April 5, 2009
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Obama’s YouTube Question and Answer
Even though I think his first actions in the White House are unsconcionably stupid (This bailout doesn’t seem to bother anyone except me and husband. Apparently all my non-self-employed friends and relatives seem perfectly fine with my paying over 40% of my income to prop up failing businesses and help other people pay off their mortgages while we struggle to pay our own with what the government leaves us. . . .), I have to admire Obama for setting up “question and answer” sessions via YouTube.
An example below is from http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/03/Open-for-Questions-Follow-up-Kareem-Dale/. It features a woman with spinal muscular atrophy who wants to work, but would not qualify for health insurance. Even if she could qualify, it’s likely she couldn’t afford it. (Join the club, lady. I’m not disabled, and I couldn’t even afford maternity insurance for my current pregnancy, as I’m too busy working to pay taxes for Medicaid so all my patients’ mothers can have free maternity health care. It’s laughable. Physican, afford to heal thyself!) I post her video and Obama’s Disability Advisor’s response below:
Woman with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Asks How Obama’s Plan Can Help Her and Others with Disabilities to Afford to Work
Obama’s Disability Advisor’s vague answerWhile I commend Obama’s Disability Advisor’s attempt to answer her question, all he did was say that Obama supports independent living for people with disabilities, making sure they won’t be institutionalized. Um. Okay. No firm plan there, I see. Surprise surprise. And I’m sure she’s relieved to know that Obama is working towards legislation to make sure she is not institutionalized. Whew! Being institutionalized would really interfere with her graduate studies.
The answer will not lie with Obama. The answer to her question lies with people reducing the cost of health care, via tort reform and lowered costs for hospitals and doctors. Try reducing malpractice insurance, for one. Medicaid and Medicare is a boon for those who cannot afford health care, but too many on Medicaid and Medicare have learned to screw the system over, and hospitals and clinics cannot survive on Medicaid and Medicare alone. Thus they make up for it by charging insurance companies.
Now, imagine a National Health Care Service, where NOBODY pays for anything (except taxpayers, but they don’t realize it because it comes out of their paycheck automatically. There is no such thing as “free health care.”). Everyone learns to screw over the system. And it is unsustainable.
Taxes increase. Good physicians leave or just decide to leave the practice of medicine, as they just cannot support their families. Don’t believe me? Ask me where I’ll be in 5 years, if Nationalized Health Care becomes the norm. ‘Not practicing medicine in the U.S. That’s for sure.
Anyway, thanks, Obama, for showing us that you really don’t have an answer.
I also find it sad that as of this post, only 1,366 people have seen that poor woman’s video. Obama set up this lovely means of communicating with him to ask him questions concerning the state of the Union, and no one seems to give a shit except 1,366 people.
It’s sad how apathetic Americans are.
Comments (2)
Excellent post Devich. My parents are retired in FL and they see this screwing the system all the time with retirees visiting the doctor regularly with every little imagined ache or pain. What it boils down to is they want the “free” attention and doting that the don’t get at home.
Just think if this kind of socialized medicine was rolled out to the entire population???!!!! I think there would this kind of fraud on a huge scale.
If they had a Medical Savings Account that they had to dip into for each dr visit, these retirees would think twice before screwing the system.
What do you think of MSA’s?
Obama’s rep couldn’t give an answer because Obama doesn’t have an answer. Everything he’s done to date has been in contradiction to what he “promised” the American people he would do. Case in point, pulling out of Iraq….have we pulled out yet? No…in fact, I know several families who have just said goodbye to their loved ones for another tour of duty or their first tour of duty. I think it’s laughable that everyone said that Obama would be true to his word and yet, he hasn’t done one thing yet he said he’d do. I’m wondering when people are going to realize that the more we try to change the more we stay the same because so far…not much is different than it was when Bush was in office. I know that there’s still time left for his term, but so far, he’s not really shown me anything to win me over.
The same could provide explanation for how apathetic Americans are….Obama was put on a pedastal so high it was scary. He had people believing he was this super great person that was going to change the world….maybe he still can, but I’m totally disenchanted. I had high hopes for the possibilities but now I see that it was all just glitz and glitter to win a contest.
Yet again…the more we try to change…the more things stay the same.