Sunday, June 22, 2008

More politics as usual for Obama

Here is the latest round of Obama being a common politician:

Obama says his health care plan will garner large savings – $120 billion a year, or $2,500 per family – with more than half coming from the use of electronic health records. And he says he’ll make that happen in his first term. We find his statements to be overly optimistic, misleading and, to some extent, contradicted by one of his own advisers. And it masks the true cost of his plan to cover millions of Americans who now have no health insurance.
Obama cites a RAND study that found widespread use of electronic health records could save up to $77 billion a year in overall health care spending. But the study says that level of savings won’t be reached until 2019, when it projects 90 percent of hospitals and doctors would be using electronic records systems.
Much could be done to speed up the adoption of electronic record-keeping. But experts, including the lead researcher on the RAND study, are extremely doubtful the U.S. could see widespread adoption in the first term of an Obama presidency, or even a second term. Even a campaign adviser acknowledges Obama’s plan likely won’t reach the full savings potential until five years into implementation, by which time Obama could be out of office.
Obama says he’ll "lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year” by investing in electronic health records as well as other efforts. But his adviser tells us that $2,500 figure includes savings to government and employers that could, theoretically, lead to lower taxes or higher wages for families – so we shouldn't necessarily expect insurance premiums that are "lower" by that amount.
The RAND study on which the campaign partly bases its estimates is one of the only reports available on possible cost savings. It may well be correct – no one knows for sure. But it looks at potential savings in an ideal situation and recently has faced criticism.

Obama announced he would become the first presidential candidate since 1972 to rely totally on private donations for his general election campaign, opting out of the system of public financing and spending limits that was put in place after the Watergate scandal.One reason, he said, is that "John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs."We find that to be a large exaggeration and a lame excuse. In fact, donations from PACs and lobbyists make up less than 1.7 percent of McCain's total receipts, and they account for only about 1.1 percent of the RNC's receipts.

Obama has released his first post-primary ad, a 60-second spot that's airing in 18 battleground states. In effect, "Country I Love" is Obama's first ad of the general election campaign, and as such it invites scrutiny. (FactCheck will address McCain's first general election ads in a separate article.) We don't find this ad egregiously misleading, but it paints a picture of Obama's accomplishments that could leave viewers with a misimpression or two.
The ad talks about laws that Obama "passed," but in fact, he sponsored only one of the three bills mentioned and cosponsored another. The third included provisions from some bills he'd sponsored earlier, but his name wasn't attached to the one that passed. And two of the three laws were accomplishments of the Illinois Legislature, not the U.S. Senate.

So Obama's own first add shows he has accomplished NOTHING as a Senator at any level and he just makes up things to make his own lying and flip flopping look good. Sounds like a below-average politician to me.

5 comments:

Marshal Art said...

Truly. The use of terms like "change" has never really led to any of significance. Political blather is all it is and the sorry fact is so many buy into it as if this time it'll be different. Suckers.

jhbowden said...

Blasphemy!

Don't question the Messiah! Just believe!

Ron said...

Is BHO a secret Muslim or an apostate that is a danger to the country? A christian that went to a radical church for 20 years or a Muslim? I could go on but you guys are just throwing shit against the wall til something sticks and anybody that is paying attention can see it..Get a core and stick to it you flip floppers.

The Game said...

I can see that a small part of Ron's brain feels the danger and weakness of his boy.
A man who has never accomplished anything in his political career AT ALL...
Someone who puts "change" everywhere he goes, yet is simply a 60's and 70's hippie and is way more radical than most...
Ron understands that McCain is MUCH more moderate..
Ron must be getting sick of BHO supporters just making things up like "McCain is Bush's third term" when that is pure crap and is politics as usual.

ace said...

Obama aside, if there is a plan that will save money, how can we not explore it to see if the savings are real. Not much different than drilling 10 years ago and reaping the benefits now.
I am not a fan of gov't run healthcare as the problem with gov't healthcare that is supposed to save money years from now, is you can't count on it being sustained. Every time control changes hands, the program will change. At least with oil you leave it up to private industry.
In this case if the idea was profitable for the industry, you would think they would take the idea and explore it at least a little.
I don't claim to be an expert, just one man's opinion.