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The Obama interview: Health care law 'the right thing to do'
U.S. President Barack Obama speaksin Largo, Md., on March 15, 2012.
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President Obama, in exclusive Marketplace interview, defended U.S. investment in alternative energy and called for more investment in the nation's infrastructure. Above, host Kai Ryssdal checks his notes during interview at the Copper Mountain solar plant in Nevada desert.
Jeremy Hobson: The president will be talking energy today in Cushing, Okla. -- that's the starting point for the southern part of the Keystone XL Pipeline. In January, the President blocked construction of the Northern leg of the pipeline because of environmental concerns, and that decision has become a hot button political issue.
But come Monday, the President will have another issue to worry about: the future of his health care law. The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week on the constitutionality of the overhaul.
Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal sat down with President Obama yesterday in Nevada and asked him about it.
Kai Ryssdal: Friday is, I'm sure you know, is the second anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, your health care law. It goes before the Supreme Court on Monday for what you can only call a marathon hearing. I wonder as you look at a country that still is divided over that law, if there's anything you would have done differently to be in this place now, getting ready to enact it, with more of a mandate, with more popular support?
Barack Obama: Well I would have loved to have gotten it done quicker, which is part of the reason why we designed a program that actually previously had support of Republicans -- including the person who may end up being the Republican standard bearer and is now pretending like he came up with something different.
It is a program that says we're going to continue to have a private marketplace for health care, but we're going to allow consumers to pool the resources. We're going to make sure consumers are protected, and we're going to make sure if folks who don't currently have insurance that they've got a means of doing it at a reasonable rate.
Ryssdal: Let me ask you the follow-on question about the Supreme Court on Monday: Assuming as I'm sure you do that you will prevail in the Supreme Court with the case over the individual mandate, you will have beaten in court 26 states -- that is the majority of states. You will have to depend on them to execute your plan to reform the health care system in this country, and yet they will be unwilling and unwelcome partners. Are you confident you can still get it done, even after all this acrimony?
Obama: Absolutely, because frankly, these lawsuits that were filed were basically uniformly filed by Republicans who wanted to score political points. And even some of those who filed suit are actually behind the scenes working with us to prepare for a day when we've got exchanges in these states where people can be part of a larger pool so they can get a bit better deal on their insurance.
And it will be very hard for any governor to explain why it is that they're not giving people -- and small businesses, not just individuals -- an opportunity to get cheaper health insurance, better deal, more protections because of some ideological argument that they're having with the president. And when people see that in fact it works, it makes sense -- as it's, by the way, working in Massachusetts -- then I think a whole bunch of folks will say 'Why aren't we trying it as well?'
And you know, historically, when you look at the history of Social Security, when you look at the history of Medicaid -- some of the same controversies have come up, some of the same resistances come up. But ultimately, when people actually saw that it was helping them, helping their lives; when young people find out right now that 2.5 million young people are getting health insurance who didn't have it because they can stay on their parents' plan; or seniors learn that, 'you know what, this is actually helping me reduce my costs for prescription drugs'; poor families and small businesses realize that they're in a better position to get health care -- over time, as it gets implemented, I think people will say this was the right thing to do.
"We should therefore abolish health insurance and reestablish medical care as a public service provided without charge for the betterment of the people. That will require a complete reversal of the President's policy and the overturning of his health care legislation."
Above statement by cpklapper states that medical care should be reestablished as a public service. If that were to be done, the government would have to pay for every visit to the doctor's office and every surgery performed - major or minor. That will be impossible to support. The republican party is already pushing for tax cuts. Where will the money for the procedures come from? Individuals will not be able to afford the tests needed for proper diagnoses. There will be no money available to pay for even simple x-rays. Medical services will regress to unconfirmed diagnoses. Surely, you are not advocating going back to the days when Quacks roamed across the country?
As I listened to this broadcast and the arguments stating that the government can't "force" anyone to buy insurance, I was seized by an almost irresistible impulse to make the call and cancel all of my auto policies... This is a ludicrous argument---I daresay those without health insurance impact us as much or more than those who do not and did not maintain auto insurance. Perhaps it is occasionally up to the legislators to make commonsense laws that benefit the majority. Seems to me they can't have it both ways...
I completely disagree with our President on health care on these points:
1. Health insurance is NOT health care.
2. Health insurance IS a scam. It allows employers and the government to leverage the patient's ability to pay medical fees. This greatly inflates those fees -- five times for the original 80/20 insurance -- which then burdens cash payers.
3. Health insurance should be abolished, not expanded. Then medical fees will decline to what the public can bear.
4. Expanding the insured base will increase the leveraging of medical fees and therefore the price per service. We saw this in the ramp-up of prescription drug prices when prescription plans were introduced.
5. Increasing the prices per service while trying to reduce the health insurance premiums would then lead insurers to economize on the number and kinds of services they cover, pleading "excessive costs". I feel fairly confident that the people of the United States would not applaud this false economy.
6. My participation in Van Irion's suit is based on my opposition to health insurance in any form and however provided. The government has no right to force me to buy a bill of goods.
7. I have been paying for my medical expenses out-of-pocket and reserve the right to haggle over the more egregiously excessive fees. This haggling benefits all who pay for medical services since it reduces prices and thus the costs which would have otherwise been pulled up by the higher prices at which those services were originally offered.
8. I am not alone in paying cash for medical services as that is common practice in many of the ethnic communities here in New Jersey.
9. Neither my fellow cash -payers or I are receiving "charity care". Rather, the insured are the ones receiving care subsidized by their employers or by government, and thus ultimately by the cash payers who buy the products and services sold by those employers and who pay the taxes to support public health insurance.
10. I have spoken and written quite publicly in support of non-insurance alternatives, both for Municipal Medical Departments to be federally funded and for a Subscription Medical Service (similar to the now defunct George Washington University Health Plan) to be run by the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey.
11. There never can be a true marketplace in health care for the very same reason that Estes Kefauver cited in his book "In a Few Hands" with respect to prescription drugs:
"He who orders does not pay; he who pays does not order."
12. Medicine has, by long tradition, been primarily a public service with the income of physicians sometimes supplemented by private practice. Health insurance has corrupted medicine in our time by privatizing it.
We should therefore abolish health insurance and reestablish medical care as a public service provided without charge for the betterment of the people. That will require a complete reversal of the President's policy and the overturning of his health care legislation.
You may find my column on this issue interesting: http://johnsonvillepress.com/economics-of-medicine-carl-peter-klapper/
