Why is Obama saying that our healthcare costs are way too high?

[Anonymous]

From what I have read the focus of the Obama proposals is on extending health insurance to all americans. I would much rather his focus be on actually cutting health care costs. Anyone else feel this way?

Ditto, ditto, ditto. There is nothing about this plan that will keep costs from rising at the same rates they have been. There are supposed cost savings coming from the hospital and drug industries but these plans are a complete joke because NO specifics or plans of any type have been formulated. You have the president of the American Hospital Association promising Obama that "american hospitals" will save XXX$ over the next 10 years without any specifics on how this will be accomplished. And how exactly does one person or one organization speak for the tens of thousands of public, private, religious, etc. hospitals and clinic organizations across the country? It's a joke.
Same goes for the supposed drug company savings.

So most of your proposed savings are simply that----empty proposals. Then you just have a HUGE influx of patients with no limits on care and no decrease in the insurance company infrastructure.

This plan is a joke and will just end up costing taxpayers many (not one) trillion dollars. If anything, we need a true single payer system. True reform, not just an extension of health insurance benefits that does nothing to actually curtail the cost of healthcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

From what I have read the focus of the Obama proposals is on extending health insurance to all americans. I would much rather his focus be on actually cutting health care costs. Anyone else feel this way?

Ditto, ditto, ditto. There is nothing about this plan that will keep costs from rising at the same rates they have been. There are supposed cost savings coming from the hospital and drug industries but these plans are a complete joke because NO specifics or plans of any type have been formulated. You have the president of the American Hospital Association promising Obama that "american hospitals" will save XXX$ over the next 10 years without any specifics on how this will be accomplished. And how exactly does one person or one organization speak for the tens of thousands of public, private, religious, etc. hospitals and clinic organizations across the country? It's a joke.
Same goes for the supposed drug company savings.

So most of your proposed savings are simply that----empty proposals. Then you just have a HUGE influx of patients with no limits on care and no decrease in the insurance company infrastructure.

This plan is a joke and will just end up costing taxpayers many (not one) trillion dollars. If anything, we need a true single payer system. True reform, not just an extension of health insurance benefits that does nothing to actually curtail the cost of healthcare.

Not to mention that the financial assumptions that the health care model is based on are a complete joke. The numbers simply do not work even if you tax the #$%^ out people making above $200,000. This plan will be costly and ineffective. There's also the assumption that once people receive free health care, they will be smart about the way they use it which will result in lower costs. I guarantee that we will see even more abuse of ER visits, ambulance requests & prescription drugs. We will see a dramatic increase in the type of behavior below.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07122009/news/regionalnews/hosp_itality_abue_178789.htm?page=0