{"id":191248,"date":"2009-09-09T19:03:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/09\/09\/live-blogging-barack-obamas-healthcare-speech-with-generous-cynicism\/"},"modified":"2009-09-09T19:03:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-10T00:03:00","slug":"live-blogging-barack-obamas-healthcare-speech-with-generous-cynicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/09\/09\/live-blogging-barack-obamas-healthcare-speech-with-generous-cynicism\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Blogging Barack Obama&#8217;s Healthcare Speech (With Generous Cynicism)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>8:05 pm Watching MSNBC, talking heads going on and on.<\/p>\n<p>8:12 pm Elvis has entered the building&#8230;..He is in the doorway.<\/p>\n<p>Now He is walking in, shaking hands, smiling&#8230;.Mitch McConnel looks like he has <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">just eaten a lemon<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>8:16 He&#8217;s started talking.<\/p>\n<p>8:18 Talks about recovery and creating jobs&#8230;.He&#8217;s claiming victory, in &#8220;pulling the economy back from the brink&#8221;  (rolling my eyes)<\/p>\n<p>8:22 States obvious:  Only modern nation without coverage, etc.<\/p>\n<p>8:23 Talks about how insurance companies sucked, cutting off coverage, etc.  Also mentions how it inhibits entrepreneurial activity and business competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p>8:26 Takes a shot at the left about how &#8220;disruptive&#8221; single payer is.  I guess it&#8217;s the audacity of nope.<\/p>\n<p>8:28 Accusing people of politics, without naming who is playing the politics&#8230;.Wimp.<\/p>\n<p>8:29 Claims that his plan will save cost, expand coverage, etc.:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No change of coverage is required.<\/li>\n<li>Make pre-existing condition coverage denial illegal (what about jacking up the rates?)<\/li>\n<li>Will make rescission illegal.<\/li>\n<li>Eliminate annual and lifetime caps.<\/li>\n<li>Limit on out of pocket expenses.<\/li>\n<li>Coverage of routine diagnostic procedures.<\/li>\n<li>Will create an &#8220;insurance exchange&#8221;, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">after 4 years<\/span>&#8230;.What a damn cop out.<\/li>\n<li>Tax credit based on need.<\/li>\n<li>Tax people who don&#8217;t buy healthcare.<\/li>\n<li>Tax businesses who do not supply healthcare.<\/li>\n<li>95% of small differences will not have to pay tax, whicm means something like 30% of employees, feh.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>8:39 Calling some lies as lies:  No &#8220;death panels&#8221; no coverage for illegal aliens, and he <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">just sold abortion rights down the river<\/span>.  Go Cheney your self.<\/p>\n<p>8:40 Comes out for public option, mentions that there are monopolies in most states, but is there a veto threat for no public option?<\/p>\n<p>8:40 Says that only 5% of of people would take public option, a convenient lie, and says that there would be no tax dollars spent on the system.  He minimizes its impact.<\/p>\n<p>8:44 Calls the public option is only a means to an end.  Translation: <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">He is willing to throw public option under the bus<\/span>.  Says that he won&#8217;t back down on a &#8220;choice,&#8221; but mentions alternate plans, like the wimpy co-ops as possibilities.<\/p>\n<p>8:46 Promises not to sign a plan that adds &#8220;one dime&#8221; to the deficit.  Wants a &#8220;Paygo&#8221; provision in the health plan.  Thinks that most of cost can be covered by elimination of waste in the system.<\/p>\n<p>8:48 Time to pander to the AARP.  Just eliminate waste, and reduce prescription drug payments at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>8:52 Will tax &#8220;Cadillac&#8221; insurance plans&#8230;..Camel&#8217;s nose is under the door, it will work its way down.<\/p>\n<p>8:53 <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sells plaintiff&#8217;s lawyers down the river<\/span>.  &#8220;Malpractice reform&#8221; is bullshit, just look at the most plaintiff unfriendly state, Texas, and McKinney (IIRC) which is among the most expensive area in the nation.<\/p>\n<p>8:55  What&#8217;s with the sour looking dude holding the paper in the air?<\/p>\n<p>8:56 Says that he will call out liars&#8230;..I&#8217;ll believe it when I see it.<\/p>\n<p>8:57 Invokes Ted Kennedy.<\/p>\n<p>8:58 Invokes America&#8217;s &#8220;rugged individualism&#8221;&#8230;.I take the Dilbert view, &#8220;rugged in<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">duh<\/span>vidualism&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>9:02 &#8220;We did not come to fear the future, we came to shape it.&#8221;  <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Very<\/span> nice turn of phrase.<\/p>\n<p>Final assesment:  Well delivered, well written, but he&#8217;s clearly willing to sell a public option down the road, but wants to be a deficit hawk.<\/p>\n<p>He gives good speech, but the content is lacking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>8:05 pm Watching MSNBC, talking heads going on and on. 8:12 pm Elvis has entered the building&#8230;..He is in the doorway. Now He is walking in, shaking hands, smiling&#8230;.Mitch McConnel looks like he has just eaten a lemon. 8:16 He&#8217;s started talking. 8:18 Talks about recovery and creating jobs&#8230;.He&#8217;s claiming victory, in &#8220;pulling the economy &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1142,1046,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-healthcare","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}