While other papers may have run the story on Obama’s heavily scripted health system change town hall on the front page of the print and Internet, the Paper of Record, the New York Times, just can’t muster the fortitude to give him the coverage, instead, burying it on page A14. I guess even the cheerleaders at the Times are finding it hard to believe him
While apparently failing to convert the people outside who protested from the right side of the driveway, Mr. Obama sought to reassure the people gathered inside the school gymnasium that a health care overhaul does not mean that Americans will lose coverage or surrender treatment decisions to the government.
Considering that the event was heavily scripted, with every question pre-screened, and every person in attendence pre-screened, he was basically reassuring the grasshoppers who want Big Government to play Mommy and take care of them, wipe their noses and butts, and allow them to be brain dead 5 year olds.
Mr. Obama predicted that Congress would pass health care legislation, suggesting that while hoping for a bipartisan bill, he would abandon efforts to get Republican support if it became necessary. “The most important thing is to get it done for the American people,†he said.
All the polls are showing that the American people are overwhelmingly against the plans, which, as per usual, he outsourced to Congress.
He took issue with critics who he said had distorted the debate to stoke fears that health changes will include “death panels that will basically pull the plug on Grandma.†That charge, which has been widely disseminated, has no basis in any of the provisions of the legislative proposals under consideration in Congress; it appears to be based on a provision that would require Medicare to pay for doctors to counsel patients on end-of-life care.
On this, he is correct. They aren’t set up to actually pull the plug on Granny, it just incentivizes doctors to discuss the idea with Granny (wink wink.)
There were some “skeptics” present, all heavily pre-screened.
The best part, though, was
And he said a government-run public option should not kill private insurers, but rather force them to be more competitive, even going so far as to compare the competition between them toFedEx, UPS and the Postal Service. “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine,†Mr. Obama joked. “It’s the post office that’s always having problems.â€
And therein lies the problem: the private companies are doing quite well, while the government agency is doing poorly. But, how poorly?
The U.S Postal Service faces a net loss of $7 billion in fiscal year 2009 even if it succeeds in cutting its costs by $6 billion, according to testimony provided to a Senate subcommittee last week by the Government Accountability Office.
The Postal Service is expected to end the year with $10.2 billion in outstanding debt.
And this is the same government that grasshoppers want in charge of all health care? Good luck with that!
