August 20, 2009 09:18 PM UTC
Obama Conference Call Liveblog: "There WILL be a public option"
1 Comments- by: redstateblues
(The following is a liveblog I did of President Obama’s strategy meeting today with Democratic activists in Washington and all over the country.)
12:18: Hey everyone, I’m on hold with OFA right now waiting for the President to get on and talk with supporters about health care on the conference call. It’s supposed to start at 12:30.
12:29: This is going to be a strategy meeting on health care, and is supposed to serve the purpose of reassuring Democrats who are worried about the status of the public option, the entire reform plan, and what they can do about it.
Liveblog below the fold.
12:30: OFA Director introduces Tim Kaine to a nice round of applause. Kaine is in Jersey helping Gov. Corzine.
Kaine: “1,000,000 declarations in support of Obama’s HC reform principles.”
Kaine: “We are close, but we are not done…we are in this for the right reasons.”
12:34: Kaine introduces OFA’s Jeremy Bird.
Bird: “Over 1.5 million of you have taken action since we launched our health care reform push months ago.”
12:37: (Now watching it online as the phone was cutting out whenever there was applause.) Bird shows a slide that tells us that there have been around 12,000 local events, 250,000 personal stories, and “You have outnumbered the opponents at town halls, despite what the media has said.”
12:39: Bird introduces Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL 20) to polite applause.
Rep. Wasserman: “We all work so hard to elect this president because we wanted to bring real change to this country… now we have to act boldly to change [the] system…”
Rep. Wasserman: “There are many who say that this is the wrong time for reform. Many of them were the same people saying we weren’t ready for this president. Well, they were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.”
Rep. Wasserman: “Together we will pass health care insurance reform this year.”
12:43: Rep. Wasserman introduces OFA volunteer Beth Kimbriel.
Kimbriel: “I am proud to do this work.”
Kimbriel: “Person by person block by block, until we get it done.”
12:45: Kimbriel ontroduces the President.
Obama looking good. Crowd starts cheering “Yes we can!”
Obama thanking everyone who came on before him, volunteers, and supporters.
Obama: “It’s great to be here with all of you because it reminds me of how we got here in the first place.” Very much in campaign mode. Haven’t seen him like this since last fall.
Obama: “Winning the election was just the beginning. I said this the election night, the night of the inauguration… and I think some people thought I was just foolin'”
12:50: Obama: “Let’s recall what we’ve already gotten done: we’ve responded to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression… a tax cut for 98% of working families… putting people back to work on our roads, bridges and hospitals… because of these steps we’ve avoided potentially something worse than the Great Depression… expanded health insurance programs to 11 million more children across the country… passed a national service bill… the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act… new credit card rules… prohibited torture… begun to leave Iraq to its people… taken the fight to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and we’ve begun restoring our standing in the world.”
Obama: We’ve got more work to do, we’ve got more promises to keep, and one of those promises is to get quality health care to every person in America.”
12:53: Obama: “Some of you were around when we were in Iowa. 30 points down, and the media was going, ‘Oh, it’s over!”
Obama: “There’s something about August and September [that] causes Washington to go all wee-wee up.” LOL!
12:54: Obama: “There’s a lot of misinformation out there” Proceeds to list all of the lies and distortions. “Now… Come on. We can have a real debate–because health care is hard, and there are legitimate issues out there to sort through–but we’re going to have to cut through the noise and the misinformation, and the best way to do that is through you.”
Obama: “Right now the system works really well for the insurance companies, but not the American people.” He then goes through the truth of what is being worked through in Congress:
“If you want to keep your doctor, you can.”
“It’s working people who don’t have health insurance, and what we want to do is offer affordable options for how they can get health care.”
12:57: Obama: “I think a public option is important.”
“What we do think is if we have a public option in there, it can keep insurers honest, it will be a model for what affordable health care looks like.”
“Having said that, the public option is just one option. Nobody is saying you have to be in the public option…”
12:59: Obama reiterates that all health insurance companies will be required to accept customers despite pre-existing conditions. Emphasizes consumer protections.
1:00: Obama: “I want everybody to understand that, in addition to providing coverage to people who don’t have it, this bill will help you even if you already have coverage.”
“If you’re a deficit hawk, then you should be especially concerned about health care reform, because Medicare is going to go broke in 6 years if we don’t do anything. It won’t be out of money, but it will be in the red.”
1:03: Obama: “The same things we are hearing now have been said by the same people every time we’ve tried to propose these changes.”
Obama: “If you are presenting the facts clearly and fairly, then we have a great chance of winning this debate… now let’s go out and get them.”
1:06 Obama will now take some questions apparently (3):
Women in Colorado Springs gets to ask question via e-mail: “What do you think is the most compelling argument for health care reform?”
Obama: “Unless we make some changes, then you’re not going to have exactly what it is that you like… Health care costs are rising higher than inflation… more and more employers are going to say ‘well, we just can’t offer you insurance’… you’re going to lose more of your paycheck, even if you don’t know it… If you are one a private plan, you have something to worry about. If you are on a public plan, you have something to worry about because we’re running out of money.”
Obama: “Second, we are not forcing anyone into anything. We just want to have a plan similar to what is offered to members of Congress.”
Obama: “We will have a public option.”
1:09: Obama: “The point is, all of these forces taken together, will ensure that they have coverage when they need it… we are actually going to reduce the cost of health care, overall, over the long term… eventually that’s going to show up in your paychecks through lower premiums.”
Obama: “Nobody is talking about a government takeover of health care…”
1:11: Phone caller asks Obama a question: “Are we winning support from members of Congress? Do you think we (OFA) are making a difference?”
Obama: “Even if you live in a strongly Democratic district, where there’s a strong progressive health care advocate, you still need to be talking to people in your district…”
Obama: “You can have ten or twenty sane, civil town hall meetings, but if one has people screaming and yelling, you know what’s going to get covered.”
Obama: “It’s so important to emphasize to seniors that we are not reducing benefits under medicare… we believe the trust fund is safer…”
Obama: “$17 billion is taken out of medicare to subsidize private insurance companies… under a program called Medicare Advantage.”
Obama: “#1: we are not reducing benefits. #2: seniors need to know that their children and grandchildren will be getting the same kind of health care that seniors get.”
1:17: Twitterer question: “Where are… these lies [about health care coming] from?”
Obama: “Look, you know where these lies are coming from… you just flick channels and stop on… um… [a] certain one of them, and you’ll see where this stuff is coming from.” Good one.
Obama: “All you can do is just keep on pushing the truth. Nobody has proposed that illegal immigrants will be covered…. let’s dispel that myth…. There are no proposals to have this reform fund abortions… Nobody is talking about a government health care takeover… we don’t want a government bureaucrat getting in the way of [the relationship with you and your doctor] but we also don’t want an insurance company bureaucrat doing that either.”
Obama now dispelling death panel myth. Talking about how Republicans used to support the type of language on end of life planning that turned into the “death panels”.
Obama: “When someone says that I’m trying to create death panels, the media reports it, says that the White House says it’s not true, and then they go on to the next story. What [members of the media] don’t say is that it isn’t true.”
Obama: “There is a long American tradition of saying ‘government get off of my back.’ They were critical of Bush when he got involved in people’s lives, and now they’re critical of me. That is a legitimate position, and we can have a philosophical debate about that…”
1:24: North Carolinian supporter thanks Obama for helping to turn NC blue. Man mentions some Republicans have been wanting to get engaged in negotiations. Asks the president: “Where do we go from here?”
Obama: “We don’t know if we have one Republican vote. There are three Senators [Snow and Collins, and another I didn’t catch] who have been working to help us… I don’t know if they’re going to be able to [vote for it] though.”
1:27: Virginian woman also thanks Obama for helping to turn her state blue. Asks about critics asking her about how the country will afford to switch people from employer insurance to a public option. “What do I tell them?”
Obama: “It’s important to talk about how much this is going to cost. Republicans and my critics like to talk about how this is a ‘trillion dollar bill’ but what they don’t tell you is that it’s over ten years…” Says that “…for three years of Iraq and Afghanistan, we could have easily funded this plan.”
Obama: “We know it will save money, but since it’s not quantifiable, we can’t get any points from it.”
Obama: “What we want to do is make it so that people who earn more than $250,000 a year have to pay the same rate on itemized deductions as everyone else (28%) like they did under Reagan–that radical!”
1:33: Next question. Another NC man asks “If the public option is the solution you believe in, why aren’t we pushing it harder? And if it isn’t, what is the solution?”
Obama: “I continue to support a public option. I think it’s important and I think it will help drive down costs and give people more choices… but the public option is just one part of a broader plan… which is to bring down costs… one of the major ways we’re doing that is by creating new regulations on the insurance companies and consumer protections.”
Obama: “My point is–this is kind of like the belt and suspender thing–the insurance reform is the pants, and the public option can be the suspenders. What we need to do is focus on the insurance reform aspects, and not on the public option because people who have insurance are going to think they’re being forced into something… Those who oppose the debate are counting on this…”
1:38: Next question is on physical fitness and how people can be more active.
Obama: “In health care reform, in the legislation, we want to encourage prevention and wellness care… we will mandate that any insurance plan will have to offer a free doctor’s visit and preventative and wellness care.”
Obama: “All of us… need to encourage physical fitness programs.”
Obama: “We as adults in the community may have to provide more access to equipment that the kids may need.”
Obama: “What we have to do… is help local farmers get distributions to local schools so we can get fresh produce in there.”
1:42: Last question. Maryland man asks a question about young adults (hey, that’s me!) and how they fall into the insurance reform conversation.
Obama: “I remember my first few jobs. And… you’re broke! Being able to stay on a parent’s health care plan longer, until you have a steady job… would be helpful.”
Obama: “We don’t want to treat you in the emergency room, so you are going to have to buy mandated coverage to cover you on, at the very least, catastrophic events.”
Obama: “We may need to give hardship exemptions to people who can’t afford the mandated coverage…”
1:46: Closing remarks.
Obama: “The easiest thing to do as a politician is to do nothing. Your poll numbers go up… and everybody in Washington says ‘Look at what a great politician!’… but that’s not what I’m here to do.”
Obama: “Government is a human enterprise, so it’s imperfect, but we can do better than we’ve been doing.”
Obama: “There were people here just waiting to stop this because they wanted to say ‘look at all these idealistic people talking about hope and change, and look at how their hopes have been dashed!’ that’s just how things work in this town. Everything is instantly partisan.”
Obama’s last comment: “We can get this done”
I couldn’t attend the event due to the timeslot, so getting your report was very informative.
The outcome of the debate is far from certain, but between the practical sense and determination of Obama and Bennet, among others, I have a growing confidence that this is the last hurrah for the Chuckle-Headed Repubs.
Ironically, I wouldn’t be surprised if this leads to the final disintegration of the GOP, and the Conservadems and a few Independents (eg. ex-Repubs with a little more sense) form a new party to be the real loyal opposition.
Let Limbaugh and the other Chuckle-Bums have the ditto head crowd with their pathetic paranoia-driven delusions…