One Year Ago Today

Obama's Speech to Organizing for America Fundraiser in NYC Oct. 20

This was Obama's second fundraiser in NYC yesterday. Obama was raising money for Bill Owens for Congress. This crowd was much kinder, compared to the polite clapping at the Wall Street fundraiser. "Malia and Sasha are doing fine. Michelle's a pretty good First Lady. We got Bo," he said, and then he launched into what was waiting at the door at the beginning of his presidency. Then he reviews the administration's first nine months of progress.

It's Mostly Old Folks Against Health Reform

Seniors, who don't want government messing with their government Medicare, are the largest group against reform. They're also the largest user of health care resources. Seem unfair and selfish of them to be crying socialism? A little. Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight touches on the irony:

American Enterprise Institute scholar Andrew Biggs makes a powerful point when he calculates that "a typical person who was born in 1944, began work at age 21 in 1965, and in 2009 retired at age 65 and enrolled in Medicare," and who then draws the typical benefit until death at age 83, will have paid roughly $64,971 in Medicare payroll taxes during his/her lifetime but received around $173,886, for a net of "$108,915 more in benefits than he paid in taxes over his lifetime." Hey, that sounds like socialist-style redistribution to me! Read the whole post at 538

But do resources for the young have to be sacrificed for the health care of the old? Can everyone give and take a little so that more people can get coverage? Morning Joe addresses those questions:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

John McCain throws out an obnoxious woman at his town hall:

Obama Answers Questions at Health Care Forum Aug. 20

Obama answered questions at a health care forum for volunteers.
Obama said he's not pushing public option harder because it's just one part of reform. His point was illustrated today when a woman called into conservative Michael Smerconish's radio show (Obama was the guest) and said she thought that the public option was Obama's health care plan. That's why so many people are calling reform a government takeover. She didn't know that reform included so much more. Listen to that here.



Health care will get done one way or another:

Obama Appears on Michael Smerconish Radio Show Aug. 20

Obama will be on Smerconish's show at 1:10 pm eastern. Listen to the show live here. Smerconish is a conservative Philadelphia radio host. Apparently, like many conservatives, Smerconish endorsed Obama for president.

Then at 2:30 pm eastern, Obama will be hold a conference call with supporters on health care. You can sign up at Organizing For America. Watch the forum live tomorrow here.

Update Aug. 20: Here's a clip. More clips here.

Republicans to Use Summer Vacation to Derail Health Care

On C-SPAN last night, I watched John Boehner lie and exaggerate about health care reform. You can bet in August, republicans are going to try their hardest to derail reform. But we voted for Obama, which means we voted for health care reform. Now is not the time to fall for republican scare tactics. Tune them out. Make calls or email your Congress people. If you don't know who they are, look them up at the links in my sidebar. This is a little inspiration from Organizing for America:

Progressives are fighting for public option. I'm on the fence on the public option. The nonprofit co-op sounds like an interesting idea to me but I need to know the differences between the two and so far, the media has been useless in explaining how the co-op and the public option are different. Read a bunch of so called experts who are against the co-op here.

See part 2 and 3.

Insured Are Costing the Uninsured

I know this report means well:

America’s patchy health care system is leaving millions of people without continuous, affordable, and effective health insurance, and we’re all paying the price.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund has updated a 2005 analysis by Kenneth Thorpe for Families USA and found that, on average, 8 percent of families’ 2009 health care premiums—approximately $1,100 a year—is due to our broken system that fails to cover the uninsured.

The best way to address this burden on health insurance is to create a more efficient system that offers continuous, quality coverage for all. We can’t afford our broken system any more

But I'm tired of reading that it's the uninsured people who have boosted the costs of healthcare. It's actually the insured who are costing everyone.
The healthcare system is so out of whack because those who are insured don't shop as if they're using cash. They shop for healthcare as if price doesn't matter. That's because they're insured. They leave it up to the doctor to decide what tests are needed and the course of care. Even if people wanted to shop as if they're paying for it out of their own pocket, they couldn't. There are no competitive price lists. There is zero transparency in healthcare costs.
The doctors and hospitals do their part to jack up costs by giving unnecessary tests, so they can bilk more money out of the system to boost their profits.
Those with insurance often have really good insurance, which drives up the costs for those with lesser-than insurance.
The uninsured can't afford to pay healthcare because the monthly premiums have been driven up by the insured.  
It's the same thing that happened with the economy. The wealthy, the wannabes and the speculators drove up the cost of everything, making it more difficult for the average person to afford anything.
Organizing for America's Healthcare reform kickoff:

Obama's Conference Call With Volunteers

Everyone who participated in Obama's election campaign received an email notifying them of this call today. Obama gave a pep talk, touted the progress so far and stressed that healthcare reform needs to get done sooner rather than later.
Listen to the call here. Get involved here. The healthcare organizing kickoff starts June. 6

Obama Supporters Hit the Pavement

WaPo: More than 1,200 groups from Maine to Hawaii spent the day gathering signatures in support of Obama's economic plan, the first step in building what the White House hopes will be a standing political army ready to do battle.

Seeking to create a grass-roots force on a scale never seen before, Obama called the volunteers into action in a video message reminiscent of the 2008 contest. In defense of his budget, under attack from many quarters, he asked his supporters to go "block by block and door by door."

What this could mean:

"If successful, it would have revolutionary implications for American politics," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political science professor who counts himself among skeptics. "You can generate an enormous amount of support for an individual personality. It's much harder to do that for a piece of legislation."

Read about one effort here. Here's another. Organizing for America operates from Obama's former campaign site, barackobama.com.

It's David Plouffe Saying Thanks and Here's Mitch Stewart

Plouffe introduces Mitch Stewart as executive director of Organizing for America.

Obama talks about Organizing for America here.

Organizing for America