Townhall Health Reform – Portsmouth, NH

While the President played to a cordial audience in Portsmouth, New Hampshire there remained bothersome answers to serious questions regarding his proposed health care plan. Most notable were how do we pay for it and where will the health care providers come from to provide care for the significant influx of new patients?

How Do We Pay For Proposed Health Care Plan?

There’s a lot of misinformation about how we’re going to pay for this health care plan. And I’m wondering how we’re going to do this without raising the taxes on the middle class, because I don’t want the burden to fall on my parents, and also I’m a college student so –

— Also I’m looking towards my future with career options and opportunities and I don’t want inflation to skyrocket by just adding this to the national debt. So I’m wondering how we can avoid both of those scenarios.
~Question from audience member, Townhall on Health Care, Portsmouth, NH – August 11, 2009

Right, it’s a great question. First of all, I said I won’t sign a bill that adds to the deficit or the national debt. Okay? So this will have to be paid for. That, by the way, is in contrast to the prescription drug bill that was passed that cost hundreds of billions of dollars, by the previous administration and previous Congress, that was not paid for at all, and that was a major contributor to our current national debt.

That’s why you will forgive me if sometimes I chuckle a little bit when I hear all these folks saying, “oh, big-spending Obama” — when I’m proposing something that will be paid for and they signed into law something that wasn’t, and they had no problem with it. Same people, same folks. And they say with a straight face how we’ve got to be fiscally responsible.

Now, having said that, paying for it is not simple. I don’t want to pretend that it is. By definition, if we’re helping people who currently don’t have health insurance, that’s going to cost some money. It’s been estimated to cost somewhere between, let’s say, $800 billion and a trillion dollars over 10 years.

By the time that we actually have a bill that is set, that is reconciled between House and Senate and is voted on, it will be very clear what those ideas are. My belief is, is that it should not burden people who make $250,000 a year or less.
~President, Townhall meeting, Portsmouth, NH – August 11, 2009

My belief is that it will burden people that make less than $250,000 a year in more ways than one. Whether it comes in the form of taxes or diminished quality health care there will be a middle class price paid for this new health care policy. As stated by Obama the details have not been worked out on how billions of dollars will be generated in order to pay for this program.

Do you notice how he never misses an opportunity to blame the last administration?

Are There Enough Health Care Professionals For Expected Demand?

Doctors have huge capacities; some of them are leaving private to go to administrative positions because of the caseload that they’re being made to hold. I really do feel that there will be more demand with this universal health care and no added supply.
~Question from audience member, Townhall on Health Care, Portsmouth, NH – August 11, 2009

Now, the last question that you asked is very important and I don’t have a simple solution to this. If you look at the makeup of the medical profession right now, we have constant nurses shortages and we have severe shortages of primary care physicians. Primary care physicians, ideally family physicians, they should be the front lines of the medical profession in encouraging prevention and wellness. But the problem is, is that primary care physicians, they make a lot less money than specialists –

— And nurse practitioners, too. And nurses, you’ve got a whole other issue which you already raised, which is the fact that not only are nurses not paid as well as they should, but you also have — nursing professors are paid even worse than nurses. So as a consequence, you don’t have enough professors to teach nursing, which means that’s part of the reason why you’ve got such a shortage of nurses.
~President, Townhall meeting, Portsmouth, NH – August 11, 2009

Sounds like a serious shortage of health practitioners under this new plan. Those that now belong to an HMO are currently unlikely to get a same day appointment with their assigned doctor or doctor of choice. Will it be possible to even get a same day appointment under this new plan?

Keep in mind this is a health care plan that was supposed to have been rushed through Congress this month. Is it any wonder that there are so many Americans upset when they show up at these townhall meetings?

By the way, was tort reform mentioned?

In case you were wondering what is in the bill here it is for your reading pleasure:
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009