President Obama Speaks to Congress

President Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress this evening (Sept. 9, 2009) regarding health care/ insurance reforms. I thought I’d take a minute to write about my initial thoughts, without watching the various recaps and analysis of the speech that TV and radio are going to do in filling several hours of programming.

First, I thought it had good points, as well as some bad. The good will need details in order to make a final determination on just how good they are, based on my experiences as a trustee of a health insurance trust that was funded by both employee and employer contributions I have concerns. Based on my experiences in advising campaigns and other involvement in politics I think the bad was unnecessary and befitting a position much lower than the prudency, and Congress.

Tonight’s remarks are what President Obama should have said a month and a half ago during his primetime press conference. He let us know what his objectives are for health care, objectives which I think are positive changes. Such as not being denied coverage because of a pre existing condition, a “pool” where individuals and small businesses could purchase coverage, and tax incentives for small businesses to provide coverage, preventative care treatment like annual physicals, mammograms, colonoscopies, etc. While there will be an initial cost for these preventative measures, as I mentioned previously, the long range cost savings will far outweigh those initial costs (not to mention help save more lives because of early detection).

This is something I would be willing to pay for. Now we need to see the specifics, like the saying goes “the devil is in the details.” I believe the president is mistaken when he talks about part of his plan being completely funded by the premiums people would pay for the coverage (talking about the pool individuals and small businesses could participate in). If the president’s figure of only 5% of the uninsured would participate is correct, there is no way that this option could be self sufficient on premiums alone as the president announced. The penalty that companies would pay if they did not provide health insurance to their employees, 8% of payroll, is an incentive not to provide coverage instead of a deterrent. For most companies and government entities health insurance premiums exceed 8%, even with an employee contribution. The penalty has to be increased, I would suggest averaging the annual cost a company or government’s costs have been for a certain period (3 or 5 years) and then add a percentage to that amount. Otherwise managers will make a decision that it would be a smart business decision to cancel the health insurance benefit and just pay the penalty, that’s what I would do. During the time I was involved with my local union’s trust the police department’s budget accounted for approximately 85% of the city’s entire budget. Health insurance costs were 12% percent (and more) of the police budget. I believe that if the first portion of tonight’s speech had been his speech in July, the town hall meetings may have had a different tone. He could have said that this was his preference to House Bill 3200, and then the discussions could have been on how to achieve these objectives.

Now for what I didn’t like about tonight’s joint session. Members of Congress need to remember that this is not the United Kingdom, and they are not Parliament. Regardless of what your opinion is of President Obama he is the President of the United States of America. I thought that there needed to be more decorum, the waiving of papers, sarcastic laughter, and the one outburst when he spoke about being deficit neutral and illegal immigrants not being covered were out of place. Out of place because the speaker was the President of the United States and it was taking place in the chambers of the United States Congress, not a social club membership meeting.

During the middle of the speech, when the president began to take a swipe at republicans for the previous eight years, for the town hall meetings this past month, and the criticism from talk radio and TV, I felt that he was wrong. I felt that he shouldn’t have done that because there was no real positive benefit. Sure supporters could brag about how he took his opponates on, how he was challenging them by responding to their frivolous attacks. True there was the immediate/ initial advantage; however, all it did was give his opponates more ammunition to keep the attacks going instead of quieting them down. Now they can take apart what he said and point out how it conflicted with HB3200, with what he and his supporters have said previously.

It gave some a reason to argue that he demonstrated that he isn’t sincere about working together in a bipartisan effort; otherwise he wouldn’t have made the attacks this evening. It also gave people the opportunity to say that since the president wants to talk about the past 8 (or 10 as he said) years let’s talk about the fact that when George W. Bush took office the country had been in a recession for the previous year (the last year of Bill Clinton’s second term). True it was mild by comparison to the current situation; however, we were in a recession none the less.

The only positive to his putting down republicans and other critics is that if they take the bait the talk will be about what he said tonight and take attention away from the resignation of Special Advisor Van Jones.

Maybe Congress can take the positives from tonight’s speech, remember what they heard in the town hall meetings, put the partisan bickering aside, and work out the specifics for a bill that will truly benefit us. And could they PLEASE draft that legislation in simple, specific language and make it less than the size of an encyclopedia?

That’s My Opinion, What’s Yours