Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 7:48 PM
Sun Nov 22
11 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
tips@gawker.com
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder | Email
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield | Email
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate | Email
Media:
Hamilton Nolan | Email
Politics:
Alex Pareene | Email
Investigations:
John Cook | Email
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan | Email
Nights:
Adrian Chen | Email
Azaria Jagger | Email
Ravi Somaiya | Email
Weekends:
Foster Kamer | Email
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley | Email
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
07/23/09
I'm pretty sure this presser was for people like me, and not snarky blog editors.
07/23/09
The Gates comments, alas, show he is immature and has poor judgment; he's impulsive. Sitting presidents do not and should not casually comment about ongoing police matters, regardless of what he thinks. He even admitted he didn't know "the facts" yet he jumped right in. That's even scarier than the generic health care blah blah blah.
07/23/09
07/23/09
At the "presser" I was watching Obama discussed capping income tax deductions on the wealthy to help pay for this because he doesn't want to burden the already encumbered middle class. He also claimed his proposal would cover 2/3rds of the costs, leaving one-third to be worked out. He also cited examples, such as saying his proposal would eliminate insurance industries' freedom to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. (That's a nice detail.) Those are details I heard him mention, and I only watched 5 minutes of the speech.
Obama has been sneaky and evasive on other fronts, like breaking his promise to shut down Guantanamo. But when it comes to this I think he's probably wise not to turn his press conference into a complicated lecture about the mechanics of his national health care proposal. (And we have this wonderful thing called the Internet, where the curious can find more and more details as this issue progresses.) If he had turned his press conference into a lecture with charts, people would still find reasons to fault him. Instead of being too vague, the criticism would have been that he threw too many numbers at us.
Americans are masters of finding something to complain about in just about anything. Anything a president says or does, X% of Americans will say it's evil and wrong. He will not please everyone, but if he lowers my cost and gets rid of stupid pre-existing condition clauses in insurance contracts, he's got my support. If it means millionaires can only write off $3,000 worth of taxes instead of $6,000, I really don't care because that is not my problem.
07/23/09
As much as Republicans like to claim they're on the side of small business, if that were actually true, they'd have been screaming for the sort of reform President Obama wants years ago. It would have been done, and that's that. Unfortunately, GOPers have a nasty habit of musing loudly and publicly about how things ought to be, while at the same time refusing to do anything at all that might bring that state to reality.
And I agree that the whole point of this presser was not to lay out a detailed plan, but to remind people why we want and desperately need health care reform. It was mainly to neutralize the wharrgarbl coming from the other side of the aisle that is affecting certain spineless Democratic members of Congress. That is what he did; I hope it takes.
07/23/09
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/us/23race.html
07/23/09
07/23/09
uh, that IS their solution...also, in my opinion, the most likely outcome. to the people who "matter" (i.e. olds, riches, people with "real jobs"), healthcare for those who don't matter (poors, youngs, people who don't have "real jobs") just isn't much of a concern, from what I've seen.
07/22/09
I actually thought that the press conference wasn’t a complete strike out… But an Oval Office address would have been much more effective. These Q&As need to end. I’m tired of having to see Jake Tapper go all arrogant dick mode whenever he speaks. Spare me, pls.
07/23/09
07/22/09
Yes, Obama was short on specs. And yes, I am disappointed in that. However, IMO, you're going way too far in labeling the entire thing as a failure. Obama was really not talking to liberals tonight, and he was not really intending to address the particulars of his plan.
He was primarily addressing the issue of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats, both of whom are caving in to pressure from the insurance industry. For instance, Sen. Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is a direct beneficiary of contributions from the insurance lobby. It's not for nothing that Obama stressed that Congressmen had great health insurance. He was making it clear to the American people living in Blue Dog states that their representatives' asses were covered no matter what. Blue Dog Democrats are the people who're actually holding up healthcare reform right now, not Republicans. What Obama did tonight, by talking up his healthcare plan was to bypass the middleman, talk directly to citizens in Blue Dog states and undermine the Blue Dog Senators' efforts to sabotage healthcare reform. Specs would have helped make a better case, for sure. But the lack of them does not make his press conference a failure.
07/22/09
07/23/09
07/23/09
I work in the medical-industrial complex and all this quibbling, bitching and posturing over politics and soundbites will stop movement forward as if our train just ran into the wall.
These are the facts: Everyone will get sick. Everyone will eventually develop a terminal process. Some are quick. Some are slow. The slow ones can be held in check, like diabetes, until a faster process takes over and the curtain closes.
We will go to doctors or to the emergency room if we don't have insurance. Medicaid (in California it is Medi-Cal) will pay for it if we're poor. If we have assets, we will lose them to save our lives. Our family members will lose right along with us.
We can pay for it now, when its cheap, as in the case of early diabetes, or we can pay for it later as in the case of amputations and dialysis for under-treated diabetes. EITHER WAY, we are all going to pay.
So, doesn't it make more sense to provide health insurance for everyone, to give patients access to professionals who will stress preventative medicine and risk modification, just like other developed nations do? Because either way and deal with the reality, you and I are going to pay.
I'm guessing that if some smart person pulls out their big calculator, and figures in lost productivity for just complications from the flu every year, it will show we have ourselves a big-ass problem.
Now get serious about solving it!
07/23/09
Overall, I think it’s a sad reflection on the level of discourse in our Country, but pointing out that Congress has great healthcare, emphasizing that people will still have their choice of plans & highlighting the cost of healthcare to families that they aren’t even full aware of… well, these are the points that we need to get across to the Blue Dog Dem’s constituents. Assuming that was the goal of the press conference, I don’t think it was a total failure for Obama.
07/23/09
07/23/09
Now, if reporters were demanding details, they should have asked for them. They had a golden opportunity to do so. They had the undivided attention of the President of the United States for nearly a whole hour. When you ask this President a question, he tries to answer it thoughtfully, clearly, and thoroughly. My question to them, and to The Cajun Boy, is why did they ask the usual inane questions instead of going after the sort of details we were supposedly hoping for?
07/23/09
07/23/09
07/22/09
07/22/09
07/22/09
07/22/09
07/22/09
basically noting that the segment of the population that already gets government sponsored health insurance (medicare) is also the group MOST opposed to expanding healthcare coverage.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/1970s-health-care-counterfactuals.php
Don't you fuck this up for us, olds!
07/22/09
07/22/09
07/23/09
07/23/09
07/22/09
I think the police will wear it longer.
07/22/09
Somehow it is easier to urge your country into a decade or more of brutal war than to guide the US into joining the rest of the civilized world in providing healthcare for its citizens.
It would be a huge shame if so little of Obama's promise - or should I say what Obama promised the US electorate - was realised.
07/22/09
Also, was anyone else hoping for a Matrix reference when Obama started on the "take a red pill or a blue pill"??