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Obama Addresses Congress

Posted by: Julia Eisman on Sep 10, 2009

In a speech traversing policy, economics and emotion, President Obama addressed a joint-session of Congress last night to put forth his health care proposal. Up until this point, the President has held back to allow Congress to move forward to develop bipartisan proposals to reform our nation's health care system - taking a different approach from President Clinton in 1993.

But last night, President Obama took the podium and laid out his own plan. He began with a brief history lesson reminding us that we are farther along today than we have ever been in our country's history to national health reform:

I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way.

He went on to acknowledge that Americans-both insured and uninsured-are unable to get affordable and stable care. His plan seeks to address this by providing "...more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government."

For those with insurance, the President's plan will:

• Limit insurance company discrimination based on age and gender;

• Prohibit insurance companies from rescinding policies or discriminating based on pre-existing conditions;

• Place a cap on out-of-pocket expenses; and

• Enact new protections for Medicare beneficiaries, and eliminate the "doughnut hole" for prescription drugs.

For the uninsured, the President's plan will:

• Offer people more choices by setting up an "exchange," or marketplace, for people to shop around and find a plan that is best for them. Initially, those who qualify are: the uninsured, the unemployed, small businesses, and the self-employed;

• Create sliding-scale subsidies to help consumers afford coverage, so only a certain percentage of an individual's or family's income will be spent on premiums;

• Provide small businesses tax credits that help them to offer coverage so they can focus more of their resources on running their business; and

• Create a high-risk pool, made available immediately, for Americans who can't get coverage due to insurance company discrimination.

In addition to sweeping policy recommendations, President Obama also had some choice words for opponents of reform:

I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.

Towards the end of the speech, Obama read aloud a letter given to him from Senator Kennedy, which invoked the moral imperative of getting the job done:

"What we face," he wrote, "is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."

The President's speech comes at a time when we've seen proposals in four out of five Congressional committees. The Senate Finance Committee is expected to release its highly anticipated draft in the coming weeks.