Without a manufacturing base, no industrialized country can afford health care, And debt never lestfanyone truly healthy.

When manufacturing leaves, innovation is not far behind. Designers and engineers usually like to visit the shop floor as inventions become reality. Perhaps Wall Street forget this in its haste to gut America's golden industrial goose. ..

David,

Thank you for your insight and perspective. You are one of the few commentators I actually listen to. Again, thank you.

I'll listen just because I like to hear him talk. However, I believe you are right on this having to be a game changer. I think he himself intends to be the game changer. Presenting his own version of reform in clear and concise terms (something he excels at I might add), Congress has to worry that Americans WILL adopt his version because its spelled out. He's good at giving us the bottom line. He's good at keeping his facts and numbers straight. He's good at making an argument. He's good at "guilting" people into commiseration too by throwing the numbers out there in just the right order of importance etc. The fact is those that don't watch will probably read it. Those that don't read it or watch it didn't want to know, already have good health insurance and aren't worried about losing it, or are too busy making assumptions about the content of the speech and will miss the opportunity to see where he really stands on this issue that he personally has made a goal for congress to achieve. He's not pushing his agenda...he's presenting it.

Is it that tough of a job to demystify the healthcare problems we face and present them as facts in a persuasive argument for specific reform that should be
best adopted? If obamacare isn't spelt out succintly it might not fly... And so be it, then be reexamined.

I guess he's going to rehash the same story for all of us to hear again. How many times can you really say the same thing and get people to hear you? Obama, please stop. The momentum has shifted against you.

Myself, wish it were not about a speech, or a game changer, per se, draining that 30 footer – Wish it were just about substance & the dialogue of real common sense, responding to others & asking what others thougth, so they too could be respected & heard & it was all about all of us, instead of all about the POTUS – sad, we've come down to all about the POTUS

Hey Heidi,

Have you been watching the same thing I've been watching over the last few months.

Obama has not clearly stated what he wants, not has be had his facts and numbers straight – or do you believe doctors perform surgery just to enhance revenues too?

Those of us who listen carefully, but are not enchanted as you are, recognize that he wanted to make major changes on the health care system without regard to what those changes were – that's why he let Congress define the changes.

I love how this is an "emergency" because they say it is.

If this doesn't take effect until 2013, why cram just anything down American throats FAST? Why can't we get a sensible bill that people can understand? Why can't they understand that Medicare and Medicaid are broke? I want our finances hashed out before we commit ourselves to a few TRILLION more dollars (does trillion mean anything anymore?) in spending.

I don't have a pup in this hunt - I'm an independent. I'm all for sensible reform. But I don't want to be steamrolled into more debt as a nation - it won't help anyone to get free (non-)healthcare from a non-existent health system in a non-existent country.

I love David Gergen, but he's worried about the score, and not about whether the team bus has gas to get to the game.

I don't care what Obama says tonight- it's time to "stick a fork" in the public option.

@Heidi,
President Obama is a great orator, but not yet a great communicator. Thus far, his speeches have tended to be pleasing fluff, rather than substantive. He also isn't honest. He has repeated many assertions about reform that, if you read HR 3200, simply are not true. He knows better, but still offers lines like, "If you like your present plan, you can keep it!" HR 3200 says otherwise, as there is a five year horizon beyond which you won't have a choice: you'll have the public option that is anything but optional. And, if your plan changes in any way, you are out of it and into the public (un)option. The danger is that, being as likeable as he is, people will believe him because they want to, and because he does hit the empathy button well ... and buy into a deal that is a disaster.
For a president, presenting an agenda is pushing it. What he does to support that agenda other than present it determines how hard he is pushing it. But presentation IS pushing, no matter what you think.

If President Obama doesn't come through tomorrow he can always give another speech, that seems to work.

9-8-09
Yes! i feel President Obama can overcome anything he put his mind to. For example Concerning the message speaking to the students
there was parents accusing the message was to Brainwashing or
Supporting health care plan they the parents was all about face wrong.
President Obama overcame that Challenges.There was many many
students heard his message. It's a matter of time before President
Obama will meet the Challenges on this Health Care Plan.

People complain when Obama doesn’t talk enough and then that he talks too much. Unfortunately we seem to only be motivated by crisis. I think we are in one, I hope Obama can convey that message.

I'd like Obama to deliver the facts. We already pay for those who don't have health insurance and we already pay for the illegals. Everytime we pay a hospital bill or doctor bill and each time we mail that insurance premium or have it deducted from our paychecks we are paying for them. Neither Obama nor his administration have pinpointed the amount of "our" money already being spent on health care for the uninsured. If the American people actually knew the facts they might be more willing to opt for a Public Option. When 75% of the people in many emergency rooms DON'T have health insurance who do you think is picking up that bill? We are! Wake up.

He must say something dramatic that is a game changer. Maybe tort reform. If he can point to the reduction of defensive medicine and insurance premiums, he might be able to claim a bill that is under $500 billion. Better to risk the wrath of the trial lawyers than to parrot the same thing and get nothing.

His public perception is quite different than what it was before his election win. Americans know him a little now... and what they see they aren't sure about. His sheen is gone. He is seen as a liberal politician now and has done little to stand up to the "change" standard he built for himself. His speech will be a good one but it wont change the minds of the independents and that is who he needs.

David G. I've yet to hear a single proponent of Obamacare tell us how we pay for it and keep Obama's twin promises of no tax increases and no deficit increase. I'm sorry but 'trust me' doesn't work, particularly after the massive stimulus which apparently hasn't done a thing. If there's all that waste in the present system, let's fix that first and PROVE it. Then with the savings in the bank we can think about expanding coverage. I'm not convinced that if the public option exists my employer won't just eliminate my current plan trowing me into a goevernment run mess ala Cash for Clunkers. I don't believe that defacto rationing won't occur. I just moved to MA where there is mandatory health insurance. When I went to see a new doctor, I was told there was a 6 month wait and the reason given was the MA law. That's what the entire country will be like under Obamacare.

That's your opinion Dan! the momentum is just beginning!

David:

The close minded people ( on both sides ) are not going to come along. He has to articulate a healthcare/insurance reform program that can satisfy the vast amount of us in the middle. Combine the best out of all these bills and really articulate why that this reform is so important to the whole country

The very fact Obama needs to give yet another "speech" shows the looming failure. Most Americans do not support the proposed House bills based on the facts.

Obama certainly is very eloquent and he will give a soaring speech, yet it changes nothing substantive.

People who are happy with their healthcare will be doubtful that a 1,100 page bill of legalese means "nothing changes" and they can "keep their healthcare". Doctors will not like the big cuts to their income.

Seniors will still be terrified of rationing and treatment approval delays a la Europe. Seniors are scared of a bill that will take $500 Billion out of Medicare funding. Young, healthy people will not like that they are going to be forced to carry health insurance [I think they should get insurance, but Obama should not expect costly mandates to be popular with those voters]. Libertarians will not like the government controls. Small business owners are scared of the costs and the ramifications on their own company plans. The wealthy are of course concerned of the tax increases, and the average Joe should be concerned as anyone who enjoys a Flexible Spending Account will lose it under Obamacare.

And all taxpayers will rightfully be concerned about the costs, especially in an era of record deficits.

Obama will say illegal immigrants will not be covered, yet at the same time he will say all 46 million uninsured will be covered. Because 13 million of the 46 million are illegal immigrants, what he is saying is logically impossible.

Americans see through the Obama haze, so it will be a great speech but it will not change the facts. People do not sign up for massive change of something they are fairly happy with personally, unless they are certain of the outcome.

This President like no other President needs to address the Pharmacological companies high costs.

Then take away all of Congress, Senate and House of Represetaties health coverage to prove our Government is not above the average citizen. (Cutting their retirement would be nice)

Sadly, I know he will not.

How many speeches has he given on health care reform? How will this be different? Who has the patience to listen? More high oratory on taking out tonsils and cutting off limbs? Raise your hand if you are not both wary and weary.

Obama is the most tedious and pedantic person to ever become president; he has a poor track record on executive decisions. The stimulus failed to keep unemployment under 8% as Obama and his Democrats predicted. Why should any reasonable voter put any faith in Obama's and his Democrats' predictions on health care and savings from his and the Democrats reforms; their predictions will turn out wrong again. Reasonable people must start to oppose Obama and his Democrats.

Half of the country ( I like to call them citizens) will be watching the speech to confirm that this president wants to turn us into a banana republic. Thirty percent are hoping he turns us into a banana republic because it reminds them of their homeland. Ten percent like bananas and the president will ensure they get all they can eat (or whatever). The rest of the population are actually still citizens of their banana republics (I like to call them illegal aliens)–these are the ones who actually stand to gain from what the President is selling.

It seems to me that things made a sharp turn "south" in the health care debate that I don't believe has ever started, first with Republicans in Congress, and then to a much greater degree with the shouts, rants and raves that came with the town hall meetings. Most congressional republicans have shown that they only want to complain rather than write a bill. The town-hall meeting crowd acts as though they've been waiting in the wings for an excuse to pounce on Obama simply because they don't like him. It seems they are inflamed by media who want to see Obama fail, hardly a radical thought since a Congressman names Demint, voiced it publically.

Hard to see how this turns things around. He has wallowed in the cult of celebrity and now suffers from overexposure; his elderly, white and independent supporters are jumping ship en masse. People are becoming tired of him. The clear path is to slam home the insurance reforms that you have in hand, and live to fight another day. In the end, few liberals are going to vote against that. Sooner or later, he is going to have to anger the perpetually angry left anyway, as his presidency depends on a course change to the center. Why not now?

I welcome the kind of hubris that inspires a man to tell us that he can still hit the three pointer. Pride goes before destruction.

Will Obama continue the lies? If you like your insureance you can keep your insurance? Not. We will just tax the rich and it will cost you nothing, Not. There will be no rationing, Not. The government will not bcome between you and your doctor, Not.

Obama has been telling lies for months. Just because the media will not highlight the lies, dows not make them the truth.

Fortunately, the American people are finally figuring out they cannot trust Obama.

I am confused. Obama has given 111 (at last count) speeches about health care reform. A huge majority of voters are against it. Almost 60% are passionately against it. Only 13% of the country is passionately for it. Obama has lost the fight. He's like a punch drunk boxer, who tries to win by flinging punches at the air. He is an embarrassment to any thinking adult.

Obama needs to lay out his cards. Say what he wants in detail. Then make the arguments for what he wants. He cannot be vague or lie or spin. If he is upfront and wins that is fine. If he is up front and looses gracefully that is fine also. But any attempt to BS will fail. If what he proposes is an instant or gradual move to single payer he has to be honest.

He has to be honest on what this will cost.

This is hard and the left will freak but ramming one thing through while claiming something else will be a disaster for him.

It's time to be President and get off the campaign. Firing Axelrod and Rahm would be great steps forward.

His biggest problem is not the politics but it is the facts. the vast majority of Americans have health insurance. Though it cost too much and additonal regulation would be helpful, people are again happy with the health care they get. That is a tough fact for people advocating whole sale change. Another fact that does not help is that the real number of uninsured is around five million rather than the 50 million used to sell reform. When you take out the illegals, those making over 50 grand a year and those who are already eligible for medicaid but have not yet signed up you are left with about 5 million. It is hard to sell a 1 trillion dollar plan that only benefits 5 million people. He is probably smooth enough to sell this thing but it will be an anchor around the necks of the dems once the american people see the big cost and little benefit.

If we are lucky, none of the three will happen.

George Will stated Sunday that BO has already given 112 talks/speeches/Pressers on Healthcare, so what difference is number 113 going to make? Just a lot of noise! One speech is NOT going to change anyones mind as long as we are In a RECESSION.

3 up, 3 down – hopefully it will be the end of the inning and we can move on. Nothing so important and so transformative should be rushed just to "save" a political party.

The Republicans had the chance to fix healthcare and DID NOTHING!!! Sit back, be quiet and let the NEW ADMINISTRATION take charge. Remember, the MAJORITY of the US voted for him and want his change to happen NOW!!!! It is time for change.

President Obama ,would, in my opinion be foolish not to adopt the Massachusetts Health Care Program initiated in 2007 under previous GOP Governor Mitt Romney. The "Bay State Health Care Program Act" is a resounding success under the umbrella of "Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority" operating with great diversity under five sub-contractors that must legally insure all citizens residing in the Bay State. The program has great efficientcies that are fair,and equitable to all policy holders in Massachusetts.

The fact that the democrats have not even mentioned tort reform tells me that they are out to will political battles, not help health care. Until Doctors can practice their medicine without looking over their shoulders at some ambulance chasing trial lawyer, we will continue to spend millions on unnecessary cya tests. Finally, if you want competition (no public plan!) let the insurance companies compete across state lines. This would increase competition dramatically and give americans more choice.
It's interesting to note that the only options the Dems are interested in are the options that give them more power and control over the American people.

I'm sorry. I can listen to him no longer. I voted for him. I still kind of like him.

But no more will I be his shill. I'm out of energy.

Tomorrow's speech will be more platitudes and generalities.

The problem President Obama faces is that Americans are arguing over whether all Americans should have access to health care. It is irrational for people to oppose abortion and right to life, but allow people to die because they don't get the primary care they need to prevent becoming emergencies. Yes, a person dying can get seen in an emergency room, but how many people die because they get to the emergency room in the latter stages of their illness? There is a reason why America has one of the highest infant mortality rates of all the countries in the world. Maybe when 100 million people are without health care access someone will address the problem.

I am so happy my parents live in France and have a great health care!!!

No matter how many speeches he gives… No matter how many words he uses.. Borak Obama is never going to be the person he claims to be.. Borak Obama has no power or over the Economy.. !; no power over the weather; no power over the time of the day. Fact is that Borak Obama doesn't have the power to even take a simple breath on his own! And no matter what he says or how many speeches he gives.. Facts are Facts. Not even the devil himself has power over mankind. I wouldn’t stay up late or get your hopes up fallowing such arrogant man who glides and flourishes on such disparity of fate.

My opinion of our president has plummeted. He has so disappointed me. His speech on Monday to the labor goons showed his true stripes - he is a bitter partisan extremist. He insults hard working Americans, hates law enforcement, coddles terrorists, and uses union thugs to enforce his "laws".

It is sad, but Glenn Beck is starting to look like a lone voice of reason. The media has not looked into the radical being hired with our tax dollars.

David,

Your comments, as always, are reasoned and reasonable.

This is a crucial moment in our nation's history. Obama is facing
so much, and he is reaching for so much. Not since the Kennedy/Johnson years has a President attempted to make such
a positive difference in working class lives.

No wonder labor was applauding so loudly on Monday.

I hope they are still doing so on Thursday.

Don Winter

The problem with Medicare and everything else too for that matter is there are too many fee-loaders who try to rip off the various systems. Too much Administrative dead wood at the top. People who do not earn their salaries. Everything needs a hard-nosed troubleshooter to shake the systems up and make them more efficient. The money that is wasted boggles the mind. Thank you.

Mr. Obama is doomed to fail because he - as with Leftists across the board - would prefer to demonize dissent than to honestly address the rightful concerns of the people.

When the Left calls their opponents Hitler they get a lot of agreement in their echo chambers in the elite halls where they now dominate (univerities, the Hollywood hills, etc)...but real Americans recognize that the senior citizen and the vet at these town hall meetings, far from being "Hiters" are the ones who fought Hitler and are again fighting people who think of themselves as The Master Race (Liberals) - or The Anointed.

Obama needs to go back to the theme that he hit on during the campaign: You can't fix the deficit until you fix health care. Whether that's achievable or believable is a different matter. However, he has to remind people of why they voted for him in the first place.

The President needs to listen to the majority, if not, it will be the end of his career. It's already too late for the Senators and Congressmen who aren't representing their constituants any more. they will be replaced starting next year.
The President will do good if he starts representing instead of telling. If not, he won't be around long either!

I am so happy I live in the U.S. and not France where they pay 18% of their earned income in taxes for substandard, rationed health care.

Shirely Hall: You make a great point. Yes we do pay for the uninsured already. We have as a country, not allowed those who are severely ill or injured to go without medical attention and that's something I ladmire about we Americans as a people. I don't believe there are many Americans, no matter how anti health care reform or Obama they may be, would want sick people to go untreated. Truthfully the public option maybe less expensive than what we are paying now.

Beatrice, I am also happy your parents live elsewhere.

What happended to that great "cash for clunkers" program?; they had to cancel it early for mismanagement of the budget and dealers still have not been paid. How can we trust government bureaucrats and politicians to manage a healthcare system which comprises 16% of our GDP when they cannot even handle a simple program like that? They have mismanaged Medicaid and Medicare (they are going broke), they misappropriated the Social Security trust fund (Democrats under Johnson's administration got that one through Congress) and that is also broke, we have surging budget deficits which are burdening generations long after we are all gone from this earth, after promising us how they would set up recovery.gov website to show us how every cent of the stimulus is being spent (giving that task to the moron Joe Biden was not smart either) without any detailed reporting there after so many months, and we have a Federal Reserve chairman who uses the taxpayers money to bail out the bankers and brokers, but does not feel compelled to be accountable as to where the money has gone...all of this and they still want us to trust them with healthcare? What Gall!!!

IMO Obama has lost the Center on this issue and his best bet would be to pass a health insurance regulation bill (popular on all sides) and declare victory. Then, get the economy back on track; if unemployment is below 8%, the Dems won't do too bad in the 2010 elections. Then...after the elections...Obama can tackle fundamental reform (with renewed credibility from the improving economy). Reform that starts in the Center.

The "trigger" plan in which the government will start a public option if private insurers are unable to control costs, and provide availability that the government deems necessary is ridiculous.

Firstly, do people really believe the government is capable of being more efficient than the private sector? If this were the case, there would not be the public uproar against the public option that exists today. The fact is that the government is not capable of providing healthcare (or virtually anything else) any more efficiently than private industry. It is totally illogical to have a plan which places a totally inefficient system (the government) in place when a more efficient system (private industry) cannot achieve what the government wants.

The government already has way too much control over my life. I do NOT want the government involved with my healthcare any more than it alreay is.

Signed,
An Independent Minority Voter

How is it that children are encouraged to write letters to Santa, Tooth Fairy or other imaginary beings but forbidden to write "our" president in order to help him make "our" country better? It's sad day when the education of our future is politicized!

I have no health insurance because I am unemployed. I am fifty-five and judging from the results of a year old job search, unemployable. I am fast drawing down my retirement savings, and will soon be out of money. And the President is considering Max Baucus's health care plan that would FINE people for not getting insurance? Fines up to $3,800 according to reports. I am supposed to subsidize insurance companies when I can't pay my rent? I voted for President Obama but I am not sure I'd do so again. He seems not to know what is happening outside Washington (which–I just visited–is bizarrely prosperous with 17th and 18th Street restaurants full of people). Maybe he should helicopter over to one of the small towns on the Eastern Shore and find out what the world is really like. Health insurance is not the biggest priority for people who can't get work.

It's funny, I don't seem to see any of the dissenters to health care reform knocking on the doors of those of us who have lost a child to brain cancer, lost a parent to Alzheimer's, and lost a spouse to heart disease. Evidently, health care reform only matters when you're healthy? How sad it is that we are debating such an issue.

Obama needs to get out of campaign mode and become presidential. All of his speeches to date have sounded like his campaign speeches. He needs to start acting like a president.

Unless he can give us a detailed plan and tell us the truth about that plan, his speech will be a failure. He needs to tell us where health costs will be reduced and how. It can't all be from insurance company profits – I doubt there is all that much to be reduced just from profits. He needs to present a plan that reduces the cost of medicine.

Obama is a personality, and the cult of personality will fail. Mark my words. But what Obama has given us Republicans is clarity. With clarity comes purpose. Election victories will follow—GUARANTEED.

I hope someone runs the CNN top story at this moment of doctors dropping immunizations of children because they are not being covered by insurance companies. Does anything more need to be said of the drastic reform needed to health insurance? Can someone please run this into President Obama and ask him to work it into his speech?
Also- will the President be using charts and graphs (a la Ross Perot) to simplify and direct his plans for healtch care reform so that the Average Joe and Jane can understand the major points of confusion and distortion, and then rally around his plan?

Gary's comment is:

President Obama will do his best to put his point forward in reguard
the health care issues in this country. Many people say he has over
extended his hand, well I think someone in the White House is finally
showing a hand unlike the last eight years of slumber and allowing
the country to run wild and no one seemed to care. So I say to my
fellow Americans give our President a chance to pull this off, I think
our country is starting to come around in other areas, lets give health
care a chance as well. I am willing to stay with him on this issue.

Why sure, give another speech. It's about all this one trick pony is good for. He's never run anything but his mouth and it's showing now big time.

Not all change is automatically for the better. We got rid of one President who was in over his head and now we have another.

The true sign of a succesful Executive is a person who comes in when change occurs, evaluates a situation very thoroughly, understands all the players and then makes his move. Obama has been in office all of 8 months, talks left, right, center, up and down all at the same time and is changing everything. He just got done pumping trillions of dollars into the system... and without seeing the effects of anything in that area is singlehandedly now changing healthcare in a way that is very significant. Does he ever stop to think that if there is a down side to all his changes and they all occur at once, what shape the country will be in... It took 250+ years for the U.S.A to get to where it is. It looks like Obama has plan to change the very cornerstones of the financial, medical and every other system that came into place over that time frame in just 4 years... wow he must be superman... or maybe he is just doing stuff without really knowing the consequences... If it is the latter we can be in for some real shock... has anyone seen the price of gold lately... over $ 1000 an ounce and we have not even seen the effects of all that printing happening at the federal reserve yet.. Granted he did not create that problem but since he is tasked with fixing it, should he not just slow down a bit and take a deep breath, what is he trying to prove? I voted for him as did my entire family that can vote and I will tell you, we are all having our doubts right about now.....

Well, his message has been polluted by those liars about them "death panels". It just distracted everybody and once somebody took them out of the bill very quietly, it didn't make no difference any more.
I'm with Obama. I don't want some doctor with a boat payment due sawing off my leg for $30,000 when it is fine, and I don't want some avaricious doctor taking out my kid's tonsils for a big payday when all he's got is a sore throat. Obama will fix that problem. And it is a problem or Obama wouldn't say it was.

David, just in case you haven't figured this out: Obama is a very capable individual who has overcome many challenges in his life. He has every reason to be confident in himself, and I am confident in him. Its great having a great man in the Oval Office.

suspicious timing by cnn on the main story tonight. how the "evil" insurance companies won't pay enough for vaccinations. wow. it's almost like obama gave the order..."go out and hunt down anything negative you can about the current system, then plaster it all over the news!" uh, mission accomplished?!

I am still a fan!! The American people, Republican or Democrat, need to come together for the betterment of this country. It still amazes me that after all these years, we are still talking about health care and how expensive it has become...get real. If nothing is done at all, there will continue to be more people without it and those who have it will continue to pay a much higher premium. Meanwhile, what about the health care facilities that could possibly go broke. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!

I'm already paying 35% of my income in taxes, and we still can not pay for our current and future obligatios. Why are we creating a multi trillion dollar new one? Stop running the country into the ground please. I wish these people would get there hands out my pocket and let me make my own choices. If you really must legislate something, that knock down the barriers that prevent health care insurance companies form competing like auto, property and life insurance companies. Address malpractice tort reform. Let the consumer decide what they want in a policy, if any for that matter. I want our elected oficials to figure out how to spend less and make good on our present obligations first. Then let's talk about it.

Obama and the left would be wise not to try and shovel this GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER of health care down our throats. A vast majority of us are basically happy with what we have and know how in efficient any Govt. agency is.

If these insurance companies are making all of these "excess profits" why aren't their stocks shooting through the roof.

Please speak up to your leaders and let them know the consequences if they do try and pass this boondoggle.

Lets limit malpractice awards, and then watch the healthcare costs drop.....ooooops, MYBAD, most of our politicians are lawyers that made there money on malpractice lawsuits and whatever else they could think up. And shame on the American people for not thinking pharmaceutical companies have something to gain from this type of program. In the end it is all about how much money someone will make, and the working class will pay them for it.

One thing not mentioned in this is the GOP phone drive to raise money for some more of their ads, etc. I received a call today from something called Strategic Fund Raising who identified themselves as the GOP, wanted me to donate money to help them fight Obama health care, and got mad when I told them no, that I didn't care for their tactics. The young man on the phone totally lost it – screamed at me over the phone saying he couldn't believe that I was moronic enough to want that "ill-begotten plan" called me another name, then pressed buttons on his phone to make loud beeping noises in my ear and then hung up on me. If I knew how to go about contacting his supervisor I would report him but I don't and I'm not going to spend any time on it. But one thing is for sure, whether this health care passes or not, the GOP will never see another dime of my money.

So there is one more obstacle for Obama – the fundraising strong arm tactics of the GOP – not only are they calling for monetary support but they are propagandizing over the phone. I hope Obama pulls this out and gets something passed – even if its just basic like getting rid of the pre-existing condition clauses and the donut hole in medicare drug coverage for the diabled, elsderly, etc.

If anyone has ever been addmited to a hosptal or been rushed to the ER, then they know how rediculous it cost. I paid $2,500 for a vist to the ER and three days of admitance into a hospital for a staph infection. This cost was after my insurance. All I know is that our healthcare system is broke and we need to fix it. Hospitals and ER visits cost way more than they should and it makes it hard for people to pay anything else when they have to pay for bills like this. Imagine if I did not have insurance.

I can understand that many of the self-annointed intelligentsia are frustrated that people have been using inappropriate (dare we say, ignorant) characterizations to describe what they are opposing and incoherent yelling to get their point across. Much as Karl Marx in his day, they are demonstrating their petulance with the hoi polloi for failing to respond to the utopian vision offered by their betters and demanding that it be rammed through by whatever means necessary. And they are so delusional as to think that they will be rewarded at the polls for their arrogance.

But they are sadly mistaken if they do not understand that these unseemly outbursts and dubious arguments are simply metaphors for the frustration with a government that is not listening to them and, where many key figures even seem contemptuous of them. To some extent this is the inevitable outcome of the fact that the administration has vigorously campaigned for a plan that they have not specified and the fear of the law that will likely be crafted in back room deals and voted in the middle of the night by a Congress that doesn’t even know what is in it. In short, the public is being asked to buy a “pig in a poke.” As a result, all the passion is with the opposition. Only “true believers” can rationalize that this is all the product of evil "vested interests" peddling "lies" rather than understanding that we are all as the blind men, certain that the part we grasp defines the elephant. You can strike a match but you will have no fire without ample tinder.

Obama now has cover. Whether we liberals like it or not, it will be difficult to sale a "robust" public option, no matter how strong the argument. The alternative is to argue for a "robust public option trigger" – something with teeth that has to happen sooner than too much later; even go so far as to allow insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines, and than argue for all those things anybody in their right mind would not refuse such as not allowing insurance companies to use preconditions to refuse health insurance; making sure everybody is covered, etc. This way you get the two ladies from Maine on your side; keep us screeming liberals who believe we have given in too much already with no discussion of truly national health care, and call it medicare for all. This way the blue dogs and the Repulicans will have difficulty back peddling out of health care reform.

Call me silly, but I just don't think Obama is that great of a speaker. He is good, but not great. I kind of see him as being condescending.
However, let's pretend that he is the most amazing communicator ever. Does his eloquence make his multi-trillion dollar plan palatable? Are we going to tell our children who are paying off our debt "yeah, but you should have heard his speech . . . it was amazing!"
I cannot believe so many voters are so superficial.

I have an excellent healthcare plan at the moment and I'd like to keep it that way until I retire. As for any plans the government has, why not roll it out to members of congress and their families and ALL federal employees and see if it works for them. If after 5 years they like their new health plans, then by all means, get everybody else on board! Plain & simple.

Perhaps the AARP can help him. The brochure I received from AARP today looks like it was written by the administration. What a shame the way they put down the people who are paying their bills. (or, in my case, used to pay their bills). You should quit AARP also. There are alternatives that really care about you.

Well obamma is telling all something we already know and know we know he know's it.But in hindsight is that really whats important for a certain age group that have no doubt that they have been badly vindicated over several years,only to listen to jargon that i can asure him would fail at some stage of its progress.There comes a time in some peoples lifes they must take a rite fist to that diotic rite hand that has been able to survive within the US.

The problem with solely worrying about swaying public opinion on health care reform is that it is analogous with swaying opinions people may have of the Democratic Party or Obama himself. I doubt that is going to happen, especially with all of the misinformation and passionate rhetoric that is going on these days. The Democratic Party just needs to step up to the plate, act in the best interest of the people (which means pass a bill with a public option), and stop listening to the yelling. Because at the end of the day the yellers are ALWAYS going to disagree and if the Dems don't act, it's going to be there own supporters that they will let down.

@annie kate,
Sorry, but I don't believe you. I'm a Democrat, and have had calls from GOP and others raising funds, and never had a problem with any when I've said no. I've had more problems with left-wing folks by far, including the fact that I know some of the wackier ones will pose as right-wing wing-nuts in order to discredit conservatives ... then brag about it. And do you recall the recent incident in Denver? It was a left-wing activist who broke those windows at the Democratic Party offices, not a conservative. If you want to see dirty tactics, look to your left.

Where was all this town hall up roar and concern for fiscal responsibility when billions were being spent on a monthly basis for government contractors conducting work in Iraq?

Now all of a sudden everybody (conservatives, independents, and so called blue dogs) wants to cut spending because it is getting out of hand and not only that, but the government is growing and we are becoming a socialist society?

People come on now!!! How about everyone eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and VA Benefits that are calling these government run programs examples of failed big government volunteer to give up their eligibility then?

Ha, that's what I thought, so just please be quiet and let the man who's been on the job for only 8 months do the job he was elected to do. Just because you have freedom of speech in this country doesn't mean you need to exercise that freedom, and especially not in a free willy nilly free for all.

Let's put this in terms the Republicans can understand. The more I spend on health insurance, the less I can spend on other goods and services. The more employers are charged for employee health insurance, the smaller the raises are going to be.

Too much of our country's GDP is going to healthcare. Also, throw the doctors a bone and limit malpractice liability.

Obama might be able to sway a few Democrats, but he will never budge the Republicans, most of whom are still reeling with shock that a black man has taken hold of their country club. The bias against all things Obama is about race, pure and simple.

seriously, the people against health reform now are the same people against medicare and for mccarthyism.

socialism? do you know even know the definition of that word? explain to me then how paved roads and a police force are NOT socialist programs!

i say propose that all republicans move to texas or alaska and then ask those states to secede. leave america for people with working brains.

Whatever his health plan maybe, let it include goverment employees including himself. Why should they have a different plan? The goverment employees should also have to particiapte in the social security program and not have their own plan.

He must deliver tomorrow no question about it. But the problem is that health-care had to be played correctly from the beginning. No matter what direction he takes tomorrow he will alienate one of the key groups that got him elected. At least he is investing a lot of political capital in this.

I thank God every day that we have Obama in the White House! Another four years (if it were possible) of George Bush or republicans and God only knows where we would be.

Obama is not perfect. However, he is intelligent and wise enough to encourage a process that allows for all stakeholders to voice their opinion. Much unlike what we experienced for the past eight years.

Let the discussions and negotiations continue! They will come to an end and we will move on to the next national challenge. Thank God we are discussing this and not in the throws of the second great depression.

Its truly ridiculous to see so many regular Americans side with big business. Big business does everything it can to squeeze every single dime out of you.

It'll even let you die to save a buck or two.

You don't have to look to France to see rationed healthcare, we got it here, and its actually worse.

David, thank you for a good assessment of Obama's challenge.

I think Obama can deliver some level of health care reform before the end of his term and can go down in history as someone who actually got something done.

THERE WILL NEVER BE A GOOD TIME TO CHANGE OUR HEALTH CARE SYTEM.

It's been tried for decades and someone needs to to get the train out of the station – I think Obama can do it, but not without futher fighting, which he is willing to do. This man is different – he's in a different category and I think public opinion can change again. Just hopefully, during his term, instead of in the history books.

This speech is an interesting development and probably required at this point if Obama expects to get anything this year. Of course, when the fireworks are over all that matters is WHAT he gets. Mandatory insurance and reforms that don't take effect for years will hardly be a welcome development.

Frankly, I think Obama talks to much and produces to little. I want him to get reform done but I'm suspicious this is just a TV stunt.

President Obama is a great speaker but unless he addresses tort reform, how for once the government is going to take over 17% more of the economy and not drain us like medicare, social security, medicaid, the post office and the bail out situation, no matter how he puts it, healthcare insurance reform will be doomed. He cannot possibly think (no thinking human being can) that the government is better at running our lives than we as individuals are. What can he possibly say, unless it is an outright lie, that will convince people that his ideas will be more successful than the other government run programs?

The American people look like fools to the rest of the world and should be so ashamed. It is so true. How greedy and non caring can a country be. The all about me attitude is alive and well. I am so sick of this crap. Obama needs to use the resolution. WE only need 51 vote. BE BOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great Presidents overcome such stupidity. Wake UP American stop this. IT is a citizens right to have healthcare and all you greedy, selfish citizens I am sure have your healthy insurance plan. Understand I have a great healthcare plan now but I am willing to make changes if necessary to help another. We better make the right choice now or we will all PAY.

Conservative republicans have nothing to offer other than fear. Everyone agrees our health care system is broken. Yet, conservatives offer no solutions or viable alternatives to Obama's initiatives. Only FEAR. "Obama will implement death panels and let grandma die." "Obama pals around with terrorists". "Obama is a socialist." "Obama is trying to brainwash our children." Come on. Stop this nonsense! It is sad to see republicans put ideology ahead of our country. They cringe to see the recent improvements in our economy and hope for absolute failure of anything that Obama tries to do. It used to be that republicans were Americans first and party loyalists second. Not any more. The republicans want Obama to fail at any cost. How useless they have become.

Obama and the Democrats are stealing $477 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare based upon the House bill. That is just part of the funding. The rest comes from Medicaid, and taxing the rich. Stealing from medicare effects all of us, when Medicare goes into the red in 2017, and instead of fixing it, they are simply taking more. They are not fixing what is broken, they are simply pushing harder and saying we will fix it by going this way. The problem is that it is all downhill, and all that I see is the mountain of debt they have created to fall from!

I'm generally an Obama supporter and firmly believe that our health care system is broken and immoral (one's level of health care depends on one's employer).

That said, I'm baffled why he's been AWOL on health care - and afraid that it may be too late to save reform from the right-wing nuts.

Besides health care the president has other pressing problems that he soon needs to address;-the housing cisis that still continues could be a great menace to the economy; the war in Afghanistan could turn into a quagmire and we dont have an energy policy.

$2500 to have a staph infection cleared? How much for the plasma screen in the living room? How much for the vacation? How come it is expected I have to pay for those "inconvenient truths" we all face – like taking responsibility of taking care of ourselves? Concert tickets, dinners out, new clothing? But paying to have our own health taken care of is for some reason not something we should have to do.

Fundraising strong-arm tactics of the GOP over the phone? But Stephen Spielberg and Barbara Streisand are just a couple of hobos?

The whining is atrocious already regardless of the topic. The public does NOT want a PUBLIC OPTION to healthcare. I agree – stick a fork in this one – it's done.

This President won an election on charisma and nothing else – he had stage presence, but no substance. Consider the beating W took as a leader. Now consider the fact that President Obama has ZERO executive experience. Where does that place him? Clearly ready to spend everyone else's dollars. As Margaret Thatcher stated: the problem with Socialism is eventually you run out of other peoples money.

There have been months of debate about "health care" but strangely no further discussion on HEALTH CARE TORT REFORM, one of the major players in driving up costs:

It's simple:
There are trial lawyers hungry for lawsuits.
There are doctors trying to take care of patients with expensive technologies and medications.
There are insurance companies gunning for profits.
There are pharmaceutical companies trying to develop new medications which costs money but also are gunning for profits, in part to pay for research and development of future breakthroughs and failed medication developments, I suppose.

If doctors are unanimously saying the problem is at least in part their malpractice premiums and fear of litigation in practicing defensive medicine (they are saying this – read the blogs – they say that the projections on what malpractice actually costs are severely underestimated – one MD for example pays over $100,000 in malpractice insurance premiums and who is supposed to pay this... its passed on to us in fees and visits!) – then why is this not an issue for politicians?

It's simple again: politicians are primarily lawyers and will not affect major contributors (trial lawyers) to their election process.

A self-serving shame, really. I look forward to the next Senator Edwards-style malpractice suit to help guild his expensive ranch or pay for his divorce (or new child). Also, he'll need some extra money lying around to make another unsuccessful presidential run.

Kidding aside: TORT REFORM MUST BE on the agenda.

Look forward to some other comments on this.

He should just have the courage to tell Americans the truth - that it will cost a lot more and will result in a government takeover of health care.

Then, they can tell him the truth: Democrats can say good bye to their seats.

Simple, really.

Superficial? Unlike W, this guy is actually tackling issues. He's not making new ones up and simply pouring our money down a spider hole. I love it. Isn't it time to invest in America?

Ty David for you well respected input
I for one hope President Obama can get thru to the politicians and American people

The health care debate is a no brainer to me being a Canadian
Both my sister and I had the same surgery a year apart
I paid no insurance company, no doctors, no hospital-nothing
I OWE NOTHING
My sister lived in the US and supposedly had good insurance
She is over one hundred thousand dollars in debt
Needless to say she is coming back to Canada

Obama and Democrats have failed the hopes of American people. Their ratings will continue to go down as long as they are not listening to voices of ordinary people. As a former Soviet citizen, I am sadden to see that the greatest country in the world, USA, is moving away from Democracy toward Socialism and One Party Rule. Obama and Democrats are stealing American Dream...

I have healthcare insurance for 29 years, thank God! I worked hard to have this benefit. I am happy with my health insurance, except when I had to go to emergency room, twice in an hour (that is another story), and weeks later, I had to pay a lot of money because I was told the emergency room of the hospital (listed in my PPO plan) is run by a contractor, not the hospital! The contractor was not in my plan, so I have to pay. Here comes, the Obama, messiah, telling me that I have to change my healthplan to something else which, I do not even know what it is. Hell, no! My healthplan is good, it just needs fixing. Why will I abandon something that has worked for 29 years, when all it needs is some tweaking here and there to at least minimize my wallet discomfort? Obama, Pelosi and their healthcare reform cohorts are all retards, no sense of reality.

Hello Anderson:

I think the most important part of this reform is being excluded – caps on malpractice suits and I am not in the medical profession. Doctors pay so much for this insurance that the price of procedures and tests are off the charts. They raise their costs so that they can afford to make a profit and stay in business. Example: A pap smear test and exam should not cost $1200 to $1500 as was quoted when asked about self pay from an office that does not take Medicare. Any plan should include these caps and a revamping of cost of procedures. We charge more in this country than in any other for procedures.

Why doesn't Obama simply state the truth. The truth is that he does not care about the elements of a health care plan. He changes his position daily on what should be included in the plan. His real goal is to introduce a system that distributes benefits to his favored constituents and is paid for by taxing rich people. Redistribution of income, baby!! That is where the action is.

No matter where you stand on the health care issue mark my words that you are seeing a repeat of 1994 landslide victory in congress of the GOP. Just as President Clinton over stepped his mandate so has President Obama. All the talk of bi-partisanship was just talk by Clinton and now by Obama. Both tried to jam unpopular legislation and Clinton paid the price by losing his sympathetic congress. Obama will suffer the same fate and thus will not be able to pass much of anything for his remaining time in the White House. It's interesting to see that even great people such as those able to win an election to the White House are not able to learn from history. America demands it be governed from the center. If you lean too much in any one direction she will make you pay dearly. Folks remember when considering health care reforms whom is proposing it. The same group that has BANK RUPTED social security and medicare in the tune of TRILLIONS of $$$. It's the congress! If they can't even figure out how to make those programs solvent how will the be able to handle an overhaul to the health care system. Ask yourself this; Should I invest my next 52 weeks of salary with Bernie Madoff knowing what I know about him? of course you wouldn't. You now know he ran a ponzi scheme. Guess what....uncle sam has been running one too and anyone willing to trust them with health care may as well just hand over their money to Bernie. At least he'll make you believe you're getting a something in return........at least for a little while.

Some of you guys on here are shameless; we have 47 million people without heathcare and you all hopes he fail becauseof who he is. He have said it over and over again its not about him its the American people he care so much about President Obama have seen the other side of the mountains now its time for some of you guys to find the mountain top.

CNN poll................. 60% of Americans oppose HR3200
Non-media polls..... 74% of Americans oppose HR3200 (18-21% favor it)

WHY...do the "leaders" in CONGRESS think that as our representatives, they can ignore the WILL OF THE PEOPLE or at least 60-70% to push a political agenda???? And WHAT WAS THEIR OATH OF OFFICE???
.

$30 Billion buys Blue Cross Blue Shield for 15 million Americans...
.WHY ARE WE BEING TOLD TO SPEND $900 BILLION taxpayer $$$?
.

When will CNN commentators get back to reporting NEWS...
...HOW will the PELOSI / REID healthcare plan lower costs – for whom?
...HOW is it budget neutral – robbing $500B from Medicare to pay for it?
...WHY doesn't it mention TORT REFORM in over 1200 pages?
...WHY doesn't it mandate ACCESS across all 50 state lines?
...WHY not guarantee – Americans won't pay for illegal immigrants?
...WHY not enroll the 12 million uninsured Americans in Medicaide?

12M qualify for medicaide – not registered
15M are between 18-30 – elect not to buy insurance
10M earn over $75K – elect not to buy insurance
11M are illegal immigrants – receive emergency care free

@Richard C.
I have read HR 3200, and the president is not lying. You can keep your plan after 2013 as long as it doesn't change. That is the grandfather clause. So the argument from the opposition is that if the plan does change, you will be kicked off and can only join the public option. That is not true. I think people keep getting "plan" confused with "provider". If your insurance company offers a plan that conforms to the guidelines of the reform bill, you can most certainly enroll in it. There is nothing that says you can't stay with your provider or switch to another private insurer. It's just that the plan you enroll in has to meet guidelines, and by 2013, I'm guessing most if not all insurers will offer such a plan if they want to stay in business. I'm pretty sure if the bill passes, most insurers will offer a conforming plan well before that date and move their customers to it, so most people will have nothing to worry about if they want to stay on their plan. Too many people are confusing a grandfather clause with an expiration date for their provider. It's that kind of misinformation that bothers me because people believe that just because so many people are saying it, it must be true. Even worse, people who read the bill are still saying it because they misinterpreted it. Perhaps, they need to revise the bill just to make it simpler to understand but have it say the same thing. There's nothing wrong with a grandfather clause, and it would be in any healthcare reform bill regardless of the existence of a public option.

@ julio who states "The stimulus failed to keep unemployment under 8% as Obama and his Democrats predicted."

This is incorrect. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the rate was already at 8.1% at the end of Feb 09 when the stimulus bill passed. So, Julio, unless you provide a documented quote from President Obama or congressional leaders to support your claim, you are just plain wrong.

Sadly, it is this kind of misinformation that has characterized a lot of the debate about, and mostly the opposition to, health care reform. Hopefully, sane folks on both sides of the aisle (the public option trigger proposed by Sen. Snowe seems a reasonable compromise) will come together and pass a health care reform bill. The people who HAVE health insurance now cannot be smug. Rates are going up, and unless the system is fixed, insurance rates will continue to rise rapidly and affect all of us.

I love how all these people say "you're paying for the uninsured's health insurance now." Ok, so then what is going to change with the public option? What percentage of those currently uninsured will contribute one dime to coverage and who will pay for the remainder? The same people paying for it now. Big change!! Until there is concrete evidence on how this will be paid for, I will continue to be against it. Quit blaming Republicans. If the left had laid out a clear plan with what will be covered and how it will be paid for they could have quelled a lot of this hubbub. Instead they figured "we're in the majority, we can do anything we want." Surprise, surprise, even with a super majority you still can't get all your libs in a row.

I find it astounding that many American sheep allow themselves to be lead around by the nose by the health insurance industry. All....ALL....of the talking points that we've heard that are meant to scare people (e.g., "death panels") were dreamed up by the insurance industry and fed to the right wing. The fact is that the U.S. has got to be the laughing stock of the industrialized world when it comes to what we pay for healthcare relative to what we get in return. The boogey men would have us believe that a public option or anything that looks like something that the Canadians came up with is unAmerican/evil/etc. when the fact of the matter is that Canada spends 10% of its GDP on health care costs vs our 16% and yet Canadians have a longer life span than Americans (by about 4 years) and a lower infant mortality rate. Those results speak volumes.

Our home-grown stupidity is staggering.

Back in the States after having been in Canada for the last four years and trying to make sence of the healthcare mess here. The insurance company would not cover my regular medication, puts me on an alternative and I get an alergic reaction and end up in emergency. This is the best health care in the world? What a joke and what a pity, give me my "socialist" Canadian health care system any day. No wonder Canadians are smug.

A. Obama is not the great orator. His Kool-aid drinking followers naturally think he is, but objectively he is not.
B. Government would never do a good job running healthcare. It would be a debacle. Obama himself gave an example – Fed Ex and UPS are doing great, while the postal service, not so great!
C. Anything the government does will cost way more than they predict. It has happened time and again in the US. Once the steamroller starts, there will be no stopping it!
D. Obama ultimately wants a single payer system that the government runs. He has said it in the past. He wants Americans to be dependent on the government and thereby dependent on politicians like him.
E. The healthcare in the US can be improved but trying to address multiple issues in one bill is ludicrous. I think somebody wants to be famous!

Those folks that want a strong public option can't bend or distort this very simple fact: we are spending money that we do not have. We will have to borrow every penny of the cost of this health care bill.

As for the government putting measures in place to control health care costs, when has the government ever shown that it can control the cost of anything? The US Postal Service, the V-22 Osprey, Presidential Helicopters, the Littoral Combat Ship, the B-2 Spirit Bomber, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Joint Strike Fighter...all of these things are government programs, and they all are over budget. Why would government-run health care be any different?

Question: Why would a president, with a high approval rating, give Pelosi and friends, with the lowest approval rating, the job of writing a health care bill?

Do the trigger option and Tort Reform, then allow Insurance to cross state lines... lets see where that takes us. It's worth a shot and all seem logical. For those that are afraid of the trigger option, remember their will always be a conservative elected president to adjust the bar. I like knowing a bar would be out there for Ins. and Phar. Co's to be afraid of.

When a lib is in office, the bar will be lower, and that is a deterent, just as jail is to criminals. It is not perfect, but it works. Having one standard like the system we have now or a public option really does not serve as a deterent to anything... now drawing an erasable line in the sand that is adjustable is power both the cons and libs should want.

No PUBLIC OPTION with a TRIGGER is just the same as a Public Option. Once it is passed by Congress and the Senate, the Trigger can be pulled at any time without any further discussion. Let me load the gun and I will tell you when I decide to pull the Trigger is what they are asking us to agree to. I don't TRUST them now, why would I TRUST them with a loaded gun?????????????????????????

The thinly veiled outright hatred for President Obama carries a silver lining to those who respect Him... Unwarranted jealously, frustration and hate is more physically damning than mentally for these idiots. The physical impact of jealousy, frustration and hate will likely expedite their journey to the grave, and then hell.

In ref. to health care; there are many that oppose just because a public offering.
I heard Isackson today saying that in Canada and In Great Britain does not work because there are delays and many lines to get service. Same for Mexico or other countries. What they do not tell everyone is HOW MANY HOSPITALS ARE THERE in Canada, G.B. or Mexico??? I'm almost sure that one State from the union will have more Hospitals the those countries.
There could be also a max earning to qualify to public health care, anf above you can get either that same one or a private offered by your employer, always looking for a more affordable, well served health care.
In one town hall meeting there a mention of all the monies the Fed Gov takes from Social Security and no one mention repayment.
Social SEcurity is in the mess that it is because all monies go to Fed accounts and they do dispose of all that income for several other projects like war.
Take a look at these concerns you will find a lot of light on the matters.
Thanks.
WE ALL NEED HEALTH INSURANCE!!

I can't believe the people that say they think Obama's plan will drive us broke. The one sure way to go broke is to go on the way we are now, with health care costs rising at triple the rate of everything else, including wages!

A public option is one way of keeping costs down, because it will give the currently monopolistic (in any given geographic area) insurance industry some competition it sorely needs. So a public option will in fact do just the opposite of what its detractors say it will – hold down costs, not increase them. Look at costs in any country that has one.

Another good way to hold costs down would be to move doctors and other providers from fee-for-service to salary. That's what the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, VA System, and the British National Health Service all do, and all of them have FAR lower costs than most U.S. health care. This would be a more radical proposal than the public option and would likely be opposed by many doctors, but it would also help to hold costs down.

But again, if you want costs to keep soaring and eventually drive the country broke, then oppose Obama's plan and do nothing.

So what's the big deal if nothing gets done? That's what he has to address – could it be that health care costs are rising so much that private insurers would rather declare bankruptcy then actually try to cover them? And why are costs rising? Is it because greater numbers are retiring, or that those needing health are getting more and more extravagant and expensive medication and care when 30 years ago there would have been just a shrug of the shoulders? Is it a few patients that claim the largest part of the cost (just like a few citizens control the greatest part of wealth in this country)?

With no health bill specifics to sell, and the public's level of trust in the cellar, Obama is wasting his breath.

He'd be better of spending his time in a conference room with the libs, blue dogs and Rino's hammering out an actual bill. I wonder how many billions are being offered up to Ms Snow to insure at least one Republican vote?
The only concensus on this bill is against it.

No.

Obama should look towards the Canadian free medicare system.
it works well...working tax payers pay for it , and nobody is complaining

David, you and your cohorts continue to get it wrong. This thing is not about Obama sinking a 30 foot shot. To talk about 20% of the nations economy using that metaphor is naive. Why has it taken so long for Mr. Obama to present "his version"? I don't know, but there is a lot about the man that I have come to despise, including his rhetoric. Why don't you report that he is only as good as his teleprompter.... I will not listen to the speech because quite frankly his bull_____ is making me sick. I will turn to Fox News for fair analysis after.

So all you people who are ragging on the state of the country, which is truly in a sorry state – worst since the Great Depression – and complaining that Obama hasn't fixed it all up in the mere 7 months he's been in office are sorry you voted for him and are ready to jump back to the idot Republicans that got us into this mess? Are you twisted, insane or just really stupid? My guess is that you are all three. And you're what's wrong with this country. This isn't a sports event, this is your life.

For you Medicare age folks who don't want anybody messing with your Medicare, have you forgotten how Bush and the Republican Congress pushed to have Medicare turned over to private insurers? Think that's OK? Before you make a decision that will have huge consequences on your life, you should take a test run and go find a private insurance company that will cover you. You just might get what you wish for – no government healthcare, including no Medicare – so you should test what that would really be like.

Without a public option there can be no real health reform, not even if we have a public option as a second option. Healthcare reform can only happen if private insurers compete with a public option. We need a choice that we can afford.

Scott Stodden (Freeport,Illinois)

I am glad Obama is our president in these difficult times. I respect Obama for trying to do what is best for our country–even when many in the opposition only wish for failure.

wow, john stone & mattdaddy
wow, how can people today but so sadly educated, opps that's right, our great public / gov. schools.
1st. no doctor would cut a leg off without a good reason, some lawyer would make a million taken everyone in that O.R. to court.
2nd. keeping us safe from more terrorist attacks is a real issue, or has your mind lost it's short term memory

Obama will get some form of Health Care- but like Cash for Clunkers, it will be cumbersome and favor very few at the expense of everyone else. Is this greatness? No- this guy is Robin Hood.

2012! Please!!

I have to agree with Todd on this one, David. People like Obama, but they don't really trust the govt or want to give them any more money. No one ever wants to talk about how to pay for this plan. I don't see how any of this will save money, either. What will happen to the "Baby Boomers" if they change Medicare? Will mal-practice suits be adjusted? I won't watch the speech. I'll wait for the Cliff Notes version on the news. I think that there is still a lot of work to do to reform health care.

ObamaCare is a detestable assault on American Free Enterprise and will not provide more competition.

We can improve competitiveness by elminating Democrat party imposed mandates.

There are over 1300 health insurance companies in America but most of us are permitted only 1 option .... because the Democrats have set up a quasi-obamacare system designed to fail.

Consider Obama proposes $1.5 Trillion dollars in new spending.

Assuming there are 30 Million un-insured in 3 family households ... this is $50,000.00 per family ... enough to buy health insurance for nearly 20 years. but we all know it will cost 3 Trillion and last for only 5 ... while driving up inflation and destroying at least a million jobs.

Obamanation ruins America again.

why is it that we let our kids watch the space shuttle launches at schools !! we let our kids listen to president george w. bush speech at schools !! But when it comes to president obama speaking to our kids there is a problem !! If people cant get over this color barrier than we should take the american flag down and hang up a ying yang flag that is black and white !! america is at a time when all resources need to be pulled together to save the country !! its not obama's fault that people voted for bush and he slapped all of america in the face!!!

"poll after poll shows that the country is at best divided on Obamacare as the answer. . ."

What exactly is "Obamacare"? The White House hasn't come out with a plan. Why is poll after poll measuring right wing branding? And why is CNN reporting that as "news"?

How about a little education in your reporting? Fact: "Obamacare" is a brand the right wing is creating to label ANY proposal for health insurance reform. The absurdity of the brand "Obamacare" is shown by the fact that there is not Obama plan.

I won't be listening.

He's not a particularly good communicator (boring to watch), I don't trust him, and I'd be surprised if he gets past emotional smoke and "we can have it both ways" generalities in the speech anyway.

If he does actually say anything worthwhile, I'll read it online. Maybe he'll apologize to the American taxpayers like he has to everyone else in the world

I am hoping and praying that President Obama keeps his campaign promise not to sign a health care bill that doesn't include a public option. If the Republicans were in the majority, I am sure they wouldn't worry about bi-partisanship when it comes to health care reform–or anything else, for that matter. If the president does cave in to unreasonable demands by the right, I am sure he will have a heck of a time getting many Democrats and Independents to vote for him a second time.

david gergen hates conservatives just like all the cnn haters jezzzzzz look how he and candy crowley grimaced when van jones was being critized by a black man last night on the situation room get real these people will do any thing to see this obama push the country left.

Health care coverage for ALL, is a moral obligation, not a financial one.

We always like to hear how great of a country we have, but our people cant go see a doctor and get a prescription filled without someone making a buck or two.

We are the most powerful and richest nation in the world (even if we owe half the land to china). If politicians are telling me that we cannot afford healthcare for all then i'm sure that there are somethings that we can cut back or stop doing at all so that we can take care of us
first: Stop donating in aid and subsidies to other nations so much...Buying peace with people that hate us by paying them so that they don't shoot our soldiers and embassy's in other country's...fighting other nations wars...etc....

Spreading democracy, healing and feeding the world is a great cause, but we have to take care of our own house first before we can help the neigbor.

would you pay your neighbors hospital bills, buy him food and fight his battles if you had these same issues unresolved yourself?

Granted, some of the above may be in the list of general interest of America as for the roll that it plays in the world but, ISN'T THE HEALTH OF OUR CITIZENS AT THE TOP OF THAT LIST?

The public option should not be a debate because the health of the people should not be looked at from a business stand point, but from a human one.

The press has not been good to Obama. Instead of questioning him on Health Care, they've done nothing but shill for him. ABC's 2-1/2 hour infomercial was a waste of time and ended up being the beginning of the town halls where people asked their congressmen about specifics in the bills and expressed their fears on other portions. The reason for that, the President said he was going to push Congress to get this thing passed before the August recess. What was that all about?

It all boils down to trust and if the President thinks he can give another speech telling "the people that made this mess to shut up and get out of the way" he's sorely mistaken. What I know, after watching Pelosi and Reid during their post meeting get together with the press, is a bi-partisan approach is not on the agenda.

My gut tells me he's given Pelosi and Reid the go ahead for using reconciliation. The reason I believe that is that he has little legislative experience and little executive experience and those surrounding him are in the same boat. If he does this it will have consequences and, as much as he dislikes Republicans, he'd better learn to tolerate them because he'll never get another bill through this Congress without a real fight and next year he'll be dealing with more Republicans than he's seen since he came to Washington.

why the senators, congressman, and federal employees under the new health care plan are not covered? Why they will still have different plan? if the senators and congressman thinks that this is the best plan then they should also be under this plan? Why nobody is aksing this question to senators and congressman? Also if you treat an illegal why not deport him right away? where the hell is common sense in this country?

Someone should just explain what it costs to do this health care plan and what it costs to not do it. Like if Congress doesn't pass this thing, does that mean we have to pay higher Medicaid or Medicare taxes or what? The only person I heard trying to explain this is Harvard Professor Linda Bilms who was on the radio laying out the costs on both sides.

I believe we should look more closely at the BIA clinics and hospitals and improve on their model. Also, here is a radical thought....why not offer a federal option at a reasonable amount through employers? Then, if an employee chooses to go with a lower cost national program their employer must give the dollars saved to the employee?? Let's just break up the insurance monopolies....have you looked at how insurance was originally tied to employers??? It started out as a carrot during WWII when wages were frozen...so, to retain employees insurance could be offered. Not in the same vein as we know it today. Well it certainly turned out to be lucrative for the insurance industry....!!

It certainly makes more since to me that our government would be more involved with health care for us than own auto plants....

If we had more thanone decent news organization in this country, we would know that there aren't 50 million uninsured Americans. If we had more than one decent news organization, in this country, we would know that cutting $500 billion, yes with a "B", from medicare is going to cause rationing and death panels. If we had more than one decent news organization, inthis country, we'd be able to recognize that this isn't about improving health care it's about winning elections and adding something else to the 3rd rail that they can claim their opponent wants to take away. Ah, there's nothing like a dependent constituency.

My heart saddens with what is going on in just OUR country. Obama is not JESUS and many of people don't believe in him either. We are so divided amongst ourselves that it is really sad. I read every comment and it sounds like let's jump on Obama everyday. The country was in a "hot mess" before Obama got into the White House. What about humbling ourselves and praying for our OWN country to be healed because waiting on Obama isn't going to do it. It's above his hands and was out of whack from our previous president(s). He is still only a man surrounded by a lot of demons. We are sending our own country to hell in a handbasket!! Everyone wants to say what he needs to do or should do. Why didn't more people run for president if you really think you can do a better job?

Healthcare is just an excuse. I know many who have used home remedies and other antics because healthcare wasn't an option. People survived then and will still survive now. Obama will never please people and I pray for him to be strong and do what is in his heart and not to please the republicans, democrats, or people in general. Look around and recognize that this is so much deeper than healthcare and the war which we had no business over there anyway. That is why we are losing and will continue to be defeated because that is HOLY ground, regardless of how the people act, it is still HOLY ground. Start praying more and stop dictating, anticipating, and being major butt holes. Obama can do what he can do in good time. Remember he is trying to clean up years of CRAP!!!

In June, ABC News aired a one-hour special from the White House on health care reform. In July, Obama held a press conference on health care reform (where he made an unforced error by stepping into the Heny Louis Gates affair). Obama has also had numerous town halls, other speeches and conference calls on the subject. And now he's going to salvage the debate with yet another speech before a joint session of Congress?

But because the White House thinks Obama can sell ice to eskimos and their refusal to see that their problems lie in the substance of health care reform, such moderation of the Left's health care agenda is not likely.

In the end, Obama will reiterate the same tired arguments he's been making for the past 3 months, soften or rename (but not eliminate) the need for a public option, make nice noises towards Republicans (although they already know that Obama thinks talk is cheap), and try to unify the Democrats saying that they'll pay at the next election if they don't do something now.

So get some beer, popcorn, nachos or other snacks to watch the President's address on Wednesday. This is going to be classic. He'll either save his bacon, or self-destruct. I'm betting on the latter.

Lily, People who work for the government – national, state or city – have government-provided healthcare now. Policemen, Firemen, Mayors, Prison Guards, School Administrators, etc. – they have it now. So the real question is, if we are paying for them to have, why can't we? Also, what in the world makes you belive that you'll be able to keep your private insurance until you retire? If you are getting it through your employer, they will lay you off when you get over 50 and your coverage is too expensive. Or maybe lay you off before when they move the jobs off-shore to places where it's cheaper because cost of health care is not part of the labor costs because people have universal coverage.

Or to a place like India where people have no coverage at all. Which is another important topic – if our stopping buying brought the whole world economy down, then we have leverage to make companies manufacture here if they want to sell here. That's what China does, India does, most other countries do. Legal or not, they got by with it these past 8 years and it's another change Obama needs to make too. All countries should be playing they same game there.

David Gergan is the only reason I watch CNN. The man is able to take a step back from partisanship and give solid political analysis. The talking-head spin doctors are a complete waste of time and are hurting America.

Gloria:

It is the moderate Democrats who oppose the public option-socialized medicine, who are causing Obama problems. The Democrats could pass whatever Pelosi dreams up without the Republicans; so do the math. Yes Gloria, Democrats, for very reasonable considerations oppose the public option-socialized medicine.

There have been brave and popular presidents of the history of this country, who was firm when people could not see far, wise to realize the need of the hour. He must take lessons from our past. America is what we are today because some leaders were brave enough to do the right thing even under pressure when those measures were unpopular. Obama's presidency will be defined by his action. The circumstances under which he become the president is very unusuall. This country is collapsing and it needs bold action to fix it. Maintaining the status quo and entertaining old ideas are not going to fix it. This is the time for America to Rethink its strategy.

When democrats passed medicare it was those hypocratic republicans who opposed it. Now they dare to ask elderly Americans who live longer thanks to medicare to get rid of it. Irony is many elderly American does not even know Medicare is a public option and republicans take them into a ride. I have seen that happen in townhalls.

Except for Lincon who was probably the only Republican who did real good for this country, all the major changes have been done by the Democratic leaders. Now Lincon's republican party is long gone to fill it with bunch of hypocrits who only wants to serve a priviledge few in this country.

So I think, Obama must be tough and stay the course to do the right thing even under opposition. I know he can do it and he will be recognize for that when people starts to get benifit from it.

I don't want a public option. I have medical insurance that I like. I don't want to be forced to change to the public option aka government insurance that the dems are selling. Besides where are Canadians going to go when they can't get medical are in Canada?

Obama's comment “I’m LeBron, baby” is revealing. If you have noticed, he is prone to say "I this, I that" and shuns "we". Humility is not Obama's strong suit and his lack thereof is a great weakness. It leads him to over estimate his power of persuasion. It is not about the rhetoric. It is about the substance and it there that his health care plan goes wanting. I attended a town hall meeting and there was very little support for the public option. I find the same opinion among my friends across the political spectrum, unless they are well to the left.

Health care is projected to cost about 1.6 trillion dollars in ten years. But don't worry about that we will just add it to our 11 trillion dollar debt.

I think that a few things get lost in the healthcare debate.

First, that there needs to be a means for people who are "uninsurable" due to a pre-existing condition to gain access to health coverage at a reasonable cost regardless of where they work. This should be an obvious point, as people with chronic conditions who are unable to get insurance are often forced to either go bankrupt and/or participate in programs such as medicaid to have their medical needs met.

Second, insurance companies should not be allowed to rescind coverage of (for example) someone's chemotherapy simply because they did not disclose on their application form that they had once been treated for acne. This isn't some alarmist statement, as it actually occured to Robin Beaton, a retired nurse in Texas," was rescinded last year by Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Beaton eventually persuaded her congressman, Rep. Joe Barton, to twist Blue Cross' arm, but the delay meant it was five months before she could receive her operation."

Furthermore, perhaps someone should look into all of the money that is spent on pharmaceutical drugs. It has been repeatedly documented that we pay much more for pills than what they do in other countries. This leads me to wonder if we are perhaps subsidizing other nation's cheap drugs (i.e. drug co's can sell a pill that cost them 10 cents to produce for 12 cents to France because they get $1.25 a pill here). It would be very interesting to have an unbiased explaination as to why a company like pfizer can sell the same drug to Canada and the U.S. at such different prices. Now that most drug companies are multinational corporations I don't understand the differences in cost as much as I did when they were independent entities of different nations.

Also, perhaps I am just misinformed, but shouldn't the government be able to run a public option that would not cost the average tax payer money? After all, if the insurance companies who are "for-profit" can make 12 billion dollars in profit, then shouldn't the government be able to structure their plan so that between the premiums, and co-pays they could at least break even?

I am on my third startup company. I've created jobs for hundreds of people. The pressure on business is unbelievable and frankly it is much harder than ever to create jobs. Whether it is intellectual property costs, workman’s comp, health insurance, it is just getting too hard. Things have sure changed and not for the better. I don't believe politicians have the faintest idea on how to create jobs and wealth – especially the Democrats. Well tax all you want and put up all the barriers you want. If things don’t change we are well on our way to becoming a third world country. Just take a drive to some of our rural towns in the west and our inner cities in the east to see.

Please stop with the Canada comparisons. Canada has 1/10th of our population. How can you think the systems would be comparable?

My son spent a month in Vancouver, B.C. when he was 22, and fell in with some roving packs of kids on the streets up there, all on the public dole... except "kids" include people in their 30's and 40's evidently. People old enough to know better. I asked my son, "Do they talk about getting off the dole, getting a job, raising a family?" He laughed and said, no, they just talk about staying on the dole as long as possible. France and Germany – same thing. If you try to scale the workers back from 8 weeks of vacation a year to 7, they go out and blockade the streets and threaten to go on strike. The bottom line is, the healthcare system may work in countries such as Canada, but the labor force sure doesn't work. To put it even more succinctly, anyone who wishes the U.S. to be more like Canada is either on drugs or fit to be institutionalized.

Obama will make more promises that he can't or wont keep. He'll try to move us closer to socialism. I hope the American people are smart enough to say no thanks!

Steve G. NO we will pay thru a deduction it will be controlled by the Gov. to mantain lower prices. Public option DOES NOT mean FREE.
You are correct John Taylor it works it is slow due to lack of centers, which on the other hand USA has more than necessary all hospitals are not full.Scott S. That is correct the public option will ensure that all insurances will be affordable, but not free.

Explaining how 1/3 of your paycheck is involuntarily taken, then given to our establishment's buddies only to eventually cause tax rates to increase back on you is not a hard concept to explain, these kids today don't deserve the amount of government interventionism in the market place that they will encounter once they graduate, parents ought to be discussing the role of government, our constitution, the difference between rights & goods & services, the free market and the monetary mechanics of our society to their children at a young age. Ideas have a nasty habit of spreading rapidly & with today's technology & that most 12 yr olds have cell phones, there's every reason to believe that we will see some amazing circumstances unfold in the years to come & its about time!

This country lost it's ability for a sensible dialog. Now expecting from the president to overcome all this is just unrealistic. The costs of health care are staggering and the supposed competition between private insurers did nothing to lower the costs. Those who still maintain the going private will do enything are kidding themselves, it would do something by now! My bet is with this partial reform, without public option, the costs will keep rising for 6-10 years or until we all get broke. Get real!

As always it is about our choices. We choose the health care we get. I buy insurance for my family directly from an insurance company because the premiums at my company are higher than what I want to pay. Notice that this is a free choice mad by a free citizen. My plan has a very high deductible, therefore we pretty well pay for our entire medical bills (family of four with one severley allergic child) out of pocket. If a health disaster occurs we will be covered. This is still less expensive than paying premiums for a plan with a full ride. My wife had an outpatient surgery this year and it cost a few thousand dollars. The upshot is that medical care is expensive and somebody has to pay for it.

Now, I could whine and complain about it, but basically its a choice. I choose to pay less for my insurance plan and receive fewer benefits, but I could cut my cable and get a better plan. I choose not to. I could also choose to live in a less expensive house and get a better plan. I choose not to. The reality is that we live in the wealthiest society on earth and even the poorest amongst us have choices. If we're honest with ourselves we know that this is true. I have been dirt poor living in an apartment with plastic furniture and a blow up mattress with my wife and child. But, ultimately it was our choice about how we would live and improve our lives. Now, I have no problem with a safety net, because there are people who go through periods when they truly are down on their luck, but this should not be a permanent situation. That is why most States have Medicaid.

When the average American has two vehicles, cable television, cell phones and internet, can we really say that we cannot afford our own health care. Some people think that it is immoral for a government not to provide health care for everybody. I, on the other hand, think it is about choices. I think it is immoral for a group of people to force others to pay for health care that they could very well pay for themselves. Even worse is that the process lowers the standard of care available to those who would prefer to pay for the medical care they wish to receive. In the end the government can provide all the care we choose to pay for, but we will still all certainly die in the end. Can government protect us from that?

Make your choices now and live with the consequences. In the end, that is what life is all about anyway. For a rich lesson re-read "The Ant and the Grasshopper." Again, I do support a safety net, but that is essentially Medicaid's job already. Does anybody want to be on Medicaid? That is government healthcare in its purest form. That is what we will get with the "Public Option." Obama can talk all he wants, but I want no part of it.

Sorry, those of you who are pretending Canadians are thrilled with their program...they are not. Healthy are fine with it. Not so much those who are sick.

The person who said that Obama should follow the Mass. state program, does not know that the MA state system is failing and the cost has gone beyond anything they can possibly pay. It is another failed system.

Obama pretends that he wants to hear from the Republicans but they just won't help. Another Obama lie.

The Republicans have presented several better plans that the Dems throw out without before listening to them.

Obama only thinks that the Republicans are helping IF they would only JUST SIGN ON to his program without any input.

No!

After the socialist Dems are out of office and the Republican plans can be voted on, then there might be hope for health care reform.

David Gergen remains my favorite Anderson Cooper 360 blog contributor. Excellent, clear analysis. Sinks another one from 30 feet!

REAL health care reform has to start with sound diagnosis of the existing problems with the system. You can't do that until you remove external factors, so you can determine what effects they have had. The most critical external distortion is tort law and the number of liability suits that are wrong-headed or result in exorbitant awards. This is not limited to malpractice insurance fees. EVERY component of the health care system is distorted by the problem of liability. That includes every doctor, nurse, technician, pharmaceutical company, equipment manufacturer, material supplier, food vendor ... EVERYONE involved, corporate or individual. It is the root cause of much defensive medicine, too. If we do not start with tort reform, we may well be fixing things that are not in themselves broken, while leaving the most destructive external factor in place to continue its destructive influences.

God forbid the senators have to actually sign their name to something. The main reason why this health care debate is taking so long is because they don't want to do anything controversial that they might regret when they are up for reelection. I thought we elected these people to think larger than their own personal futures into the future of the country? They are not necessarily one and the same.

A citizentry that is blind to being regularly screwed by the predatory free market and big corporations along with their elected lackey politicians –Republicans and conservative Democrats–has little hope of understanding where their interests lie.

Other countries have good health care, spend less on health care, and have universal health care, but don't tell that to Americans.

Americans act like their main concern is protecting the profits of insurance companies and the salaries of their executives. No one wants a public option less than insurance company executives. But Americans can't even understand that.

The noise noise noise strategy is working. The Republicans can't govern, but they can create conditions so that no one can..

Democrats have huge majorities in both the House and Senate.

But some morons still find a way to overlook this reality to blame Republicans for the fact the Messiah cannot deliver the magical "reform"...that will cure whatever ails the healthcare system.

So what is it holding back these vast Democrat majorities?

The simple fact is that the particular "reform" proposed thus far is extremely troublesome and unpopular and they rightly fear retribution from their electorates.

And please don't try to rationalize this as fear of the medical or drug lobbies....those have all been bought off and coopted by the administration long ago, even to the point of paying for advertising in support of "reform."

With all the talk about the health care reform and the public option it seems to me we have overlooked the major component. Who is going to pay the massive start up costs? Who is going to pay to subsidize the people who can’t afford health care and what is the dollar value associated with coughing up healthcare to 30 million uninsured citizens? 30 million more people added to the health care system who currently do not carry insurance. We will pay. The Tax Payers are going to pay. If we believe the wealthy are going to simply take the hit we are letting the politicians pull the wool over our eyes. Any additional taxes the wealthy get hit with will be transferred back to the public in the form of inflation and increased prices on merchandise and services. The government will pay for the public option by the dollars they take from us. I don’t want the government in Health Care because I don’t want another bill from people who can’t balance their own check books let alone institute a massive program which will jack up living costs for the rest of us. We are killing free enterprise in this country. The government will brow beat the wealthy until they leave the country. Major international industry has all but evaporated in America. With the new government tax targets we are now saying its time to punish the medium and small businesses. Why are we voting yes for the government to take more of what belongs to us? Don’t they get enough already?

Speech 113 by Obama on health care cannot possibly be a game changer since audience trends have been on the steady decline. The only chance for a turnaround is if the media falls 100% in line across all medium - TV, radio, print. With Fox, Rush/Sean/Glen, and WSJ among others, this is simply not going to happen. I predict there will be several false polls put out by NYT, NBC, CNN et al. But the overriding passion on the conservative right, and an increasingly educated and Obama-wary independent voter will maintain momentum over a still-arrogant left. My biggest fear is the Trojan Horse, where a handful of RINO's trade dropping the public option for keeping all the rest of the cowpies in a massaged health care bill. God help us . . . .

I think it was said best in the movie Jerry Maguire "SHOW ME THE MONEY"
That is what I say to every member of the current administration, congress, and the house of representatives. Where is all of the money needed to pay for everything they are trying to do? Better yet, How are the future generations going to pay for everything? Credit only goes so far, then your creditors come calling.
Why is it our government is always trying to write and pass new bills? Why not work on the ones we have?
Whenever the roof on your house is leaking, you don't replace the carpet, you fix the roof!

The country and the American lives are at stake....it is ashamed that they are being equal to a youn man's ego in sport!
How can one believe in any prediction from a President who has failed in every predictions since taking office, has been dishonest in his statements to supporters, and like many Americans i am both weary and wary of this President. On Wednesday, he will fight for his pride before his destruction because he has put his personal pride and ego above the interest of this country and the American people who has trusted him to bring about real change.

Karen is right: "he is a bitter partisan extremist".

Simply stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Let the dividers step aside. Let the hate mongers give way. Let the label makers stand in silence. Allow the work of the people to progress, so we can all move towards that more perfect union. Too much time is being wasted on the generation of fear and hot air. We know that the machinery is broken; we have had a fair and open election to determine the best mechanic for the job. Allow the work to be done already. For those dissenters: do not just dissent, offer your own useful advice. Do not just be a shill for the right or the left. Think for yourself! For those people with ideas, big or small, submit them to your senator or congress person. These are the people that YOU have elected to be YOUR representative. This is how OUR government is supposed to work. This America, the "government of the people, by the people, for the people, (which) shall not perish from the earth."

I have long appreciated your commentaries and inputs over the years. I am an admitted partisan Democrat who relies on you when I get twitchy on various topics. My question to you is do you feel that subtleties of the ways that we communicate about race are being exploited in this debate, to the detriment of what the President and other Democrats are trying to accomplish?

Mike Kowalczyk, San Geronimo, CA

Wow! What a bunch of garbage! Both sides of congress have taken sides, and neither of them seem to be concerned with the general public. Most people (75%) agree that we have a problem, but exactly 10% want to do something about it. The easiest way to win is to sit back and trumpet the fact that Obama is so wrong, while not offering any solution, therefore you cannot be wrong! It's perfect! Obama is trying hard to correct the mistakes of the past, and the mistakes of inaction out of fear, and is being bold and aggressive. Give him a chance! Doing nothing is worse than being wrong, just ask the Bill Clinton who asked us to go get Osama, but cried like a girl when 4 or 5 of us ended up dead. We were then ordered to pull out and stop the action in Somalia. Thank God that we didn't or more rangers and special ops people would've died.

Look, all I can say is I believe in a chance, and until he starts making decisions worse than the previous guy, give him a fair shot. I mean, hell, it's not like we would invade a country for no reason.....ummm...oops, bad example. Quit being wienies for political reasons and try to listen to all sides of any argument. This coming from a Ranger with a lifetime disability because of a bad political move. Shut up and listen, then make your choice!

How sad that vocal minority who did not say a word when we spent a trillion or so on a war nobody won and everybody lost is now complaing when we will spend on keeping our own citizens healty and carded for. For someone like me who has seen his premiums go from 300 to 1600 in about ten years, I am amazed how even a single person can not see teh writing on the wall – all of us will be like the autoworkers – simply priced out of any compatitive capability. My only wish is that the big pharma was also somehow folded into this coming "correction". having paid nearly $400 per month for a single prescription before patent expiration and $30 for the subsequent generic – I feel violated and robbed knowing that even on that generic they were making a hefty profit. I have made this case over and over to my doctor friends who worry about the upcoming "correction" that even if they make a bit less, their meals, cars and computers will cost equally less. I really don;t knwo what teh fuss is about: If we succeed in lowering our national health costs everybody comes out ahead except for the duffus pundit who has one less topic for his Radio/TV show!

nice picture of obama against an only red and white flag, holding his hand in an ever so closely resembling the nazi salute, and to top it off within the first 3 words of the article...fiery.

Ooops! Obviously got badly bitten by the typo bug !
How sad that a vocal minority who did not say a word when we spent a trillion or so on a war nobody won and everybody lost is now complaining when we will spend some on keeping our own citizens healthy and cared for. For someone like me who has seen his premiums go from $300 to $1600 in about ten years, I am amazed how even a single person can not see the writing on the wall – all of us will be like the autoworkers – simply priced out of any competitive capability. My only wish is that the Big Pharma is also somehow folded into this coming “correction”. Having (unfortunately) paid nearly $400 per month for a single prescription before patent expiration and $30 for the subsequent generic – I feel violated and robbed knowing that even on that generic they were making a hefty profit! I have made this case over and over to my doctor friends who worry about the upcoming “correction” that even if they make a bit less, their meals, cars and computers will cost equally less. I really don’t know what the fuss is about: If we succeed in lowering our national health costs everybody comes out ahead except for the duffus pundit who has one less topic for his Radio/TV show!

The biggest problem is that no one is talking about "health care" reform. It's all "health insurance" reform. Health insurance does not equal health care. Mandating health insurance for all citizens and reforming health insurance is not going to reduce the actual costs of health care. That is where the problem is-the actual costs of health care. Why do health insurance premiums keep rising? Because the cost of health care continues to rise. To address health care reform, it needs to be reform across the board, from torte reform to reform in the pharmacuetical companies, to reform in the medical equipment and supplies industry to health insurance reform. If all we do is shift the cost of health care from one entity to another, without reducing the actual cost of health care, no one is going to be any better off than they are now.

Obama will succeed if he goes after the part of health reform everybody agrees with, preventing insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions and dropping people from coverage because they got sick. If he can find a way to cover many more of the uninsured, that will be wonderful too. As long as you get something passed, you can add on to it later. I personally favor and open enrollment rule under which insurance companies have to take new insureds on a first-come first-served basis without regard to age, health, or pre-existing conditions.

I'd like to congradulate all of your opinions and facts about universal health care. We're the only developed nation without some means of protecting the mental and physically fraille humans from having health care. The swine flu movement will swarm down upon us in one form or the other if we don't do something to ensure that all americans have health insurance. Moreover, the social security option has been proven to be better than 401k by the 2008 recession of falling stock prices. Thirdly, what happened to that golden rule that you christians claim " Do onto others as you would like done onto you"?
My other point is that we should make a deadline when we begin to cut deficet to introduce universal health care into our budge. In the meanwhile, allow the compromise by the republicans and the whole time the universal public option has been passed to almost force them to the table. Clinton was pushed by special interest like that corruption way your afraid of. The handouts that you mention aren't true when most americans work hard everyday to make a better life. Some have been victimized by racism, sexism, discrimination, socioeconomic divisions, xenophobics, and other such. Before you call me egalatarian, I voted for Mccain for national defense purposes only. Oh, I don't agree with other things by Obama either but this is essential. Look at Johnson, Nixon, Clinton and now Obama for inspiration on fixing this problem. Let's quit being selfish for our own because what affects one of us will affect all of us.

WHY this speech and Obamacare will fall FLAT:

Simple logic, Americans agree the ECONOMY is in CRISIS, health care IS NOT. Most Americans are fine with their health care 80% as a matter of fact, hardly the conditions needed for a sweeping overhaul. FIX THE ECONOMY, OBAMA, DON'T ADD TO THE DEBT AND TO THE PROBLEMS. ALL YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IS RUN UP A PRICE TAG, YOU'VE NEVER CREATED PROSPERITY YOUR WHOLE LIFE, SO STOP EXPERIMENTING WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS JUST TO INFLATE YOUR EGO.

Obama and the Democrats have overreached, now they're going to reap the whirlwind.

william drew, wall street could care less where the manufacturing is being done, where corporations are based, or where the engineers are. it makes no difference to the business where their product is built, how their product is built, or who buys it, all that matters to a business is that someone is buying their product somewhere. corporations care more about themselves than the country they are based in because that can change..

im getting sick of the ra ra yes we can b.s, maybe a bit of substance this time? are insurance companies really the ones to blame? i know they cut back coverage and screw people over, but maybe they have no choice? maybe the costs of doing business for them are rising so they can either operate at a loss or jack up rates. if this is the case than a public option will require higher taxes. i dont see any REAL evidence of an insurance price fixing monopoly which everyone seems to believe in.

The USA has got to be the most hypocritical country in the world. We say we stand for this and that....but unless it's someone we like it doesn't matter, if there ideas are right we want them to fail and if they fail then the US fails and some say "So be it", which is a shame. We say we want to clean up our cities and towns and help people get back on there feet, but really we don't. We say we care about someone getting healthcare but when they have no means to get it or can't find a decent job to have stable income to pay for it we say that's there problem and then we drive thru the slums and bad neighborhoods and frown saying I wish these people would go away, but we forget, they are american too but why should I help them? Maybe because someone helped you? So if the public option isn't a good idea then smart people if you have a better idea lets hear it!! Otherwise respect the Position ( President ) and let him try to fix what you people let happen the last 8 years.

David Gergen's use of the term Obamacare indicates where he's coming from. He may be a moderate Republican, but he's still a Republican. I wish he'd written "the Obama Health Plan" or something else, rather than the term thrown around by the far right to portray reform as some sort of "nanny state" issue rather than a reasonable government remedy to a problem that can not be completely solved by the free market.

There are other ways to reform health care without government intervention. Why the hurry, especially when something this drastic = will surely impose so much chaos on an already great health care industry? Government has never run a thing efficiently. Social security will be bankrupted in 2017, the post office is closing 700 offices around the country and medicaid and medicare are bankrupted. Pooling plans, reforming torts, pharmecuticals prices, fraud and waste will surely bring down prices and create competition.
Watering down our health system with government intervention and control will surely destroy one of the best things this country has going for itself. I dont believe the Cheshire Cat smile, or the teleprompted speeches written ever so persuasive....If a government cant even vet Czars like most businesses do background checks, no trust of personal health information or decisions should be trusted by the Obama Adm.

[...] Read it at CNN [...]

Obama, I voted for you even though I'm really more of a Republican in nature. If this bill for health care goes through because of your doing, I will never EVER support you again. This is the BIGGEST waste of resources and the most obvious neglect of public opinion.

I know this sounds a little sadistic, but I kind of hope Obama's plan for health care reform fails so his opposition can reap what they sow. Just wait until you too get laid off, lose your health coverage, get cancer and can't afford treatments out of your own pocket. Who's going to be your savior then? Merck? Wellpoint? Rush Limbaugh? I've recently lost my Medicaid and will likely die a lousy death when my cancer comes back, I just hope I live long enough to see some of those smug loudmouths at the town hall meetings eat some humble pie.

Obama has not led on anything. He just rubber stamps everything the Dems have come up with. He's spent all his time running all over the country being a celebrity. Talk about overexposure....he really loves attention.
He and the Dems never got their priorities straight. They've already put us in insurmontable debt with questionable spending and now want support for spending a trillion or so more on health care. EVERYONE already knows their taxes are eventually going way up to pay for this spendathon and now they don't want to fund what probably matters the most. The economy would eventually have righted itself .
I wrote in a real leaders name for President, Hillary Clinton. This man is just mushing around up there. What a mess.

I personally find the prospect of another Obama speech on health care reform about as appetizing as one more hotdog in an eating contest. I have heard enough generalities and platitudes and his tendency to underestimate the intelligence of his audience is grating. If he wants to hit his three pointer he'll have to tell the truth and hope this country, weary of his crisises and bold emergency spending sprees, will coough it up one more time for him. This is all about him, right?

Getting consensus is increasingly more difficult in world where hyped expectations are the norm and compromise is billed by the media as "defeat." Too much has been made of the so-called public option by liberal democrats and conservative republicans alike. Health economists have preached for years that the health care marketplace does not permit consumers to shop for price, quality, and quantities with knowledge about what is available. Instead the doctors of unknown properties typically define what ails the consumer and prescribes treatment. Neither the public option nor the health insurance cooperative will change that reality. Thus, one must look to other means to curb the relentless march of annual health care cost increases. Are such means available? Yes, but nobody will like the strong medicine of standby health care wage and price control authority for the president to exercise when a congressionally-defined annual rate of increase is exceeded in the medical cost component of the consumer price index, adjusted for population growth, Exercise of that authority would enable the president and his advisors to determine which parts of the medical cost component are responsible and to focus on controlling wages and prices in those parts. Thus far, neither the House nor Senate address the matter and the White House is silent. Maybe President Obama should ask for standby wage and price control authority in case the inevitable compromise that will represent the latest version of health care reform fails to bend the projected curse of increasing health care costs.

David, the unfair attacks and biased reporting against Hillary Clinton by you and other members of CNN's so-called "best political team on television," irritated me to no end. However, Hillary managed to keep her dignity through it all and, in fact, has emerged far more respected, admired, and significant than any of you hate-Hillary-wind-bags.

With that off my chest, let me say that it will be a mistake for Obama to court conservatives at the expense of his base. The liberal movement will be unforgiving. Bill Clinton moved to the center out of sheer necessity, after the far right Republican's swept into congress. Obama has a Democratic controlled legislative body – at least until 2010. He should grow a set and demand a bill with the public option.

Question:

Although most of his speech today (9/8/09) was very encouraging to students saw it, I have only one question:

**Why did all (3) of his example citizens that "overcame" difficulties in their lives were all related to health/health care?

1.) Endured brain cancer since 3 years old
2.) Decided to get a job at the local health center
3.) Going to school to study health

What amazes me is the low lying selfishness of people in this country.
During the Bush administration when it was apparent that the Bush administration was lying and decievingto the American people, no one said a peep. Also damn if there were any townhall meetings, Bush for damn sure was not going to do that. I think that some racist are camoflogued, they know that if Obama did fix alot of this countries problems that would mean that enough of the right people are willing to work togethor...a true United States Of America,, we would not want that on the first semi-black American Presidents watch now would we.

The president has not explained health care reform to members of the House well enough. I watched two different representatives give their town hall presentations. One said the new bill would not provide coverage for any illegal immigrants. The other said there was no language in the bill to prevent illegal immigrants from getting health care. They both can't be right.

Pres. Obama won by only a few percentage points of the popular vote. That he did so on such a wide base for an electoral landslide is both impressive and irrelevant. No one is deluding themselves into thinking half of the US voted for that other guy, they were voting against Obama.

Pres. Obama has some mandate. End the War in Iraq. That was clearly mandate. Raise the prestige of the US on the world stage: mandate.

On healthcare, however, the country is divided. Yes, dems, you won. Reform helthcare. Remember, however, that the country is divided. A 60-40 senate split should mean a reasoned 10-20% shift to the left.

Would any of us stood by if Bush used his win over Gore as a reason to harvest every national forrest and drain Alaska of oil? Would any of us stood by if Bush used his win over Kerry to abolish abortion and put a Christian Conversion class in the public school ciriculums?

Some would have cheered for these.

If 80% of people have health care they like and can afford, if many of the uninsured are guys in their 20's who are willing to take the risk of not having it, is less than 10% of the vote worth changing the entire system?

People are afraid of what they don't understand. Americans that are tired of hearing about health care and the public option have only tired of confronting that fear. And most don't want to understand, so they quickly and easily buy into tactics of fear that close the door on the subject. The public option isn't government mandated insurance, just a new company in the market that will keep the other companies honest. If people think President Obama is not being truthful when he speaks then it doesn't really matter what he says. It's a shame that hate and fear seem to be in the driver's seat for America. Who wants to bet that the republican "response"(what a joke to call it that) to a speach that hasn't been given yet is already written. That's our biggest problem, nobody wants to listen. So once again we all suffer and we all blame. Suffer and blame, suffer and blame, suffer and blame, suffer and blame.........this is America. We need to stop stepping on our own feet.

We are turning into the "Uncle Rico" of countries, living today in our past glory and world standing.

The GOP is going to fight everything Obama and the Dems try to do. So many on the right identify as Christians...what would Jesus do? Say "I've got MY insurance so I don't care about YOU." ? We are a great country, but the way we treat the poor ( and working poor ) is a travesty.

Republicans have never gotten out of campaign mode. They are so angry they lost, they are going to finish the job of destroying the country that Bush started. The 24/7 barrage of half-truths, slander and outright lies goes on. I have yet to see a Republican plan for fixing healthcare.

I am one with "buyers remorse" and could not be more disappointed in this President. He talks too much, does not listen, makes enemy lists and degrades people with questions. The speech will be another waste of time. What a huge disappointment this man is. Good Grief

Well – - – I hope this time they get the correct speech into the teleprompter. In September 1993, when President Clinton faced the same situation in his speech to Congress about desired health care reform, the wrong diskette was inserted into the computer. Bill Clinton winged it for seven minutes while George Stephanopoulos got the problem fixed.

Having lived 33 years in Canada, this present concept of a "public option" appalls me. Discounted insurance premiums in response to a means test? Nationalize the entire insurance industry.

Is this entertainment or what!

Reminds me of the weekly crises on General Hospital in the old days. Remember the crisis/ point of resolution background music just before the ads?

The crisis has shifted from the economy to GITMO to Iraq/ Afghanistan to a healthcare crisis to a Democratic party survival crisis. Whoa. Next crisis will be cap & trade and saving the planet after it rains in TOGO.

Poor Sarah, she missed the first step to the "panels" was already tucked in the stimulus. Puleeze... That said, she makes a few good points. So does the Prez when he dumps the ultra -left. I am more of a liberal than BO is, and have been at it longer. But this radical leftist crap from Jarrett, Jones, Pelosi, and the caucuses (CBC, Progressives, etc), seem to have strayed so far from pragmatic, nothing important will get done. BO has lost the trust of those of us that listened in 2008.

VERY SAD. I WANT MY VOTE BACK.... Hillary would have done better, Michell has more character (although she is also too far left for even me). I know many New England liberals in both parties. They are not spending any more on bad execution....

Well i think health care is messed up. I also have family members who have basically smoked and drank their way into poor medical conditions and have never really worked to pay for their own way thru life. I think everyone deserves good health care but i also do not want the care i receive to be degraded to pay for better care for illegals or people who do not care for their-selves. Doctors and hospitals think giving you a pill saves you when what you need is to push away from the biggie size. I have a hard time believing the same goverment who can not control medicare can control the costs of medical care for everyone else. I believe that once you prove you can do something you get more responsibility not that you have so far failed but now we will give you more. Seems irresponsible for us tax-payers to look at it any other way.

If he does what the media is predicting this is going to blow up in his face.
Trying to sell the false choice of 'public option is the way and those opposed want the status quo' will fail. The opposition wants change too, just not the change he's selling.
He campaigned on common sense solutions and now he's selling a progressive agenda. Its not hard to see why his aproval numbers fell.

I'm so glad that this president was inept. Sending out congressmen to face voters in "town hall" meetings was a blunder that thankfully made congressmen think about their political futures if they voted for such a bill.

I doubt if Obama can sway the very public who's already vocally against congressional control over the health care system. He's not as slick a salesman as he thinks he is...

THE AMA is supporting Obama's health care reform! WE NEED THE CHANGE!! Since Truman, presidents have been trying to change health care reform..What is wrong with going for something that will provide better care, no penalities for "existing conditions", and so forth? IF you are happy with your existing insurance, you still can keep it. We need competitions. Those of you who scream "socialism"... what do you think insurance companies are doing? They have control of YOU already. They, not the doctors, dictate what they will cover or not.. Please BE informed before speaking out.

It's going to be the same Obama speach as always. He's going to say what everyone wants to here. He's going to say abortion wont be covered, assisted suicide wont be covered, and he theoretically wont be lying, too bad there wont be any mention of the loop holes that would allow them to be publically funded anyways. Not to mention the Public option is a joke everything he says it will accomplish, can be done by allowing insurance companies to compete in all states. I really wouldent doubt if everyone eats up this so called change again. In his defense he is an incredible speaker. If you ask me he is the second comming of John F. Kennedy but this time we have no Bobby to save us!

David, thank you for your commentary. You are one of the few commentators I truly respect. I am, however, feeling very sad at the extreme right's agenda – which is simply to poison. They have successfully brainwashed the masses – who are ignorant and unable to review facts and think for themselves. People like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Shawn Hannity, Laura Ingram, Jim Greer etc. should be ashamed of themselves because they know exactly what they are doing. And frankly, I am also concerned that the media such as Fox News and CNN is providing them a forum for spreading their ugly and poisonous agenda which is dividing and destroying our great country. CNN is fully responsible for giving Jim Greer the center stage the other night and letting him present a healthy and wholesome event of the President speaking to schoolchildren as an evil and devious plot. And there are thousands of ignorant people who readily buy into that type of ugly propaganda. It is very sad.

Hope this gentleman does not wind up as a duplicate of Mr. Carter's style of running the Oval Office. Micro-Manager can't do it all. It is too much for one person with this gigantic responsibility. He appears to be a 'NASCAR driver' attempting to win the race in everything and every time.

You can't win all the races all the times, but you might get a few things done of higher priority. Healthcare may not wind up being one of them, at least for now in the present form.

For some strange reason, when Obama goes live, people listen. I believe he's going to do well tonight, even when the polls suggest otherwise.

He has to go by himself.....forget about congress! They won't pass the bill with the public option because they received the big dollars from the insurance industry. They don't work for the people, they work for the big insurance mafia!

Wow, a lot of Obama supporters and their left-wing drivel. The health-care bill Obama and the democrat controlled Congress want to shove down our throats is just plain WRONG. The same people pushing this bill on us will NOT have to sign up for it. His failed policies are already costing us and future generations TRILLION$.
Obama's speech will be the same rhetoric he has been spewing for months. His speeches are the same as when he was campaigning. He is president and serves US, the people.
He is narcissistic and most people are getting tired of this. Those that continue to support Obama and his damaging agenda's need to pack up their belongings and get the heck out of my country and take Obama and the democrat controlled congress with you.

On the contrary, with the content reported in the Baucus Bill, I foresee that Obama is going to encounter even more resistance, as that content is downright un-American, and unacceptable to the Citizens, and it is indeed the Citizens, and not the GOP, that are against this bill.

I am sure that we will fail as a nation if we don't get our manufacturing back from Wall Street, take the burden of health care off of small business by having universal, and stop spending more on bombs (not soldiers) than any other country (and most combined) in this world. THAT is where we have strayed.

A public option goes against common sense. We are being lied to. It's a farce to claim that we can "keep our insurance" when in reality our employers will decide what we keep. With a "free" option available that is funded by the FED, we'll all be dumped into a public system that will quickly implode and explode with quotas and cost-cutting ... over-burdened "clinics" and health care "in MASS" where quality becomes less important than mandated quantity. The American people simply want costs reduced ... we don't want QUALITY eradicated!

The whole focus on heatlh care is like trying to decide how you are going to spend your inheritance before you have it. We need focus on energy independence and economic viability. If you want to spend some money on health care, that's something you can decide when you have money to spend. In the meantime, do tort reform and eliminate pre-existing conditions and move on to the real issues.

I can't believe organized labor, of all "interest groups" is behind Obama's version of "reform." One of their signature reasons for being, supposedly, is to protect their members' interests. Right now, organized labor negotiates really good healthcare benefits for its members. A government option takes that all away from them!

Lots of state governments have budget deficits. if a government option does become law, one of the first things that will happen is that state governments will dump their health insurance onto the federal government. All this will do is rearrange existing debt, but it also will be a royal screwing of union members as their wonderful health benefits become quite ordinary.

I think union leadership is really selling out union members. I'm really surprised at the absence of any outcry over this betrayal. It's just like AARP supporting the plan while the most vocal opponents are seniors!

Unless he explains line by line what proposal he is supporting.....ppl who already have insurance will not support anything. Unless he explains exactly where he is getting the money to pay for such a huge restructuring of healthcare he will not gain any support. People no longer trust this President and especially after this Van Jones scandal....

Rafaelo said:
"I have no health insurance because I am unemployed. I am fifty-five and judging from the results of a year old job search, unemployable. I am fast drawing down my retirement savings, and will soon be out of money. And the President is considering Max Baucus’s health care plan that would FINE people for not getting insurance? Fines up to $3,800 according to reports."
Response:
You do not even know what President Obama have considered... this idea just came out recently by Max Baucus who is hoping that both Republican and Democrat can agree on. I'm sure the President is smart enough to come up with a better solution which I'm sure he will. And why is everyone blaming the president for the current healthcare bill that is being proposed? Isn't it that Congress wrote the bill and not President Obama? Because people in Congress couldn't do the job, he now have to re-write the whole bill again! Stop blaming everything to the president and put it to where it really belongs.
FYI... I am neither a republican or a democrat but I am smart enough to listen and review the facts before making judgment.

Also, out of curiosity... isn't the HealthCare reform a very important subject to American people? Why is it that all major networks are covering the speech tonight and FOX is showing the season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance?

Here's the real problem. The right has distorted so much about what is or is not in the current proposed bills and the left really hasn't done too much to discount any of that. I believe that if the President details exactly what it is he wants and why and explains how much it's going to cost/save he'll be successful... We'll know more after he speaks tonight... that much we know for sure!

All the sudden, everyone is fiscally conservative. Where have all these nay-sayers been for the past 8 yrs? No teaparties when Bush added 1.3 trillion dollars and the cost of 2 wars ( 3 trillion ) on our credit card? Now that healthcare is finally being addressed (after 30 yrs), americans are saying " it can wait ". Let's try the other stuff first and see in 5 yrs, why is Obama shoving this down our throats? This is one of the issues Obama was elected on, and for him to not address it now, it will never be addressed again by a Dem President. Medicare isn't a socialist program, those hospitals and Dr's who participate DO NOT work for the government, they get REIMBURSED for care they provide, by the government. How many nay-sayers out there who say medicare is broke, know that it is partially privatized? Can you day Medicare Advantage? Medicare HMO's? All insurance providers for Medicare Advantage get subsidies which cost tax payers billions and the care isn't managed as well as traditional medicare. WHY? Either give Americans the chioce of a public option, or let these insurance companies, big pharma and any other industry the US Gov subsidizes survive on their own. I'm tired of my tax dollars only representing a segment of our population. Actually, I'm tired of politics period.

What a quandary for the liberals. "It must be done now!" They have control of congress and the white house but the kitty is empty. If only I could spend money based on my wants instead of my budget.

We need health reform for the good of our country, plain and simple. Change can be frightening and lots of special interests are afraid their piece of the pie will be smaller but this does not alter the fact that our citizens and our buisnesses need and deserve real health care reform.

Tort reform must be included, otherwise the underlying costs and over the top preventive testing will continue escalate.

Tort reform could be handled very simply.

Litigates receive only "compensatory" damages (and their lawyers cut only comes from that). "Punitive" damages should go to funding the healthcare for all.

Obama's fourth challenge is overcoming racism. With the tone of the right-wingers and the Beck-Hannity-Limbaugh clones who are utterly disrespectful to the office of the president, it doesn't matter if Obama was proposing to pay everyone's health care using his own money – they would still disagree. They obviously are bitter that he is the president and this is obviously all politics because when the former president was damaging this country’s reputation and economy, none of them spoke up with such passion. Just like the religious-right campaign strategy used to get Bush elected, the strategy of branding the president as a Nazi is being used to fuel the fire. The bad thing is that the hatred and bias for the president is so obvious but the mainstream media is not calling them on it – and in some cases (hint hint FOX NOISE) are encouraging it!

Some suggestions –
First, we need tort reform to limit doctors' legal liability and costs. Take a look at all those cheesy ads by the medical malpractice and personal-injury lawyers who get rich by encouraging us to sue each other! They don't have to win; real harm doesn't even have to have happened: just by threatening to sue, they can get some money (the client doesn't see much of it, after the lawyer's cut PLUS his expenses.).
When the state of Texas imposed these limits, it was flooded with doctors applying for licences to practice; and voila! - no shortage of doctors, and thus a lessening of wait times to see a doctor.

Second, eliminate the ability of private insurance companies to deny coverage for previous conditions. With the increasing sophistication of genetic mapping, insurance companies will use that information to increase your rates and limit their risks.

Third, please, please do not, do not let the government bureaucracy get its hands on running any aspect of health care! I worked in several Veterans Administration hospitals over the years, and I saw entrenched bureaucrats who had a job-for-life mentality. Because it's true; virtually no one ever gets fired from a government job. They also knew that cost-containment was of no importance; that's what the "private sector" had to worry about - not them! Do you want your health care to be run like the Post Office?

To Rafaelo (& all the uninsured who don't think they should be required to have it)- If you were to get sick or in an accident who would you like to pay your hospital bills? Should the taxpayer pay now or wait until the hospital exhausts your savings so that you end up on Medicaid and the taxpayer can pay then? Or would you rather hire a lawyer to get out the bill completely so the taxpayer pays it + your lawyer fees? Or would you have a fundraiser and ask everyone to pitch in a little, which is the same thing as the dreaded socialized medicine that everyone seems to fear? Whatever you choose, it costs me (taxpayer) more than $3800 over my lifetime. And you're sick. Nobody wins. Is it worth it? Does it seem fair? Not to me.

I find these comments interesting as I have experienced not having health insurance, having employer provided health insurance, having people close to me who are on medicaid, veterans, and medicare, and then living in Switzerland with their privately administered publicly mandated system, and I can tell you with confidence that the US health care system needs drastic reform. And I don't blame the government for wanting to 'take over' health care, as they currently provide health for 100 million Americans through various programs, it would make sense from their perspectives and ours to combine the various programs into one streamlined program that can pick up those for fall through the cracks (too poor to have employer provided insurance...or not able to pay the premiums out of their service sector paycheck... but not poor enough or old enough to qualify for current programs).

For all of you saying that taxpayers are paying for those who don't have insurance right now, no you are not, taxpayers are paying for health care for senior citizens and for those who have qualified to be destitute enough to temporarily qualify for medicaid that is all. When a member of an uninsured family breaks their leg, for example, the family takes that person to the doctor, where said doctor provides treatment, but guess what you don't walk out that door until you pay for the $1,000 in treatment you just received. Now most people in the lower income brackets do not have $1,000 laying around so you end up putting it on a credit card (not on the taxpayers). As for medicaid and the other 'entitlement' programs, you have to be destitute (and i mean destitute) before you qualify (the one exception being pregnancy, but the 'coverage' ends shortly after birth). As for employer provided health insurance, it is already rationed-I was appalled to develop pneumonia and be told I had to wait a week for a chest X-ray to confirm the diagnosis. Or be told by a different and well respected insurance group that I had to wait four months to have physical when I was new to the program (after all isn't preventative care important, apparently not). As for veterans provided health coverage, it is great in some respects but it is so underfunded that the participants wait months for standard tests (like the type to find out if your cancer has come back or the type to find out why you are experiencing a continual stream of infections). In regards to 'european socialist' care. It was wonderful. We were living in Switzerland where the private insurance companies administer the mandated program and everyone (illegal or legal) is legally required to pick up a basic insurance policy (which is not deducted from your paycheck, but is instead a monthly bill you pay), which the federal government reimburses the insurance companies for. If you want more than basic health care, then you can add on amenities such as private hospitals, private rooms, your own personal nurses etc. This system was great and my family received excellent timely care no questions asked and we didn't have to think twice about visiting the emergency room (very important as my son has a rare medical condition that requires a lot of these visits) or being hospitalized (and believe me it was nice not to worry about hospital bills after spending 10 days in intensive care) or about paying for prescriptions (they were part of an annual deductible which you chose based on the premiums you were willing to pay). And oh yes, we got to choose our doctors and it didn't matter if they were part of the public or private system.

In other words, for those of you who think US health care is so great, it is time you opened your eyes and realized the confusing mess of private and random government programs is probably actually costing you personally and taxpayers more than a streamlined, standardized system that smoothly combines the private system with the government programs.

I admit that I do not know all of the details concerning health care. However, I do not think that any of its supporters do either. It appears to me that under the guise of "emergency", the proponents of this plan would like to have seen it passed in the middle of the night and deal with the details later – similar to the cap and trade bill. It is really arrogant of the president and the Democrat-controlled congress to resort to such tactics to attempt to pass a bill of this magnitude. If this plan is so good, why won't the administration and the supporters of the plan allow the public and the legislators sufficient time to thoroughly study – not review – the more than thousand pages of documentation for this plan, digest it, scrutinize it and have an honest debate?

Make no bones about it, the insurance premiums that I pay for my family are astronomical, and my coverage is still not very good. As much as I dislike it, I am more scared of government adding any new social programs, much less health care. Look at Social Security and Medicare that are on the brink of insolvency. If Congress underfunded, in four days, a cash for clunkers program that was supposed to last for four months, we know that number crunching is above their pay grade.

Let's not make health care another "teachable moment"!

The crux of this issue is that we cannot restore our economy until the dead weight of the health care system is taken off of the backs of the middle class, or what is left of it. Give me some good old love-thy-neighbor, be-thy-brother's-keeper socialism as outlined by Jesus Christ himself, any day. Unfortunately, we seem to be a "Christian Nation" only in times of convenience, like when we want to gin up support for a splendid little war against "infidels" somewhere. In the meantime, I'm waiting gingerly for my 1 year's waiting period to be up so that if some medical calamity should befall me I may possibly be out my 6000 deductible as opposed to selling my home to pay medical bills, or hearing those magical words "we can cure your cancer, but you can't afford the medicine." Wish me luck, folks.