Gibbs Speaks … on Fox News!!

Health Care Info you may have missed:

Sen. Baucus Plan (hammered out in the 40 day recess)

• Everyone MUST have health Insurance by 2013, like states do car insurance [can someone explain to the senator that those are state laws and not federal laws that require car insurance?]
  
• Uninsured will face fines [$750 – 950 for individuals, $1500 – 3800 for families]
  
• Low Income earners get tax credit to pay for insurance [earning less than $32,000/yr]
  
• Insurers taxed for plans over $8,000/$21,000 income
  
• Insurance companies will pay annual fee [to whom, and for what?]
  
• Cost is $900 billion over the next 10 yrs.
  
• No government run 'public option'
  

In interview on Fox news Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made the following statements:

If you are on HMO [although not named directly it was implied by statement to follow], Medicare, Medicaid, or VA insurance the public option doesn't impact you.

" … just for people on private insurance, individual or small ground market place that is going to get 'additional opportunity' thru 'competition' to 'compare' one insurance company vs. another to providing that choice to cover their family's and cover their businesses"

Companies will "… have to operate on premiums they collect [i.e. no government funding … like the car & airline businesses] they are not going to have bean-counter after bean-counter looking thru forms trying to 'cherry pick' the healthiest people among us to provide insurance – when you do that, thru that type of natural-selection what you are doing is creating a market for unhealthy, uh, for people that are sick not be able to get insurance, that doesn't help the system."

Yes those are his break in train of thought … wow, that whole paragraph makes me seasick. #1, Natural-selection: doesn't work in this instance, if they are 'sifting thru' then it's not natural.

Fox News: … why isn't this Congress responding to the President's plan, instead of the President responding to Congress' plan?

Gibbs: Look this has been tried a couple of different ways, right? 15 or 16 yrs ago an administration put out a plan first and went to congress with that first, instead of doing it the way we did it; health care form is now thru 4 out of the 5 committees in congress and we are closer than ever before to getting health care reform passed into law and helping the American people. I'm not going to second guess in any way the way we've done this because we're closer than we've ever been before."

Except one of the main reasons that it failed the first time was because (a) the sessions on it were held in secret so the public didn't know what was going on, (b) the then First Lady forced herself in on the meetings and was overstepping in authority, and (c) the plan wasn't any good then, and it's still not good now.

Gallup Poll [no dates, MOE, or pop. number given – I hate it when Fox does this]

37% want their Rep to vote in favor of health care reform
39% want their Rep to vote against health care reform

Gibbs took a dig at the Fox Network during his time:

"… one quick thing – I do hope that the viewers of Fox will find a way to watch this speech tonight, I know that the network instead of dealing with the reality of millions of people, um, on health insurance reform have decided to show a reality show called something like 'So You Think You Can Dance' … I do hope people check into the reality of what's going on in America rather than the distraction of a reality TV show."

A couple of the Fox hosts pointed out to him that it would be broadcast on the Fox news channel if not the Fox entertainment channel.

He was then asked why he, Robert Gibbs, thought the President's poll numbers were going down –

" …I think the President is trying to do a lot of difficult things, I think the President is dealing with an economy that continues to struggle, I think the President is having to make a lot of important decisions about foreign policy, but again if the President were to govern by Gallup [like the Clinton's seemed to do] then obviously we would be making a lot of different decisions not all of which are in the best interest of our economic well-being or our national security – that's what leadership is all about, it about making tough decisions"

When pointed out that if he isn't going by polls why doesn't he just push thru the public option since he has said in the past that it was very important and necessary …

"But if you look at the polls you'll see that the public option is quite popular … [which polls and what exactly do you mean 'quite popular'? is 10% popular, 20% popular?] … because people like – my friend in Alabama (clears throat) who have to go into a private insurance market when they start a small business and realize that only this … [there is an obvious jump in thought here, his hand/head position change and the expression on his face changes totally as well – like he finally remembered the talking point] … 90% of the state is controlled by exactly 1 health insurance company – that's not choice and competition. Guys, you started a cable news network because you felt there wasn't enough choice and competition for viewers out there, that's the same kind of choice-&-competition that the President wants to put into the health insurance market so that people like my friend can start a small business without the fear of not being able to provide health insurance for their family."

Trigger Plan:

" As I understand the 'trigger' that's being proposed on Capitol Hill, that is certain reforms are met within a region of the country, the region of the country is dominated like I said Alabama is by one health insurance provider, if there aren't enough options for people in that region that that would trigger a Public Option. That's one of the ideas that have been discussed up on Capitol Hill and I anticipate that the President will discuss roughly the public option tonight"

Some of the plans proposed by Republican side of the aisle:

• Torte Reform [what is this? To me a torte is a fancy cake you eat for dessert or with tea when the girls feel like being civil to each other … I have a feeling it has something to do with Malpractice insurance, but I can't say for sure and I'm sure others are the same way]
  
• Let insurance companies compete across state lines
  
• Health savings accts [wonder if this is something like Flex-spending, good idea in general but it's a bummer that you have to use the money in one year or lose all in the acct – it should roll over and accrue if you ask me … and no one has]