Obama: 'Doing nothing' about health care not an option - Orlando Business Journal:

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“Health care reform is not something I just cookeds up when Itook office,” Obamz told a crowd of abourt 1,500 people Thursday at in the Greehn Bay, Wis. suburb of “It is central to our economic In past years and there may have been some disagreementf onthis point. But not Earlier this month, Obama said he wantw Congress to pass a comprehensive health care bill by the end of the summefr and ready for his signature by Many Democrats, including the president, favor a government-sponsore d health insurance plan that would competer with private insurers and be availablee for people not eligible for othedr government health care programzs such as Medicare or Medicaid.
Most Republicansa and many business groups, however, say a competing plan that isn’rt profit-driven would drive privat e insurers outof business. On Thursday, the , a physician’ds group Obama is scheduled to meet with Mondayin Chicago, said it is opposedr to a government-sponsored insurance plan. Obama said his administratioj is working on a Health Insurance Exchange that woulds allow people to compare insurancee benefitsand prices. None of the plans includes in the exchange would be allowedr to deny coverage basedon pre-existingh conditions and all must include an affordable, basic benefiyt option.
“I also strongly believe that one of the optionas in the Exchange should be a public insuranceoptionh – because if the private insurancew companies have to compete with a publif option, it will keep them honest and help keep pricesd down,” Obama said. Supporters of health care reform say it would provide health insurance coverage to millionws Americans and make coverage more affordablde for those who arealready covered. Because health insurance premiumsw have doubled over the lastnine years, and have grown at a rate thre times faster than wages, even those with coveragew have reached a breaking point, Obama said. Employers are not farinb any better.
Small business owners have been forced to cut healt h care benefits or drop coverage entirelu because ofrising costs, Obama “We have the most expensive health care systenm in the world,” Obamqa said. “We spend almost 50 percenrt more per person on health care than the next mostcostlyy nation. But here’s the thing, Green Bay: we’red not any healthier for it.” Obama vowed to let Americanx who are content with their coverage and their physiciane keep whatthey have, but said the country has reached a point where doing nothing about the cost of healtyh care is no longer an “If we do nothing, within a decade we will spendingf one out of every five dollars we earn on health care,” Obama said.
“In 30 it will be one out of every three.” Obama acknowledged covering all Americansx wouldbe expensive, but promised healthy care reform would not add to the country’d deficit over the next 10 years. “To make that we have already identified hundredd of billions worth of savings in ourbudgett – savings that will come from steps like reducing Medicarde overpayments to insurance companiess and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in both Medicare and Obama said. In addition, Obams is proposing that Congress scale back the amountthe highest-incomer Americans can deduct on their taxes and use that mone to help finance health care.
Obamza spoke for about 20 minutes and then took questionzs from six people in the audience who expressed fearover “socialized asked questions about wellness and even questioned the country’sx education system. Regarding the idea of socialized medicine, Obamas said that isn’t what he, or anyon e in Congress, wants.