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Any lefty defending this clown's 17 minute non-answer to a very simple question is so far hopelessly up Obama's rear end that they're no longer capable of rational thought.
So when did Kraut-man serve?
What's a "Simply question?"Omg, the Obama is a "complex fellow" that has to take 17min. to answer a Simply question.
that makes me fell all warm and fuzzy to think how long he would "have to think" about a response if we are attacked.
again you're attacking the messenger and picking at the words he used instead of the main point. Which is Obama rambled for 17 min. without answering a simple question.Well I see the same old tactic is at work with the libs. Instead of talking about what Obama's hot air, they want to deflect and bring up, Palin, Bush, Hitler, old ladies but no nothing about how Obama rambled on for 17 minutes without answering the question.
Krauthammer brought up Lincoln.
How many of Krauthammer's columns have been shorter than the Gettysburg address?
He didn't. He went to medical school and was paralyzed in a diving accident his freshmen year. His legs might not work... but he makes up for it in brain function.
Well Krauthammer is an expert on jibber-jabbering.
What's a "Simply question?"
Does Krauthammer make his living with his mouth just like any politician?
He makes his living with his logic and intellect, notable achievements and successes, which is communicated through his mouth to other people of equal intellect.
Any lefty defending this clown's 17 minute non-answer to a very simple question is so far hopelessly up Obama's rear end that they're no longer capable of rational thought.
Stop being such a royal turd.
What you call "rant" others recognize as an explanation.
Yes, he does take a long time with his responses, the man is a complex fellow, not some "Smoke 'em out"-spouting BUFFOON!
Any lefty defending this clown's 17 minute non-answer to a very simple question is so far hopelessly up Obama's rear end that they're no longer capable of rational thought.
Stop being such a royal turd.
What you call "rant" others recognize as an explanation.
Yes, he does take a long time with his responses, the man is a complex fellow, not some "Smoke 'em out"-spouting BUFFOON!
if by "complex fellow" you mean "shit spouting pol who can't get out of campaign mode because he loves the sound of his own voice", you're 100% correct.
otherwise, not so much.
when did the number of uninsured jump to 50 million or is that "complex"?
when did it go back down to 30 million, and should we send someone out to look for the 20 million who disappeared during the course of obama's answer?
is that "complex" as well? or did they just run for their lives when he opened his mouth?
this is the text of his answer to the question- "in the economy times that we have now, is it a wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care?"
keep in mind that this is essentially a yes or no question.
"Well, lets talk about that, because this is an area where theres been just a whole lot of misinformation, and Im going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have. Heres the bottom line: Number one is that we are the only -- we have been up until last week the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance, and the vast majority of those folks work. Its just that they dont happen to work for a company that is either big enough or generous enough to provide them any coverage.
So thats point number one. There is a moral imperative that is important. Number two, you dont know who might end up being in that situation. See, those of us who have health care right now ask ourselves, well, is this something that should be a priority right now, but anybody here who lost their job and then COBRA ran out, or COBRA wasnt subsidized the way the Recovery Act made sure COBRA paid 65 percent of the cost of COBRA -- and if you had somebody at home who was sick, or you had a child who got sick, youd suddenly say to yourself, well, now I see the need.
And so part of what we have to do is always say to ourselves, there but for the grace of God go I -- and have a basic safety net. So thats point number two.
Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating, even if youve got health insurance you dont always know what you got, because what has been increasingly the practice is that if youre not lucky enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is almost a self-insurer, then whats happening is, is youre going out on the marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think youre covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it. Or when you get sick they try to find what they consider to be a preexisting condition that would justify them canceling your policy. Or theres some fine print in there where youve got a lifetime limit, and it turns out you thought you had coverage, but it turns out the coverage only goes up to a certain point and then afterwards you have to start paying out of pocket. And even after paying all those premiums, youre now in the hole for $100,000 or $200,000, and youre going bankrupt and youre losing your house.
And the final point is that the costs of health care -- setting aside anything we did in reform, I mean, if we just allowed the current trajectory to go on -- is out of control. I havent talked to Bob about what his costs are looking like for Celgard employees, but I can tell you that health care costs have gone up, the price of health care has gone up three times faster than wages. So either the company is having to swallow those costs, which means thats less money that they could use for hiring new workers or investing in new plants and equipment, or theyre passing on those costs to their employees in the form of higher premiums, higher deductibles, higher co-payments.
And whats happening federally is, because the costs are so out of control, all the programs that we already have -- Medicare, Medicaid, the Childrens Health Insurance Program -- all those things are completely out of control. So if youre concerned about the deficit, what youre really concerned about is the cost of Medicare, Medicaid, and all the other programs that are already in place.
So heres what we did. What we said is, number one, well have the basic principle that everybody gets coverage. And the way were going to do that is to say that most people individually shouldnt buy health insurance on their own because they have no leverage and the insurance companies take advantage of it. Instead what were going to do is were going to set up a big pool, a marketplace, that allows everybody to buy into this pool -- that members of Congress, by the way, will be a part of so you know its going to be a good deal -- because members of Congress, theyve got to look out for their own families; they wouldnt vote for it if it wasnt going to be a good deal. And just like Walmart is able to leverage a really good price from its suppliers for everything because theyre such a big purchaser, well, this pool will be a big purchaser and it will be able to get a better deal from insurance companies.
So thats point number one. That will drive down the prices for people who are participating and it will allow everybody to get a decent deal on insurance. And what we do is we provide tax credits to people who still cant afford it so that they can afford it. Thats point number one.
Point number two is weve got the strongest insurance reforms in history. So all those things I told you about -- you not being able to get insurance because of a preexisting condition; you finding yourself getting dropped even though youve been paying premiums for 15 years and suddenly they just decide, sorry, we dont want you because youre getting sick -- those policies will be over. And so you will be protected as a consumer to make sure youve got security and protection if youve got insurance already. Thats the second thing we do.
The third thing we do is we actually put in place a whole bunch of mechanisms to start reducing the actual cost of health care. So, for example, one of the things that we do is to say were going to start encouraging paying doctors not based on how many tests they take, but based on the quality of the outcome -- does somebody end up healthy.
And it turns out that a lot of times if you go to the doctor you get one test. Then you go -- referred to a specialist, you get another test. Then maybe you go to a third person, the surgeon, you get a third test -- its all the same test but youre paying three times.
So what were trying to say is, well pay you for the first test and then e-mail the test to everybody. Right? (Applause.) Or have all three doctors in the room when the test is being taken.
But thats an example of the kinds of things that save money and will start reducing costs over the long term. So what weve done is weve embedded in how Medicare reimburses, how Medicaid reimburses, all these ideas to actually reduce the costs of care.
So our hope is that over time, over the next three, four, five, six years, because of all these changes, that weve actually saved money from this, even though more people are covered.
And so now youll hear the critics and the Republicans say, now, that just defies common sense. If youre adding 30 million more people, then its got to cost more money. And you cant pretend like somehow thats going to help us on the deficit. Ive heard this criticism, I understand it.
But let me give you an example. If youve got a house and youve got a big hole in your roof, and its raining and snowing through that roof and there are some people who are inside the rooms where the roof is okay and theyre nice and warm, and then you got a few -- your family members in that room where theres a big hole in the roof and theyre shivering, and theyre cold -- if you repair the roof, thats going to cost some money. But if all the water damage from your floors and all the heat thats going out of the roof, you count all those savings, over time it may turn out that it actually is saving you money and, by the way, all those family members now are warm, too. Youre not the only one whos warm, right? Thats essentially what were trying to set up.
Now, last point I want to make. All those savings that were anticipating, we dont even count those when it comes to making sure that this is deficit-neutral. Here are the two ways that were paying for this thing: Number one, we are eliminating a whole bunch of waste, fraud, and insurance subsidies that were being paid out under Medicare that arent making our seniors any healthier. I mean, youve got a pretty sweet deal for insurance companies right now in a program called Medicare Advantage where they get $18 billion a year paid to them to manage a Medicare program that about 80 percent of seniors are getting directly from the government, and its working just fine. Its just a subsidy to them that doesnt make anybody healthier. So what were saying is, well, lets eliminate the subsidy. So thats about how we pay for half of this thing.
The other half of it, it is true that we have identified some additional taxes that we think are fair. And let me describe, just to give you an example -- I dont think this will affect you, but I dont know -- I dont know your familys circumstances. Right now, if youre on salary, you get your salary from Celgard or any of the companies around here, youre paying your Medicare tax on all of that, right? You see it on your -- its part of your FICA. But if youre Warren Buffett and you get most of your money from dividends and capital gains, you dont pay Medicare tax on that. Youre eligible for it. Youre going to get the same Medicare benefits as anybody else. But because your source of income is whats called unearned income -- capital gains and dividends -- you dont have to pay this.
Well, Im thinking to myself how is it that the guy who is cleaning up the office is paying the Medicare tax and the guy who is making capital gains isnt? So what we said was, look, if you make more than $200,000, $250,000 a year, then that money that you make over $200,000, $250,000 a year thats unearned -- thats from capital gains and dividends -- you should have to pitch in to Medicare just like everybody else, because youre going to be using it like everybody else. So its a concept of fairness. (Applause.)
Now, what the Congressional Budget Office has said -- Im sorry, by the way, these questions sometimes are -- or these answers are long, but I want to make sure you guys -- that Im really answering your question. I hope you feel like I really want to respect the importance of your question. What the Congressional Budget Office has said is that as a consequence of the savings from the waste and fraud, combined with the new revenue sources I just mentioned, that this thing is going to actually reduce our deficit by over a trillion dollars -- over a trillion dollars. Were actually saving money for the government -- because we closed the roof, the house is now insulated, its warm. And by the way, in the meantime weve got a whole bunch of people who were left out in the cold who are now being taken care of.
Thats the concept. But I know that for a lot of people, theyve got a legitimate concern about, gosh, it just seems like government spending is out of control. I understand that. I feel that. But understand what happened: When I walked in, we already had a $1.3 trillion deficit. Thats an annual deficit of $1.3 trillion. Thats -- the day I got sworn in, before I did a thing, we had $8 trillion in accumulated debt from the war in Iraq -- not paid for; the prescription drug plan, Medicare Part D -- not paid for; Bush tax cuts -- not paid for.
So we already had all this debt that had just been piled up, but nobody had noticed because things were going kind of good. Just like a lot of folks didnt notice their credit card was going up or that their home equity loans were going up because when things are going good you tend not to notice.
So all that debt had already accumulated. We then had to spend $787 billion on the Recovery Act to do all the things -- unemployment insurance; COBRA; whats called FMAP, which is essentially helping states to keep their budgets afloat so that they didnt have to lay off teachers and cops and firefighters -- all of which if that had happened would have further depressed the economy and we would have recovered a lot later; the investments were making in clean energy and things like Celgard to help spur economic growth.
So we had to spend that, but thats only a fraction of what our debt was. And in addition what happens is when the economy goes south, there are fewer tax revenues. And so youre putting more money out to help people with unemployment insurance and things like that, but youre getting less money in because folks are out of work and businesses arent making money.
Bottom line is, we now have a significant debt that has to be paid down. Thats why Im freezing government spending. Thats why we reinstated whats called pay-as-you-go. You cant start a program without paying for it. Our health care program is paid for.
But the big thing, if youre really worried about leaving debt to the next generation, which I know you are, the most important thing were going to have to tackle is our health care costs, because Medicare is by far -- Medicare and Medicaid are the biggest things that are looming in the horizon in terms of what our debt is going to be. Nothing else comes close.
If this health care bill never existed, if I didnt do anything about it, wed actually be a trillion dollars worse off over the long term. But even with the saving were getting from health care, were still going to have to do more. And if you dont believe that, go on our Web site -- The White House -- and you can look at how the federal budget works.
A lot of people think if you just eliminated foreign aid we could balance the budget, or if you just eliminated earmarks you could balance the budget. Earmarks -- pork projects, what everybody calls pork -- those account for about 1 percent of the budget, less than 1 percent. Foreign aid accounts for about 1.5 to 2 percent of the budget.
Most of the budget is Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, defense spending, and interest on the national debt. That accounts for about 70 percent of the budget. And so all this other stuff that sometimes we argue about, thats not the big stuff. Were going to have to tackle the big stuff if were going to get our budget under control.
Boy, that was a long answer. Im sorry. (Laughter.) But I hope everybody -- but I hope I answered your question. (Applause.) All right, Im going to -- Ive got to make this the last question.
He didn't. He went to medical school and was paralyzed in a diving accident his freshmen year. His legs might not work... but he makes up for it in brain function.
Krauthammer is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair. His life experience of overcoming his disabilities is quite inspiring.