Althouse: Obama talks to Netroots Nation — by (echo-enhanced) video.

June 10, 2012

Obama talks to Netroots Nation — by (echo-enhanced) video.

Much of this is the story of a little boy who uses medication that costs $3,000 a day:

70 comments:

Anonymous said...: Next up: a return to Jimmy Fallon! Because when the country's a mess, you need to go on a self-promotional tour and pretend it's all yucks. Problems are for little people. Let them eat cake.

Uppity asshole.; 6/10/12, 5:32 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: A big rich country like ours can afford to help a little boy who needs $3000 worth of medication every day.

But that doesn't mean that it can afford to pay everybody's medical bills.

That doesn't mean that we all have to be dragooned into a top-down, one-size-fits-all system.; 6/10/12, 5:41 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I bet the hotel workers cringe when they are chosen to be the site of a Nutroots Nation convention because these librul losers are sure to be the worst tippers in the country.; 6/10/12, 5:42 PM
Michael said...: Every kid should have that medicine. Just in case.; 6/10/12, 5:55 PM
CWJ said...: Gabriel Hanna,

Really? $3,000 a day $1.1MM a year. And then the next young boy. And the next young girl. And on and on. What do you think is happening to the premiums of that father's work group. Who is not being hired because the employer has to bear his share of that cost.

I'm not being hard hearted. These are difficult questions. But its not just "one little boy" at $3K per that "a big rich country" can afford to help.

In fact, I listened closely. The boy has hemophillia (I have no idea how to spell it). This is not that exotic. Is $3K a day really the best way to treat that disease?; 6/10/12, 6:03 PM
Wally Kalbacken said...: It's not hard to believe this is the last Netroots Conference of his Presidency.; 6/10/12, 6:05 PM
rhhardin said...: Gak.

I got through about seventeen seconds, the I-know-you're-morons coded preamble.; 6/10/12, 6:16 PM
CWJ said...: Gabriel Hanna,

Sorry. I came across too personal.
I think we are pretty much on the same page.

But your opening sentence is exactly what we were supposed to think when we watched the video expressly so that we wouldn't think about the hard policy questions it implied.; 6/10/12, 6:16 PM
edutcher said...: Why do I keep seeing Sandra Fluck as I hear this?

Or John Edwards?; 6/10/12, 6:24 PM
Quaestor said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/10/12, 6:25 PM
Quaestor said...: This 3 kilobucks/day hemophilia treatment is so bogus. Evidently the kid's doctor has him on Xyntha, the newest and most expensive treatment, and he's got him taking it as a prophylaxis, and not on an as-needed basis. This is a surefire way to rapidly condition the boy's immune system to go refectory on the factor, so the doctor is likely also to have the kid on immunosuppressive therapy as well. Nice going.

Obama thinks this example is argument for socialized medicine a la ObamaCare. He couldn't be more wrong. What this kid needs isn't an annual megabuck government handout, what he needs is a new physician.; 6/10/12, 6:26 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @CWJ:

My point is that it isn't all or nothing. Progressives will say, what about that little boy? I will say, yes, we can help that little boy and the 0.0001% of people who are in an equivalent situation, but there's no reason we have to buy birth control for every adult that's in college, and no reason we have to smother that little boy with a pillow--which government-run health care is far more likely to do.

After all, this is the same President who said old people are better off with pain killers than expensive treatments for their problems.; 6/10/12, 6:27 PM
Matt Sablan said...: The same president who warned us doctors are liable to amputate people to make a buck also wants us to accept a diagnosis that demands $3k a day medical bills without question. Maybe that's a valid cost; I don't know. Why doesn't he prove it besides saying: "Trust me?"; 6/10/12, 6:29 PM
Michael K said...: He could have just flown over the convention and done as much for them.

There are good ways to reform healthcare. Pelosi and Reed just chose the worst possible way to do so. I remember when Oregon, with an ER doc as governor tried to prioritize Medicaid spending. They were paying for too many liver transplants they thought. It was a fiasco. The first attempt ended up with the common cold as the top rated therapy. It didn't matter that there is no treatment.; 6/10/12, 6:38 PM
Presley Bennett said...: There's always going to be a sad story. And who knows if it's even true? You really can't believe much of what this guy says. Maybe he needs to hit up one of his campaign donors, ask George Clooney or Anna Wintour to take on the responsibility for this kid's medical bills.; 6/10/12, 6:55 PM
Michael Haz said...: Did President Wonderful mention that he was going to help free up some government money for that kid by cracking down on wasteful spending like the GSA debacles? Or his uber-spendy vacations? Or is government still awesomely totally mega efficient?; 6/10/12, 7:16 PM
Michael Haz said...: Did he offer to devote the proceeds from just one of his record-setting fund raising events to help pay the kid's medical bills?; 6/10/12, 7:18 PM
garage mahal said...: Let the kid die! Hitler would have saved him! Freedom! USA!; 6/10/12, 7:31 PM
ed said...: Yeah whatever happened to that doctor sawing off people's feet for profit schtick? IMO I just about fell out of my chair when I saw that. Later on I had to tease my doctor about that ... and the disgruntlement was thick enough to cut with a clothes hanger.; 6/10/12, 7:41 PM
ed said...: @ garage mahal

"Let the kid die! Hitler would have saved him! Freedom! USA!"

You lefties. You're always working up a lather over eugenics. Can't you ever let that go or is that overwhelming desire to "clean the gene pool" that strong for you?; 6/10/12, 7:43 PM
garage mahal said...: Eugenics = universal healthcare!

Good stuff.; 6/10/12, 7:47 PM
Penny said...: So how likely is it that we hear personal stories that end with THIS?

"Didn't work out so well for me and mine, but I surely understand that it did for some others and that makes me happy."; 6/10/12, 7:55 PM
n.n said...: He continues to rely on a strategy of conducting extortion through emotional exploitation. He refuses to address issues of merit within the context of reality. He will hold no one responsible for their choices and instead offers them promises of instant gratification while denying any consequences. None of this is sustainable and it marks a progressive decline of not only our society, but every other that is unwilling to recognize a reasonable compromise.

Well, once again, people are requested to exchange liberty for submission with benefits. Human fortunes are predictably cyclical. He will win the support of individuals who revel in exploitation and others who have been left vulnerable by choice and victims to dreams of instant gratification to excess.; 6/10/12, 7:57 PM
Penny said...: Or should I put it this way...

"All in all, I feel like shit, but if you feel good about this? Well then, I must be selfish."; 6/10/12, 7:58 PM
Penny said...: The "personal" is forever rubbing up against the "collective".; 6/10/12, 8:00 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: garage, do you believe it to be the case that in countries with "universal healthcare", everyone gets every medicine and treatment they want/need? That everyone just gets all their healthcare wishes fulfilled, regardless of cost, through the magic of government intervention?; 6/10/12, 8:04 PM
Known Unknown said...: Let's govern via anecdotes!; 6/10/12, 8:09 PM
Penny said...: Althouse frequently sets up these obvious dichotomies.

One thing, that makes sense to some, rubs up ever so close to another, that makes sense. And it's up to us to decide?

We're fairly predictable here. At least in numbers and consistent political ideology.; 6/10/12, 8:10 PM
Charlie said...: His habit of not looking directly at the camera is disturbing. Didn't the Nutroots make fun of Michelle Bachman for doing that?; 6/10/12, 8:11 PM
xnar said...: Compulsory charity commanded by platitudes with a pastiche of emotionalism.

Composite women just love that stuff.; 6/10/12, 8:14 PM
Penny said...: But does anyone here ever wonder if we've correctly identified our tribe of...ONE?; 6/10/12, 8:16 PM
Phil 314 said...: Didn't watch all of this but it seemed particularly lifeless. Put this with the Wisconsin tweet and then compare those with the personal appearances at $35,000 a plate fund raising dinners and I have to wonder where the Presidents heart is.; 6/10/12, 8:18 PM
Synova said...: Some of the most perverse eugenicists are in England... a nation with universal health care.

Why do you think that's so, garage?

The system more likely than others, simply because it's got the power to do so, to begin shaming people to *death* is the one where every malady and *ever* behavior is the responsibility of your neighbor via government.

How *dare* you be fat? How *dare* you drink soda? How *dare* you bring a child with a genetic condition into the world?; 6/10/12, 8:20 PM
Synova said...: And really... Sandra Fluke ought not be stealing this little boy's meds.; 6/10/12, 8:22 PM
Quaestor said...: You lefties. You're always working up a lather over eugenics.

Garage and others on the "progressive" side of the street always lather up over eugenics. They do this as a means to obscure the HISTORICAL FACT the eugenics was always a "progressive" cause. That the National Socialists and Planned Parenthood agreed on this point should always be thrown in their faces whenever they employ that canard.

Furthermore, Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose writings are part of the foundations of modern re-distributive liberalism, wrote the majority opinion on Buck v. Bell

By his own principles garage is allowed one more imbecilic comment. That'll make three, which is enough.; 6/10/12, 8:27 PM
kohlm901 said...: I'm just now hearing about Obama's little speech because I was watching the golf tournament. You know the one on CBS? The one to benefit St. Jude Children’s Hospital & to honor their 50th anniversary? I thought Obama was an obsessive golfer; what an idiot.
And, yes, I have been FREELY giving some of my money to the hospital for years.; 6/10/12, 8:32 PM
Michael Ryan said...: Could we save some money by paying them to move to Canada or England? Bwah-hah-hah.; 6/10/12, 8:37 PM
garage mahal said...: REMEMBER: If you deny healthcare access to people, you'll discourage eugenics from spreading!; 6/10/12, 8:40 PM
ampersand said...: Hemophilia is costly. Ask the Romanovs.; 6/10/12, 8:43 PM
Palladian said...: I liked garage better when he was gone.; 6/10/12, 8:46 PM
Rose said...: a TRULY non-partisan President would offer opening remarks to CPAC as well as Netroots.

That he doesn't is one more glaring example of just how partisan this guy is. How much he thinks he is on one team, and not representing ALL the people.

That he takes it even further at every opportunity, and solicits tattle-tales (attack-watch) and keeps an enemies list, in addition to siding with the most radical extremists at every level - it's past 'troubling' - it's dangerous and wrong.; 6/10/12, 9:02 PM
Penny said...: Really, Palladian?

Garage is pushing the "envelope".

Perhaps you prefer when Althouse is your postal mistress?; 6/10/12, 9:03 PM
Penny said...: Althouse does that old magic trick when she shuffles her envelopes.

And her fans are always sure they know where the walnut is!; 6/10/12, 9:09 PM
Michael K said...: "His habit of not looking directly at the camera is disturbing."

God, don't ask him to look away from the teleprompter ! We could end up at war from one of his impromptu remarks. He is clueless without the TOTUS.; 6/10/12, 9:11 PM
Penny said...: It's way too late for me to get into a debate about eugenics.

I will simply leave the conservatives with one word...

BUDGET!; 6/10/12, 9:11 PM
Holmes said...: Garage- my wife works at a free medical clinic and I volunteer there. What do you do to help people? It's not virtuous to demand other people do things for other people. Jackass.; 6/10/12, 9:13 PM
Penny said...: Ha ha

OK, that was sort of mean spirited.

No matter it hit your bull's eye. ;); 6/10/12, 9:13 PM
garage mahal said...: I liked garage better when he was gone.

Awwwww. Hang in there poor buddy.; 6/10/12, 9:16 PM
Synova said...: "REMEMBER: If you deny healthcare access to people, you'll discourage eugenics from spreading!"

REMEMBER: Not paying for something is denying access to people.

I'm not paying for garage's groceries. I wonder when he'll realize that he starved to death last week.; 6/10/12, 9:21 PM
Jane the Actuary said...: One of the biggest reasons why our country's healthcare costs are so outrageously high is because doctors prescribe whatever treatment they happen to think will work best, REGARDLESS of wether proper medical protocals have demostrated its effectiveness. Read "Overtreated" or "How We Do Harm" for a lot of really unsettling examples. The latter book I read most recently, with cases of doctors prescribing super-expensive chemo treatments without regard for its appropropriateness for the particular patient's situation, in part because they get $$$$$, especially when the patient has good insurance. This is also one of the areas where single-payer systems try to aggressively clamp down (and may go too far).; 6/10/12, 9:23 PM
Synova said...: Most people can understand that someone can't afford to have an exotic, expensive, disease.

But Obama is, as someone mentioned, attempting (and succeeding in the case of garage and likely every last attendee at Netroots) to draw an equivalency between out of this word expensive care and routine health care.

Not paying for someone's every health related expense is "denying them healthcare" just as if they were a poor little boy who needs unbelievably expensive medication to stay alive.

And if anyone calls bullshit on it, then they want that poor little boy to die.

Well... that will probably work better than trying to guilt-trip people over a pretend-adult person like Fluke who ought to be expected to be responsible for her pretend-adult self.

When Obama starts presenting a health care plan limited to poor little boys with exotic conditions that require obscenely expensive operations or meds, ... wait, he *gets* those, doesn't he. That little boy? He gets that medicine he needs.

But that is still reason that Fluke needs her free contraceptives, and all sorts of free no-copay girl type stuff.; 6/10/12, 9:30 PM
jeff said...: Anyone decipher what ever Penny thinks he/she means? How does garage resolve his desire to let that little boy die by spending the finite amount of money available on birth control that the vast majority of users can afford themselves? Why does he hate little kids?; 6/10/12, 9:35 PM
Alex said...: That's the nutroots nation.; 6/10/12, 9:51 PM
Paul said...: Remember last time Obama used a fake 'victim' to drum up support?

Well here he is again doing the same thing. 'Fake but maybe accurate' is good enough for government work in Obama's view.; 6/10/12, 9:52 PM
traditionalguy said...: Eugenics is the other side of the coin called Government National Health Care.
The salaries of the slick death panels are the best money Obama Care budgets.

Naturally Obama MUST first put the Catholic Church out of the game. They are the only ones who oppose Obama's eugenics on principle.

With Obama the number of carbon foot prints will fall quickly.; 6/10/12, 9:55 PM
Alex said...: Yeah we're supposed to believe Canada & UK have NO death panels whatsoever.; 6/10/12, 9:57 PM
bagoh20 said...: Lets say it's your kid. Will you spend every cent you can get your hands on to extend his life like this. Would you bankrupt your family and that of your kids forever if that was the only way to do it?

For $3K per day, I bet a lot of people who die could live a few weeks, months, or years longer. Should we be willing to do it in every case, and who decides?

I can guarantee you one thing: a system run by government bureaucrats will not.

Either side could use this story to make it's case, because regardless of how healthcare is delivered, this type of unfortunate tragedy will not be covered for everyone.; 6/10/12, 10:02 PM
yashu said...: Remember last time Obama used a fake 'victim' to drum up support?

The one that really stuck with me-- and most disgusted me-- is Obama repeatedly lying about the circumstances of his own mother's death from cancer.

Read the whole thing.; 6/10/12, 10:06 PM
Dante said...: Since Obamacare is going to save us all money, I suppose he has to make it up by cutting medical treatment elsewhere. I wonder where he intends to cut it?; 6/10/12, 10:10 PM
Darrell said...: When we were having our Terri Shiavo debate, the UK had a similar case. Except the patient that had been cut off from medical care was an elderly man--a soft speaking, intelligent mans--that required a feeding tube to survive. The doctors had diagnosed him as terminal and decided even the feeding tube was money down the drain. He took the case to an Appellate Court--where the NHS ruling was over-ruled--but the whole process took so long that he would have died without sustenance. He had a little money and traveled to Italy (I think) where he could still find a private doctor to perform the relatively low-cost, low-tech preocedure and train his family members to prepare the feeding, etc. The NHS followed the Appellate Court ruling but took it to a higher court to reverse it. They didn't want the courts--or anyone-- to be able to contradict their medical dictates. The higher court agreed with the NHS.

Btw, the original rationale about the feeding tube was that the man's underlying medical condition was such that he would be dead in three months or less [most likely weeks] no matter what was done. By the time that the man testified at the last court case, it was almost two years.

So much for universal health care and it's unbounded drive for preservation of life.

I will not mention that most hemophiliacs in the US in the 1980's were killed by that HIV-postive gay man that donated blood ven though he knew he had the disease.
Since the clotting factor was prepared in a large batch, the single donation wound up contaminating it all. Nor will I mention that a similar thing happened in France and Canada. Nor will I mention that the liberals were fighting blood testing and their doctors were saying that it wasn't needed. That was settled science.; 6/10/12, 10:43 PM
Tim said...: Maguro said...

"garage, do you believe it to be the case that in countries with "universal healthcare", everyone gets every medicine and treatment they want/need? That everyone just gets all their healthcare wishes fulfilled, regardless of cost, through the magic of government intervention?"

You didn't really expect any answer did you, let alone an informed one?; 6/10/12, 11:13 PM
Penny said...: America needs to first determine what her VALUES are as it relates to healthcare.

Answers will flow from that.; 6/10/12, 11:17 PM
Blue@9 said...: Awwwww. Hang in there poor buddy.

Shoot, garage, we're just glad you didn't hang yourself after Calamity Wisconsin 2012 (or as we call it, Walker's Awesome Ass-Whuppin'); 6/11/12, 5:27 AM
Pookie Number 2 said...: Let the kid die! Hitler would have saved him! Freedom! USA!

Self-righteous sarcasm means I can ignore my policy preferences' actual effects!; 6/11/12, 6:58 AM
Michael Haz said...: He wasn't offered the blue pill?

I thought everyone who has a serious, really expensive illness with an uncertain outcome even with the best treatment was going to get the blue pill.

Obama told us to expect that, remember?; 6/11/12, 7:26 AM
Rusty said...: garage mahal said...
Let the kid die! Hitler would have saved him! Freedom! USA!

Godwin!
I'm imagining that you're screaming this in your best Ethel Merman imitation.

Welcome back anyway.; 6/11/12, 8:00 AM
Rusty said...: garage mahal said...
REMEMBER: If you deny healthcare access to people, you'll discourage eugenics from spreading!

6/10/12 8:40 PM

Nobody's stopping you from throwing some sheckles the kids way. Put your money where your mouth is.; 6/11/12, 11:01 AM
Jane the Actuary said...: Has anyone fact-checked this story?; 6/11/12, 11:25 AM
Synova said...: "America needs to first determine what her VALUES are as it relates to healthcare.

Answers will flow from that."

Why?

How is this even a rational statement?

My values have no impact on reality. What I believe does not create the world. This is not one of those children's fantasy stories where the author of a book creates the world, one where Solyndra is a viable business model.

My values could be that everyone have enough food to eat which would grow lush and green in their backyards and we could all live in harmony in a state of nature. There are people who really do think that's reasonable. But I still live in a desert and my strawberries appear on the plant, shriveled and dried. Tasty, but shriveled and dried.

Suppose my Values are that all people, but especially innocent children, be protected to the utmost of possibility, from the bad luck of physical handicap, disease, or accident. It's just so UNFAIR. And I'm a caring, loving, person.

The answers that flow from that depend entirely on what I believe is true about the economy. Since I believe, with my whole heart, that the most important thing to providing said unlucky children the best possible care, is to have a vibrant and dynamic, even chaotic, market based economy (the only sort that has reliably created excess wealth and surplus capital), and the best way to develop medical knowledge, technology and pharmaceuticals is to make it *very* profitable to do so... my ANSWERS to the value question is going to look very different from someone else's obvious answers.

Where the market is vilified, and the excess and surplus necessary to carry the unproductive or expensive is squashed and scorned because more than you need is more than you *need*, medical care and drugs are free, and because we WANT it to, so very badly, everything involved simply ceases to be subject to reality.

Having the same values doesn't begin to bring us to the same answers.

And people like Obama (or garage) want us to believe that we can look at the answer to determine the values... if we don't agree with Obama then we want poor little sick boys to die.

And that you can then logic your way forward again and any warning of bad results is ludicrous.

Because hearts are pure.; 6/11/12, 1:16 PM
Synova said...: This is interesting... from the comments on an article about eugenics and advances in pre-natal testing...

"I have no problem with someone choosing to have a severely disabled child, but I am adamantly opposed to society then being forced to pay for the care. Our choices in life have consequences, and when the economic consequences are externalized, as is commonly the case now, the individual choice then becomes a forced societal choice."

Sounds a whole lot like what I was trying to explain to garage. When society pays, when we have "free" health care, individual choice becomes forced societal choice. People like this fellow don't want to PAY for the infirm or genetically unfit.

Must be a mean Republican.

But no!

"The nightmare scenario I see unfolding with person-hood amendments is denial of individual choice followed by denial of societal responsibility for the financial care and well being of these members of society. Welcome to Republican America."

This person's worry is that the anti-abortionists will win by defining person-hood in a way that thwarts eugenic motivated abortions... and then society will refuse to take responsibility for financial care.

This, this person believes, is somehow "Republican."

And yet... not wanting to PAY and in fact, demanding the right not to PAY, was his/her own requirement for even the *freedom* to chose *not* to have a eugenic based abortion.

And somehow my suggestion that "society responsibility" leads inevitably to eugenics is laughable to garage.; 6/11/12, 2:12 PM