Obama's Comments on the Passage of the Senate Finance Committee's Healthcare Bill - 10/13/09

TRANSCRIPT OF COMMENTS
OBAMA: Good afternoon. Today we reached a critical milestone in our effort to reform out healthcare system. After many months of thoughtful deliberation, the fifth and final committee responsible for healthcare reform has passed a proposal that has both Democratic and Republican support. This effort was made possible by the tireless efforts of Chairman Max Baucus and the other members of the Senate Finance Committee. It's the product of vigorous debate and difficult negotiations. After the consideration of hundreds of amendments, it includes the ideas from both Democrats and Republicans, which is why it enjoys the support of people from both parties. And I want to particularly thank Senator Olympia Snowe for both the political courage and the seriousness of purpose that she's demonstrated throughout this process.

This bill is not perfect and we have a lot of difficult work ahead of us. There's still significant details and disagreements to be worked out over the next several weeks as the five separate bills from the Senate and the House are merged into one proposal. But I do believe that the work of the Senate Finance Committee has brought us significantly closer to achieving the core objectives I laid out early in September. Most importantly, this bill goes a long way towards offering security to those who have insurance and affordable options for those who don't. It reigns in some of the worst practices of the insurance industry like the denial of coverage due to preexisting conditions. It also sets up an insurance exchange that will make coverage affordable for those who don't currently have it. And as the non-partisan CBO has certified, it will slow the growth of healthcare costs in the long term and it will not add a penny to our deficit.

The committee's progress over the past several weeks is the culmination of work by all five committee and numerous members of con over the better part of this year. We've reached out to stakeholders across the spectrum -- doctors and nurses, businesses and workers, hospitals, and even drug companies, and we've considered a wide variety of ideas and proposal in an effort to find common ground. As a result of these efforts, we are now closer than ever before to passing healthcare reform. But we're not there yet. Now's not the time to pat ourselves on the back, now's not the time to offer ourselves congratulations. Now's the time to dig in and work even harder to get this done. And in this final phase, I hope that we will continue to engage each other with the spirit of civility and seriousness that has brought us this far and that this subject deserves. I commend the chairman and the committee's members for their achievement and the example that they've set, and I look forward to continue to work with Congress in the weeks ahead. We are going to get this done. Thanks very much everybody.

QUESTION: Do you support a public option and are you upset with the insurance companies?

10/13/09

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• barack
• obama
• senate
• finance
• committee
• exchange
• 10/13/09
• max
• baucus
• healthcare
• bill
• public
• option
• insurance
• companies
• olympia
• snowe

[backwardsandforwards]

Negotiating with Max Baucus for the public option is like negotiation with the Hamburgler to push healthy eating.

He lives off Insurance campaign contributions and his top aide Liz Fowler was working for Wellpoint Insurance before she joined his staff! The person she replaced now represents Wellpoint!! The fact that we find that incestuous relationship normal shows how cynical we've become. PASS THE PUBLIC OPTION!!!!!

[samkurz]

Yes we can figh now for public option