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Anthony Russo

Letters

Health Care: Obama States His Case

July 24, 2009
The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “President Seeks Public’s Support on Health Care” (front page, July 23):

I listened to President Obama’s news conference on the subject of health care for all Americans. I must say it left me with a deep sense of frustration.

We already have a successful federal health care program: Medicare. Even many physicians prefer it over the various programs sold by insurance companies. Why don’t we just gradually lower the age of eligibility until all Americans are covered? Or is that too easy?

Bernard F. Erlanger
New York, July 23, 2009

The writer is emeritus professor of microbiology at Columbia University.

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To the Editor:

Once again, on reading the various pundits, I feel as if I’m in a looking-glass world.

Did we hear the same news conference? I heard President Obama make a cogent, intelligent argument for fixing a health care system that is very broken; they heard that he did not lie or pander to the American public, which is apparently bad politics. Maybe it is.

More’s the pity.

Michelle Bisson
Tarrytown, N.Y., July 23, 2009

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To the Editor:

President Obama pointed out in his news conference that every member of Congress has great health insurance, and yet some are resisting making it available to all Americans. Maybe it’s kind of hard to feel the pain of those without it when you have created the best for yourselves.

Nancy Oliveira
San Francisco, July 23, 2009


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To the Editor:

Re “Real Challenge to Health Bill: Selling Reform” (Economic Scene, front page, July 22):

David Leonhardt says that the “typical person,” one of the 90 percent of voters who already have health insurance, thinks that the Democratic health care plans offer nothing for them except higher taxes.

As one of those 90 percent, I disagree. Beyond thinking that a rich society ought to be able to provide this basic need of life as a matter of course, the main reason to support strong universal health care is personal and family security: removing the weight of vulnerability to misfortune.

This is not just personal: we should not underestimate the corrosive effects of pervasive insecurity on American democracy. The recent trajectory of our society has whole segments seeing an increasingly tenuous hold on a middle-class lifestyle, and health care economic worries are a big part of that. This is a deeply destructive dynamic that bodes poorly for the American project.

Those who can’t conceive of losing their health insurance (which includes members of Congress and most influential political actors, and most of their friends) do not seem to appreciate that widespread personal vulnerability can translate into a caustic political culture.

Avoiding that future concerns me greatly, even though I myself have no worry about my own insurance.

William S. Kessler
Seattle, July 22, 2009

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To the Editor:

“What’s in it for me?” may be asked by healthy people who are covered by health insurance plans — that is, until they become ill. Once serious illness strikes, profit-minded insurance bureaucrats come between patient and doctor; and uncovered bills and expenses mount.

Everyone has a stake in health care reform. He just might not know it yet.

Carol Messineo
Brooklyn, July 22, 2009

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To the Editor:

As David Leonhardt rightly points out, one of the great barriers to health reform is that because most Americans already have health insurance, they don’t see “what’s in it for me.” Consequently, there is considerable resistance to the increased cost that health reform will require.

One possible answer is to include coverage for home- and community-based long-term care services — the kinds of services that help people avoid nursing home placement. This is a huge issue for many elderly Americans and their baby boomer children, two of the most powerful groups of voters.

In fact, a recent poll released by the SCAN Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to improving long-term care, found that almost 8 of 10 Americans (including two-thirds of Republicans) say that if health care reform included coverage for home- and community-based long-term-care services, it would personally benefit them or someone in their families.

The added cost of these services would at least in part be offset by reduced nursing home costs, but more to the point, the vast majority of Americans would clearly be able to see “what’s in it for me.”

Paul Jellinek
Mercerville, N.J., July 22, 2009

The writer is a consultant who works with foundations, including the SCAN Foundation.

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To the Editor:

According to David Leonhardt, most Americans are satisfied with their present coverage in part because tests and treatments “appear to be free” under the current employer-provided health care system. For many of us this is puzzling. Except for a few fully covered screening tests, my insurance, and that of millions of others, functions with a system of deductibles and co-pays that add up quickly.

A few years back, a simple broken wrist set in the emergency room cost me $700 out of pocket.

While I support health care reform and would even be willing to pay more to cover more folks, I am tired of hearing that I am blithely demanding care I might not need because it is free to me. Usually I weigh the costs I know I will incur when deciding whether to visit a doctor or not.

Anne-Marie Hislop
Davenport, Iowa, July 22, 2009

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To the Editor:

Selling reform is a problem for President Obama because he is not delivering what he is selling. If he were selling reform that increases access, manages costs and improves outcomes, he might not be having such a problem.

Americans are savvy consumers and can understand a sales pitch when they see it.

Andrea Economos
Scarsdale, N.Y., July 22, 2009

    Health Care: Obama States His Case, NYT, 24.7.2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/opinion/l24health.html

Obama Moves to Reclaim the Debate on Health Care

July 23, 2009
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON — President Obama tried on Wednesday to rally public support for overhauling the nation’s health care system and said for the first time that he would be willing to help pay for the plan by raising income taxes on families earning more than $1 million a year.

“If I see a proposal that is primarily funded through taxing middle-class families, I’m going to be opposed to that,” Mr. Obama said in a prime-time news conference in the East Room of the White House. A surcharge on the highest-income Americans, under consideration in the House, “meets my principle,” he said.

On a day when the leader of fiscally conservative Democrats said a deal was a long way off and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that she had the votes to push a bill through, Mr. Obama used the news conference to take his message over the heads of lawmakers and straight to the public. Conceding that “folks are skeptical,” he sought to convince Americans that overhauling the nation’s health care system would benefit them and strengthen the economy.

“If somebody told you that there is a plan out there that is guaranteed to double your health-care costs over the next 10 years,” he said, “that’s guaranteed to result in more Americans losing their health care, and that is by far the biggest contributor to our federal deficit, I think most people would be opposed to that,”

“That’s what we have right now,” he said. “So if we don’t change, we can’t expect a different result.”

While Mr. Obama declared, “it’s my job, I’m the president,” he did not use the appearance at the White House to make any fresh demands on Congress, which is struggling to meet his timetable for both chambers to pass legislation before members break for August recess. Mr. Obama did not repeat that demand Wednesday night.

Instead, he sounded cerebral as he delved into policy specifics for nearly an hour and tried to link them to the concerns of ordinary Americans.

As he sought to reassure the public that a new health care system would be an improvement, he also acknowledged that there would be changes that could be unsettling, a point that is often raised by critics of overhauling the health care system.

“Can I guarantee that there are going to be no changes in the health-care delivery system? No,” Mr. Obama said. “The whole point of this is to try to encourage changes that work for the American people and make them healthier.”

Health legislation is Mr. Obama’s highest legislative priority, and his success or failure could shape the rest of his presidency. But while he is under increasing pressure from leading Democrats to delve more deeply into the negotiations by taking positions on specific policy issues, he largely resisted doing so Wednesday night.

But the president did weigh in how the government might pay for the plan.

In addition to saying he would be open to taxing those households earning more than $1 million — a scaled-back version of an earlier proposal that would have imposed a surcharge on households earning $350,000 or more — he signaled that he was also receptive to another idea under consideration in the Senate: taxing employer-provided health benefits, as long as the tax did not fall on the middle class.

On Capitol Hill, Ms. Pelosi said Democrats remained on track to reach a deal on major health care legislation. But she acknowledged that the process had slowed in response to concerns among conservative Democrats about the cost of the bill, and that some House Democrats were reluctant to embrace the income surtax on high-earners without knowing whether the Senate would go along.

Indeed, even as Ms. Pelosi insisted that Congress was closer than ever to achieving a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s health care system, leaders of the Blue Dogs, a conservative faction of Democrats, said a deal was still a long way off. Asked if the House Energy and Commerce Committee could resume work on the bill by late Thursday, as House leaders hoped, Representative Charlie Melancon, a Blue Dog from Louisiana, said: “No way.”

A senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill said party leaders now believed it was essential for Mr. Obama to be more specific about what he wanted in a health care bill — and not just exhort Congress to pass one.

“The president needs to step in more forcefully and start making some decisions,” said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be publicly identified as criticizing Mr. Obama. “Everyone appreciates the fact that Obama has devoted so much time to health care. The bully pulpit is powerful. But in view of the deadlines Congress has missed, we would like to hear more from the president about what he wants in this bill.”

While he faces pressures from fellow Democrats, Mr. Obama is also fending off attacks from Republicans who sense an opportunity to knock him off his stride by arguing that the health care bill, estimated as costing more than $1 trillion over the next decade, will not slow or reduce the growth of health spending.

The White House has been in a running debate this week with Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, who predicted that health legislation would prove to be Mr. Obama’s “Waterloo moment” and would break the president. To that, Mr. Obama said: “This isn’t about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every member of Congress.”

In his opening remarks Wednesday night, Mr. Obama said he was aware that many Americans are asking, “What’s in this for me?” But he also tried to appeal to the nation’s conscience, casting the issue as a matter of urgency to families who are losing their life savings trying to pay for medical care and to businesses burdened by trying to provide coverage to their employees.

Asked what the rush was to meet his August deadline for passage of House and Senate bills, Mr. Obama replied: “I’m rushed because I get letters every day from families that are being clobbered by health care costs. They ask me, ‘Can you help?’ ”

In fact, there is another reason Mr. Obama is rushed: he knows time is not on his side. The more Congress delays passage of a health bill, the more time his Republican opponents will have to marshal their opposition and kill it.

“If you don’t set deadlines in this town, things don’t happen,” Mr. Obama said. “The default position is inertia.”

 

David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear contributed reporting.

    Obama Moves to Reclaim the Debate on Health Care, NYT, 23.9.2009,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/us/politics/23obama.html