigh today. Well done Patriots! randyedye @ Randy’s Right posts videos & photos (check them out) of the welcoming committee and reports on the event.

I would like to compliment law enforcement and their support of appropriate freedom of speech.  The libs were the only ones that had to be asked numerous times to stay out of the street and quit blocking the sidewalks, yellow tape had to be put up around them.

The turn out of conservative protesters was enormous, libs had a small group, plain and simple.   Conservative Patriots lined the streets for blocks as Obama’s motorcade went right by  seeing all of them.

“It is wonderful to be back in Raleigh and back in North Carolina, a community and a state that has been so good to me. And I don’t kid myself. I know why. It’s because I always travel with one of your home-town boys, my right-hand man, Reggie Love.

It’s not only great to be in Raleigh, it’s also nice to get out of Washington every once in a while. (Dude! You spend more time on the road than you do in DC) With all the noise and fussing and fighting that goes on there, it’s pretty easy for the voices of everyday people to get lost, and for folks to forget why they’re there.

So when I took office in January, I asked to see ten letters from people across the country every day. And most of the letters these days are all about one thing: the economy. So before I take your questions, I want to spend a few minutes talking about where we are and where we need to go.

I don’t know whether you’ve seen the cover of the latest Newsweek magazine on the rack at the grocery store, but the cover says, “The Recession is Over.”

I bet you found that news a little startling. I know I did. Now, it’s true that we’ve stopped the freefall. The market is up and the financial system is no longer on the verge of collapse. We’re losing jobs at nearly half the rate we were when I took office six months ago.

So, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the recession. But that’s little comfort if you’re one of the folks who have lost their job, and haven’t found another. Unemployment in North Carolina is over ten percent today. A lot of small businesses like Sara’s are still struggling with falling revenues and rising costs. Health care premiums, for example, are rising twice as fast as wages, and much more for small businesses – something I’ll address in a minute.

So, we know the tough times aren’t over. But we also know that without the steps we have already taken, our troubled economy – and the pain it’s inflicting on North Carolina families – would be much worse.

Let’s look at the facts. When my administration came into office, we were facing the worst economy of our lifetimes. (blame Bush #1) We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. It was nearly impossible to take out home loans, auto loans, student loans, and loans for small businesses to buy inventory and make payroll. And economists across the ideological spectrum feared a second-coming of the Great Depression.

At the time, there were some who thought doing nothing was somehow an option. But we knew that what was required was action. We knew that ending our immediate economic crisis would require ending the housing crisis where it began. That is why we took unprecedented action to stem the spread of foreclosures by helping responsible homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages.

Ending this immediate crisis also required taking steps to avert the collapse of our financial system, which, as the Fed Chairman said the other day, was a real possibility. I know it didn’t seem fair to many Americans to use tax dollars to stabilize banks that took reckless risks. It didn’t seem fair to me, either.

And even though the bank bailout began under the previous administration, (blame Bush #2) it still was necessary. Because by unlocking frozen credit markets and opening up loans for families and businesses, we helped stop a recession from becoming a depression. And taxpayers are already being paid back – with interest. (LIE)

We also took steps to help a struggling auto industry emerge from a crisis largely of its own making. There was a strong argument to let General Motors and Chrysler go under, and I know many of you probably shared that view. If you made a series of bad decisions that undermined your company’s viability, your company wouldn’t be in business, and many folks didn’t see why these companies should be treated any differently.

But in the midst of a recession, their collapse would have wreaked havoc across our economy. So I said, if GM and Chrysler were willing to do what was necessary to make themselves competitive; and if taxpayers were repaid every dime they put on the line – it was a process worth supporting. We saved hundreds of thousands of jobs as a result – and expect to get our money back.

Even as we worked to address the crisis in our banking sector, our housing market, and our auto industry, we also began attacking our economic crisis on a broader front. Less than one month after taking office, we enacted the most sweeping economic recovery package in history – and we did so without any of the earmarks that waste tax dollars on pet projects. (BIG FAT LIE!)

Now, there’s a lot of misinformation out there about the Recovery Act, so here are the facts. To date, roughly a quarter of the Recovery Act’s funding has been committed, over 30,000 projects have been approved, and thousands have been posted online, as part of an effort to uphold the highest standards of transparency and accountability when it comes to our economic recovery.

The Recovery Act is divided into three parts. One-third of the money is for tax relief that is going to families and small businesses. For Americans struggling to pay rising bills with shrinking wages, we have kept a campaign promise to put a middle class tax cut in the pockets of 95 percent of working families – a tax cut that began showing up in paychecks about three months ago. (Just wait America Obamacare and it’s equally evil sibling Cap and Trade will wipe out that pittance- FAST You won’t know what hit you) And we also cut taxes for small businesses on the investments they make. (Ditto)

Another third of the money in the Recovery Act is for emergency relief that is helping folks who have borne the brunt of this recession. For Americans who were laid off, we expanded unemployment benefits – a measure that has already made a difference for 12 million Americans, including over 300,000 folks in North Carolina. We are making health insurance 65 percent cheaper for families relying on COBRA while looking for work. And for states facing historic budget shortfalls, we provided assistance that has saved the jobs of tens of thousands of teachers and police officers.

The last third of the Recovery Act is for short-term and long-term investments that are putting people back to work and building a stronger economy for the future. And we are already seeing the results of these investments here in Raleigh and across North Carolina. The Beltline is being resurfaced between Wake Forest Road and Wade Avenue. The Raleigh Durham Airport is renovating its runways.

The City of Raleigh’s transit system is building a new operations and maintenance facility. Over 500 young people are going to work as part of a summer youth work initiative. And water treatment plants are being renovated throughout the Triangle.

These are the kinds of projects being launched across this country to rebuild crumbling roads and highways, bridges and waterways with the largest new investment in our national infrastructure since Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.

Now, I know that some critics in Washington think we’ve been slow to get these projects started. They are saying we should have broken ground on all our highway projects on the first day. But everyone knows that’s impossible, especially because I wanted to be sure we did our homework and invested tax dollars only in those projects that actually created new jobs and jumpstarted our economy. (EPIC LIE -EPIC FAIL)

That took time. And we have already eliminated wasteful projects that haven’t met this test – because every taxpayer should have an assurance that we are investing their hard-earned tax dollars responsibly. (Fat chance of that happening)

So it will take time to achieve a complete recovery, and we will not rest until anyone who’s looking for work can find a job. But there is little debate that these steps, taken together, have helped stop our economic freefall.

That’s the story of the first six months. It has cost some money to do all this, although when I hear critics talk about out-of-control spending, I can’t help but remember that those same critics contributed to the $1.3 trillion deficit we inherited (blame Bush #3) when I took office – a debt that is partially a result of two tax cuts that went primarily to the wealthiest few and a Medicare drug program, none of which was paid for.

Now, because of that debt, a lot of people are saying we can’t go any further in tackling our problems, and we especially can’t do health care. I understand people feel like they have had to cut back, so why do a new government program now?

Well let me explain why the health of America’s people and America’s economy…

Last weekend, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) demolished Mr. Obama’s claims that his plan cuts the growth of future health spending and won’t add to the deficit. Responding to a White House proposal to create an independent panel to recommend Medicare cuts, the CBO said on Saturday that “The probability is high that no savings would be realized” in the next decade, while entitlement spending would rise $1.042 trillion. The CBO did say there might be $2 billion in savings in the second decade of the program—a pittance.

…..

On Sunday, the CBO released another torpedo at the burning hull of USS ObamaCare. Responding to an inquiry by Rep. David Camp (R., Mich.) about whether the House bill would run a deficit in its second decade, the CBO reported it would “probably generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.” The CBO does not believe that Mr. Obama’s proposal “bends” health-care spending down, as the president has repeatedly claimed it would. The CBO says it escalates above today’s rate.

By 2029, Mr. Hennessey estimates that new taxes will bring in $143 billion a year, while net new health spending will have increased by $348 billion a year.

…demand health insurance reform. Let me explain what reform will mean for you. (Your bodies and your lives will no longer be your own)

First of all, no one is talking about some government takeover of health care. Under the reform I’ve proposed, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. And if you’re one of the 46 million Americans (People INCLUDING 20 million illegal aliens) who don’t have coverage today, you will finally be able to get quality, affordable coverage.

But what a lot of the chatter out there hasn’t focused on is the fact that if you’re an American who already has health insurance, the reform we’re proposing will provide you with more stability and security. Because the truth is, we have a system today that works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn’t always work well for you. What we need, and what we will have when we pass these reforms, are health insurance consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and insurance companies are held accountable.

Let me be specific. We will stop insurance companies from denying you coverage because of your medical history. I will never forget watching my own mother, as she fought cancer in her final days, worrying about whether her insurer would claim her illness was a preexisting condition so it could get out of providing coverage. How many of you have worried about the same thing? How many of you have been denied insurance or heard of someone who was denied insurance because they have a pre-existing condition? That will no longer be allowed.

With reform, insurance companies will have to abide by a yearly cap on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. No one in America should go broke because of illness.

We will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms, colonoscopies, or eye and foot exams for diabetics, so we can avoid chronic illnesses that cost not only lives, but money.

No longer will insurance companies be allowed to drop or water down coverage for someone who has become seriously ill. That’s not right and it’s not fair.

And we will stop insurance companies from placing arbitrary caps on the coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. Whether or not you have health insurance right now, the reforms we seek will bring stability and security that you don’t have today – reforms that become more urgent and more urgent with each passing year.

In the end, the debate about reform boils down to a choice between two approaches. The first is projected to double your health costs over the next decade, make millions more Americans uninsured, and bankrupt state and federal governments. Now, I know a lot of you are probably thinking, that plan doesn’t sound too good. But that’s the status quo. (When Obama was a Senator he defended the status quo)

That’s the health care system we have right now. So we can either continue with that approach, or we can choose another one – one that will bring down rising costs; provide quality, affordable insurance to every American; and help us get our exploding deficits under control. That’s the health care system we can bring about with reform.

Back in Washington, there’s been a lot of talk recently about the politics of health care; about who’s up and who’s down; and what it will mean for my party or this presidency if health insurance reform is passed or defeated. But here in North Carolina, you know this isn’t about politics. This is about people’s lives. This is about people’s businesses. This is about our future.

And when our children and grandchildren look back on this moment, I don’t want them to say that we were focused on petty politics when we were called to something better. I don’t want them to say that we protected the status quo for special interests when we had a chance to reform health insurance for all Americans.

I don’t want them to say that we wasted our best chance – and maybe our last – to get health care right. I want my daughters and your sons to say that we seized this moment; that we rose to this challenge; and that, like our parents and grandparents before us, we left the United States of America more prosperous, more secure, and more hopeful than we found it.”

The Q&A

Okay.  So this is the town hall portion.AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)

Obama:  Sorry, I can’t hear you, sir.  Sir, I’ll be happy to take your question, but — all right, I’ll be happy to take your question, but maybe let’s do it in an orderly fashion. Thank you, sir, we appreciate you.

Where was I?  Here’s what we’re going to do.  We’re going to go girl-boy-girl-boy — (laughter) — we’re going to go around the room.  I’m going to try to take as many questions as I can.  If you can keep your answers short — or your questions short, I’ll try to keep my answers short.  And just raise your hand — I won’t be able to get to everybody.  There are people with microphones in the audience, so if you can wait until somebody with a microphone finds you, that way we’ll be able to hear your questions.  People with the microphones, can you wave, just so I can see you?  All right, there they are.

All right, so I said girl-boy-girl-boy — we’ll start with this young lady right here.  She’s coming with the microphone — the one in the white blouse.  And please introduce yourself if you don’t mind.  Why don’t you stand up so everybody can see you.

Q    Okay.  I’m so honored to be here and thank you for taking my question first.  Well, I’m really nervous.  I guess I want to ask –

Obama:  What’s your name?

Q    My name is Kim.

Obama:  Hey, Kim.

Q    And I’m here from the Chapel Hill area.

Obama:  Great.

Q    As the wife of a family physician, we see people not only coming into that specialty less and less often, but also leaving that specialty because it’s so, so hard as a young family to make that work — long hours, not great reimbursement, not great pay, with huge amounts of debt when you come out of medical school.  So what are you thinking of to entice more people to come into that speciality?  Because you can insure every person in America and if there’s not a physician there to see that person you still don’t have health care.  So what are you going to do to entice people to come — (applause.)

Obama:  This is a great question.  Just so everybody understands what we’re talking about here, it used to be that the most common type of doctor was the family physician.  You’d go in and they knew you and they knew your family.  And every once in a while you’d go to a specialist, but basically you were dealing with a family doctor.  Increasingly, the economics of being a primary care physician or a family doctor is a bad deal for a lot of medical students, because they come out with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.

But it turns out that a primary care physician, as Kim just pointed out, their reimbursement rates are lower; the system doesn’t reimburse for things like preventive care.  If they stop one of their patients from smoking, they don’t get reimbursed for that.  But they do get reimbursed if they’re a surgeon and they have to open up somebody’s chest.  Now, actually that first part of it is probably more valuable to the person’s health and to the society as a whole, but if it’s not rewarded, then fewer and fewer people go into that branch of medicine.

If we pass health reform — when we pass health reform — then what we’re going to — (applause) — and more people now have access to the system, it is going to be vital that we increase the number of primary care physicians.

The best way for us to do it is twofold:  One is to change how we reimburse; changes in the delivery system.  So what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to say, in all these systems, insurance companies, they should reimburse for preventive care.  If a health system is making sure that a diabetic is taking their meds or monitoring their diet, they should get reimbursed for that, not just getting reimbursed for the $30,000 foot amputation after somebody gets into real medical trouble.  So one thing to do is to change reimbursement so that the incomes of primary care physicians are more comparable with specialists.

The second thing is to provide scholarships and financial incentives for young medical students who are willing to go into the primary care field.  If you combine those two things — (applause) — if we combine those two things, then we can change I think the incentives for a lot of doctors so that we get more and more primary care physicians.

All right?  Okay.  It’s a man’s turn.  This gentleman right here.  We’ve got to find a mic for you.

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  My brother is — he has a family of four and two children.  His daughter is a disabled child — MS — and he receives Medicaid.  He managed — he works a job — he managed to save $3,000, and at this point Medicaid stopped all benefits helping him.  And I want to know, does your health care plan include reforms for the Medicaid system and these kind of injustices?  (Applause.)

Obama:  We have reforms for Medicare and Medicaid in terms of the delivery system.  Now, what you’re referring to is benefit levels and how they’re calculated, and that has not been the central focus of the reform initiatives we’ve been putting forward.  We’re going to have to examine some of those benefit mechanisms.  I have to tell you, though, it’s always a little bit tricky because, on the one hand, you’re right that your brother should be able to save up some money for emergencies or for a college fund or what have you, and not suddenly lose all their — the Medicaid benefits.  On the other hand, we’ve got to make sure that Medicaid isn’t used by people who could afford to pay for health care themselves.  So trying to find that balance is always difficult.

Without looking at your brother’s particular situation, I could not tell you exactly what needs to be done to modify it.  But I do think that under Medicaid and Medicare, we can make the system more efficient, and we can encourage better practices that will reduce the cost overall, so that would reduce cost for taxpayers and reduce cost for your brother.  And that is a goal, I think, that is a win-win for everybody.  It’s not going to solve all these problems but it’s important.

Okay, I’m going to turn back to one of these small businesses.  It’s a lady’s turn, though, sorry.  (Laughter.)  So we got one right here.

Q    Mr. President, is this on?

Obama:  Yes.

Q    My name is Patty Briguglio.  I own a company called MMI Public Relations. I have 20 employees and I provide health care benefits for them.  And so I wouldn’t blow it, I’ve written down my question.  What current long-term social program created and run by the government should we look to as a model of success and one that we as taxpayers should be confident that a new government-run health care system would be better than the current system in place?  In other words, what are you going to do differently?

Sidebar: Coincidence?

Patty Briguglio has been getting a lot of face time with President Obama lately.

In June, the president and CEO of MMI Public Relations, was invited to a town hall on health care. And on Wednesday morning, she found herself in Raleigh on stage sitting behind the President as he delivered his speech on health care.

Obama:  Well, let me say this.  Just in the health care arena, I point to two areas:  Medicare and the VA are both government-run health care programs that have very high satisfaction rates.  Generally, if you look at surveys, they have actually very high satisfaction rates.

Now, the VA, because it’s a self-contained system, meaning that people see patients year after year because they’re not — it’s not dependent on what job they have — they can actually do some things in terms of prevention and wellness and some of the things that I just talked about that have helped to lower their costs and improve quality of care in a pretty impressive way.

Medicare is a different situation because seniors really like Medicare generally, they appreciate the security that it provides.  And by the way, we’re in the 44th anniversary of the passage of Medicare.  Prior to that, senior citizens were extraordinarily vulnerable.  And so it is a successful program.

The problem with Medicare is the same problem that we have with the health care system generally, which is health care inflation has driven costs up.  That’s not unique to Medicare.  In fact, this is something that’s important to know — that health care inflation under Medicare has actually gone down at a — has actually increased at a lower rate than in the private sector, all right?

So let me repeat what I just said, because everybody always says, well, government can’t run anything.  Medicare costs have gone up more slowly than health care costs in the private sector. So the private insurance that you’re getting, you have actually seen your premiums go up faster than Medicare has cost taxpayers, even though seniors have high satisfaction rates with Medicare.

Now, having said all that, it’s all relative.  Medicare still needs to be a lot better and more efficient.  And there are examples of how we can make the entire health care system more efficient.  We know where these examples are — the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger, Kaiser Permanente — there are health systems around the country that actually have costs that are as much as 20 or 30 percent lower than the national average and have higher quality.

And so the question is, why is that?  What is it that they’re doing differently than other systems?  And there are some patterns that start coming into place.  For example, number one is that they have a patient-focused practice where instead of worrying about how they’re billing — so how many tests they’re ordering or how many procedures they’re ordering — all they’re focused on is the patient.  And part of what helps is their doctors are all on salaries so they don’t even know what the economics of any decisions that they’re making are.

Then it turns out you also have a group practice so that when you come in, the family physician, your primary care physician, has already coordinated with all the specialists.  So instead of having to go to four different doctors and four different tests, you go take one trip and you see all of them all at once, and they all help diagnose you and coordinate your care throughout the process.

They’ve got health information technologies so that when you take a test, it actually gets forwarded to the next doctor and the next doctor and to the nurse and the pharmacist, so that there aren’t any errors.  (Applause.)  So there are a whole range of practical things that they’re doing that are improving quality and lowering costs at the same time.

Now, there’s no reason that we can’t duplicate that in both private and public settings across the board.  But in order to do that we’re going to have to change how we reimburse for exams.  So we’ve got to say to doctors and hospitals, we’re not going to reimburse you for the number of tests you provided — we’re going to reimburse you instead for the quality of the outcome.

Here’s another example.  Right now we just reimburse hospitals no matter how many times they readmit you.  Now, if you took your car to the shop and they fixed it, or you thought they fixed it, and then two, three weeks later you go back in and they’re having to do the same thing, you wouldn’t feel good about paying twice for the exact same thing that you thought had been fixed.  But under Medicare there is no penalty to hospitals for having very high readmission rates compared to their peers.
So those are the kinds of things that can be changed.

Now, your broader question may just be:  I don’t have confidence in government.  But as I pointed out — I just want to go back to my original point, Medicare costs have gone up more slowly than private sector health care costs.  That is documented.

Q    Sorry, you do say that we know Medicare has this problem, that they’re paying for readmittance.  Why don’t we reform that now?  That’s a government program.  Why are we allowing that?

Obama:  That’s exactly what I want to reform.  (Applause.)  No, no, maybe I’m just — I don’t understand your question.  That’s exactly the changes that we want to make.  Those are exactly the changes that we want to make.  That’s what we’re proposing.

And what happens when we propose that is, then people start trying to scare you by saying — I mean, I’ve got seniors right now who are writing to me — let me address the seniors in the audience — I’ve been getting letters, people saying, I hear that you’re going to take my Medicare away.  I’ve received letters that say, I don’t want a government-run program, I don’t want socialized medicine, and by the way don’t touch my Medicare.  (Laughter.)  No, I do.

Because what’s happened is, in this debate, on the one hand, people are worried about change — they’re nervous that even though they may not be satisfied with what they have, what we create might be worse; and every proposal that you make, it’s very easy to use scare tactics to make people think that you’re going to lose your Medicare, we’re going to ration your care, et cetera — this is going to cost way too much.

And so part of my job is just to try to get the facts in front of people.  I want to make these reforms that you just talked about as part of the overall change in health care.  And by the way — here’s an important point — you’ve been hearing these figures that say, it’s going to cost a trillion dollars for this new health care program.  So then of course people think, well, we can’t afford that; a trillion dollars, that’s a lot of money.  First of all, just to keep it in perspective, that’s a lot less than we spend on the war on Iraq, but that’s — (applause) — but it’s still a lot of money.  Two-thirds of the cost to cover everybody in America — two-thirds of it could actually be paid for by money that’s already in the health care system that taxpayers are paying that’s being wasted.

So let me give you an example:  $177 billion over 10 years is spent on subsidies to insurance companies under something called Medicare Advantage.  There’s no showing that seniors are healthier using Medicare Advantage than using regular Medicare, but taxpayers, you fork over an additional $177 billion to them over 10 years.  You take that out, that right there helps pay for millions of people who could get coverage.

So we’ve already identified $500 billion to $600 billion worth of savings that are already being spent by taxpayers that would help pay for the reforms that we’re talking about.  (Applause.)  But you wouldn’t know that from watching the news.  And by the way, that — so a trillion dollars is over 10 years, so that’s $100 billion a year — $600 billion of it already paid for by money that you’re already using — that’s already being used, but just not used wisely in the health care system.  That’s what we’re talking about.  And for that we can have 40 million people who don’t have health insurance getting health insurance.

And small businesses, you’re already paying health insurance — so you’re already paying; you would get a tax credit — we’re putting $43 billion on the table to help reduce your costs directly, for your care.  (Applause.)  So 95 percent of small businesses would benefit from subsidies if they’re already providing health insurance for their employees.

And if they’re not providing health insurance for their employees — the problem is small businesses typically have a much tougher time getting health insurance and they pay higher premiums because you’ve got a smaller pool.  You’re only 20 people — it’s not like some big Fortune 500 company with a thousand people, they can drive a harder bargain.  You’ll be able now to join and access health care through a health care exchange that we set up so that you’re able to be part of a pool that can leverage lower prices.  (Applause.)

This is not something that is impossible to do, but we’ve got to overcome the understandable skepticism that somehow Washington can never get anything right.  I mean, that’s the biggest challenge we have right now, is just people sort of generally have skepticism about Washington.  And I — look, I understand that.  That’s why I ran for President, because I was skeptical about what was happening in Washington.  (Applause.)

All right, it’s a man’s turn.  This gentleman right up in front here.  He’s got a — he looks quite popular.  Everybody was pointing at him.

Q    Thank you very much, Mr. President.  My name is Bill Purcell.  I’m one of those primary care doctors you were talking about, a pediatrician.  I also have a little job in the North Carolina Senate.  (Laughter.)  But I can see in my practice a patient and make a correct diagnosis and prescribe the right medicine, but if a patient can’t afford the medicine, they don’t get treatment.  What can we do about the high cost of prescription drugs in America?  (Applause.)

Obama:  Since I gave a very long answer on the last one, (Filibustering) I’ll try to keep this one short.  We pay 77 percent more for prescription drugs in America than any other country does — 77 percent more than any other country.  Now, if you talk to the pharmaceutical industry, they’ll say, well, a lot of the research and development is done in this country, and that’s how we’re developing the great new drugs.  That accounts for maybe 20 to 30 percent of the difference in the cost.  The rest of it has to do with marketing.  It has to do with the fact that basically the pharmaceutical industry can get away with it.

And what happened when the prescription drug bill was passed several years ago under Medicare, they specifically prohibited you — they prohibited Medicare from negotiating with the drug companies for the cheapest available price on drugs; specifically said you cannot negotiate.  So what we’ve said is, in this reform process, we are going to turn that around.  (Applause.)

And to the pharmaceutical industry’s credit, they have sat down and started negotiating and they’ve already said — they’ve already put $80 billion in deep discounts and rebates on the table that would help to close the so-called doughnut hole that a lot of seniors are suffering under Medicare.  They’ve already committed to that.  That would cut the costs of the doughnut hole in about half.  So that’s a significant savings.  I think we can obtain more savings.

One other thing that’s being debated right now on Capitol Hill, though, that people need to keep an eye on — one of the way to lower prescription drug costs is to move to generics.  And the problem right now is, is that the drug companies want, after they’ve come up with a drug, they want to keep that patent for 12 years.  And there’s a debate about can we lower that to seven years before it goes generic so that people can enjoy lower prices on those drugs.

Those are some of the debates that will be taking place alongside the health care reform debate.  But overall, there’s no reason why we should not be able to at least pay in the ballpark of what other countries are paying for the exact same drug, and that will be a major focus in this health care reform legislation.  (Applause.)

All right.  It’s a woman’s turn — young lady right there who’s on the rail.

Q    Good afternoon, Mr. President.

Obama:  Good afternoon.

Q    First I wanted to thank you for your Supreme Court nomination — I mean, appointment.  (Applause.)

Obama:  She’s going to do well.

Q    And all the hard work that you’ve been doing on the economy and with the health care reform.  (Applause.)  I had the opportunity with my family last year to meet you in Bristol, Virginia.  My father gave you the cane to help you out doing the health care reform.  But my current question is, I consider myself an average American.  I worked for a corporate 500 company for 25 years and been unemployed for the past two years.  And I prepared to teach mathematics in the middle school system in my hometown in Virginia, which I haven’t gotten the opportunity to do that yet, but I volunteered in the school system and on your campaign.  So my question is, I believe that most average Americans are for the health reform, but they are afraid of change.  So what — what would you say to the average American, what do you believe the impact or the cost impact is for the average person that needs health care?

Obama:  All right.  If you already have health care, if you’ve already got health insurance, then I can’t guarantee that immediately you’ll have — your premiums will go — be cut in half, but what I can guarantee is, is that your costs will be lower than if we don’t have reform.  I believe that strongly.

So if we can just get to the point where your premiums are going up as fast or your wages or your profits or your income, that would be a pretty good deal.  Most people would take that.  And I think that we can start bending the curve on our costs.

I can definitely guarantee, if you’ve already got health insurance, that you won’t be barred from getting health insurance because of a preexisting condition; you won’t lose your health insurance if you change jobs or you lose your job; you’ll have more security in the health insurance that you have than you do now.  That will be written into the legislation.  That will be part of the overall reform process.

I can also say with some certainty that if we pass this health care reform proposal, that not only will millions of Americans who don’t have health insurance be getting insurance, but it will be much easier for small business owners to provide health insurance for their employees and to get health insurance for themselves — because a lot of small businesses, it’s not just a matter of getting insurance for your employees, it’s also just finding insurance yourself.  If you’re self-employed, good luck trying to find insurance right now.  And by being able to buy it through a health insurance exchange, you will then be part of a broader group that has leverage over the insurance companies and will be able to get a better deal for you.

So bottom line is your costs certainly will not go up and they very well could go down, depending on the kind of insurance that you have right now.  And if you’ve got health insurance we’re not going to ask you to change it.

Now, it is true — just full disclosure here — remember I said two-thirds of this can be paid for through savings in the system already.  If we’re going to cover everybody, then we’ve still got to pay for that one-third.  And that’s not an inconsequential amount.  That’s somewhere around $30 billion a year over the next 10 years.  And there are a bunch of different ways of paying for it.

I’ve suggested that we could pay for it just by reducing the itemized deductions for people who make over $250,000 a year, like myself.  And that right there would — that would pay for it.  There are other suggestions that are out there and we are still debating those in Washington.  The one thing that I’ve said is we’re not going have middle-class folks bear that burden — they can’t afford it right now.  (Applause.)

So for the average American, you stand to gain significantly if you don’t have health insurance.  If you do have health insurance, you will have more security.  And if you’re a small business, you will be in a better position to provide health insurance for yourself and your employees over the long term.

All right, I’ve got time for one more question.  And this gentleman right here has been waiting a long time.

Q    How are you doing, Mr. President?

Obama:  Good.

Q    Thank you for everything you’re doing — from my heart.  (Applause.)

Obama:  Thank you.

Q    This is more a political question than a technical question.  I wondered — I hear a lot, especially the opposition, complaining that they don’t have time to read these thousands of pages in your health care plan.  And I was wondering, on the one hand, we’ve been in this — all this has existed for a long time; what difference does a couple of months, so we allow them to read it?  And we just, you know, we just don’t hear that anymore.

Obama:  Good.  Well, let me just say this about sort of the politics of health care reform.

First of all, this bill, even in the best-case scenario, will not be signed — we won’t even vote on it probably until the end of September or the middle of October.  We’re just trying to get it — all these different bills out of committee.  So that means that any one of these senators, if they want to take this bill home with them during the August recess, they would have more than enough time to read it.  (Applause.)

So, second point:  We’ve been debating this for 40 years now.  So some of the folks — some of the folks sincerely want to get it right, and we want to give them enough time to get it right.  We don’t want to just do it quickly, we want to do it right.  But some folks specifically said on the other side, the more we can delay, the better chance we have of killing the bill — because what happens in Washington is the longer it takes, the more the special interests can start getting in there and trying to knock it down.  But –

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)

Obama:  Well, we did give them a deadline and sort of we missed that deadline, but that’s okay.

We are — here is my promise — and by the way, I’ve been keeping my promises since I got into office.  (Applause.)  We will not sign — I will not sign a health care bill that is not deficit-neutral, that is not paid for; I will not sign a bill that does not have all the reforms that we need to lower health care inflation over the long term.  We will not sign a bill that isn’t right for the American people.  (Applause.) (Promises…promises…broken ad nauseum)

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)

Obama:  I’m for the public option.  (Applause.)

So I just want everybody to know, Congress will have time to read the bill.   They will have time to debate the bill. (Hold on one damn second. You wanted it pushed through before the August recess. When there was not enough time for any of that. Tail between your legs?) They will have all of August to review the various legislative proposals.  When we come back in September, I will be available to answer any question that members of Congress have. (And put the screws to those who still are in opposition It’’s the Obama ThugOcracy way!) If they want to come over to the White House and go over line by line what’s going on, I will be happy to do that.  (Applause.) (LMAO! Right -Sure -Uh huh -Any more jokes?)

We are not trying to hide the ball here.  We’re trying to get this done.  But the American people can’t wait any longer.  (Applause.)  They want action this year.

Hey Obama! Most Americans are not stupid. And we do not appreciate you acting as if we are. So who is?

Just 23% believe health care costs will go down if health care reform is passed. Most (53%) expect prices would rise and 50% expect the quality of care would decline.

I want action this year. (Worried much about the 2010 elections? I think so) And with your help, we’re going to make it happen, North Carolina.

Thank you very much, everybody.  God bless you.

What To Ask Your Congressperson About Obamacare
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6

Just say no to “Government-Run Healthcare”!
Contact list of Congressional Members
Senators of the 111th Congress contact list
Blue Dog Dem contact list

Sign the Hands Off My Health Care Petition (OVER 169, 552 signatures so far!)

Read online at Scribd:  ‘‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009’’ House Health Care Bill

Previously:
Tweeting ObamaCare [Updated & Bumped]
GOP Communications to their Constituents Censored
Full Transcript: Obama Prime Time Press Conference ‘Health Care’ July 23 2009
Open Wide America Like It or Not Obama Wants to Shove “Reforma” Down Your Throats
ObamaCare Roundup!
Action Alert: Contact List of Blue Dog Democrats Tell Them to Vote NO on Obama Health Care
Action Alert: Parade Magazine Says YOU (Opponents of ObamaCare) Don’t Really Exist
Class Action Lawsuit: Stimulus Act Jeopardizes Patients Privacy Rights
Full Transcript & Video: Obama’s Staged Healthcare Town Hall Meeting Annandale, Va. July 1 2009
Transcript: Obama’s “Prescription for America” June 24 2009
Tell the ObamaCare Shills at ABC News and their Advertisers How You Feel
Full Transcript: Obama Health Care Town Hall Green Bay Southwest High School June 11 2009