Minutes: Obama's Health Care Strategy Meeting, August 20, 2009

I took some quick, draft, unedited "minutes" of today's health care web town hall where Obama spoke. Here they are in case someone is interested. I have my comments interspersed too (in parentheses).
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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Obama's Health Care Strategy Meeting, August 20, 2009


10 minutes into speech: talks about misinformation...(good.)

16 min: mentions drug companies' profit, better medicare coverage, deficit hawks' flawed logic...

18 min: mentions FDR, Kennedy, Johnson and socialism screams we had those days.

(Did not bring in any new ideas or strategies. Re-emphasized existing workplan.)

21 min: Q&A: status quo is unsustainable.

25 min: Private-public option...with govt help

pre-existing conditions can't be denied. (didn't mention enforcement as to how people can go after insurance companies if they're denied.)

27 min: Q from OFA volunteer: are we winning support from Congress members? Great q. (Obama bypasses the question.)

29 min: Obama mentions media's selling "bad" town halls with fights and screams.

30 min: mentions insurance companies' outrageous profits and Medicare Advantage controlled by insurances.

33 min: Q. where do lies come from?

36 min: news reporting slanted: mentions death panel, abortion, "illegal" immigrants, govt takeover -- all misinformation; (undocumented immigrants lucked out.)

38 min: talks about Clinton, 1993-94, house takeover plan by right wing (glad he has it on his radar screen).

41 min: Charles Grassley of Iowa, Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Olympia Snow of Maine -- 3 Republicans -- working on it.

42 min: how pay for hc?

43 min: (Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) doesn't know how much we're spending on Iraq!!) Glad Obama mentioned Iraq costs: $6-8 billion per month.

45 min: prevention, wellness, saving $ -- $1 trillion over 10 years. 1/3rd will be really needed.

47 min: small employers can switch to public option and don't need to pay for employees' hc if they can't afford it. No tax burden on middle class.

50 min: Q. public option only option. (brave q from an OFA volunteer in NC.)

(No controversial, hard questions yet: $80 billion "support" from drug companies, etc. OFA pre-screened received qs.)

58 min: lifestyle, fitness, president's family, wellness question. Medicare could've saved trillion dollars with right lifestyle choice, if had been emphasized and implemented.

62 min: Outlets for kids, obesity, school lunch programs...

65 min: farmer-school-distribution-health connection.

68 min: young adults not covered by parents. extension to 25 or 26 years for young adults.

70 min: young adults must have minimum health ins; we don't want their sudden or serious illness subsidized by rest of us.

Ends with positive note.

(Nobody mentioned the word "single-payer.")

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