Snopes alert: If you get this RW Email that is going around, Obama never said this.

[Nikki Stone1]

I just got this today from a RW colleague who often sends this kind of crap.

Obama's Military Private Insurance Proposal

The following has been checked out through www.snopes.com and also www.ask.com, the story appeared in the Washington Times. Chew on this for a while.

THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT EVER MADE BY A PUBLIC OFFICIAL LET ALONE BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. AND THIS GUY IS OUR "COMMANDER IN CHIEF". HE IS A DISGRACE.

UNBELIEVABLE PRESIDENT???
HERE IS HIS RESPONSE WHEN HE BACKED OFF FROM HIS DECISION TO REQUIRE THE MILITARY PAY FOR THEIR WAR INJURIES.


WHAT AN EMPTY HEADED PERSON HE MUST BE....

Bad press, including major mockery of the plan by comedian Jon Stewart, led to President Obama abandoning his proposal to require veterans carry private health insurance to cover the estimated $540 million annual cost to the federal government of treatment for injuries to military personnel received during their tours on active duty. The President admitted that he was puzzled by the magnitude of the opposition to his proposal:


"Look, it's an all volunteer force," Obama complained. "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice? It doesn't compute.." "I thought these were people who were proud to
sacrifice for their country, "Obama continued. "I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow Americans."



Please pass this on to every one including every vet and their
families whom you know. How in the world did a person with this mindset become our leader? I didn't vote for him!!!



REMEMBER THIS STATEMENT.... "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice?"



If this thinks he will ever get another vote from an Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard service member or veteran of a military service he ought to think it over.. If you or a family member is or has served their country please pass this to them.

Please pass this to everyone. I'm guessing that other than the 20-25 percent hardcore liberals in the US will agree that this is just another example why this is the worst president in American history. Remind everyone over and over how this
man thinks, while he bows to the Saudi Arabian king and now a Japanese Emperor.

Here is Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/veteranshealth.asp

Origins: President Barack Obama did not utter the words attributed to him above, nor did he propose a plan to "let the military pay for their war injuries."

(Apparently these words are the work of humorist John Semmens. http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens188.htm In other words, this comment is SATIRE. Obama never said it.)

There is a basis in fact, however:

In conjunction with meeting with several veterans groups in March 2009, the Obama administration floated a proposal to save the federal government an estimated $540 million per year by billing veterans' private insurance companies for the treatment of their comat injuries and other service-related problems...The proposal would not have, as was often misreported, foced veterans to pay for the treatment of their injuries out of their own pockets or required them to buy private insurance; but it did raise the prospect that injured or ill veterans might find it harder or more expensive to purchase health coverage, or to obtain employment in the private sector if employer-funded private insurance plans had to cover the additional costs of treating injuries and other service-related health problems.

The plan was heavily criticized by veterans almost from the moment it was presented to them....

(snip)

...Within 48 hours, the White House announced that the proposal had been dropped, but the President still came in for his fair share of criticism from those who maintained that he failed to anticipate how his proposal would be received and should have known better than to even raise the subject...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statement-from-Press-Secretary-Robert-Gibbs-on-the-Presidents-Strong-Commitment-to/

So, if you get this email, here is INSTANT debunking.

[havocmom]

1. Bookmarking, as I will surely hear this drivel from several sources

Thanks for saving us time at this hectic season ;)

[Nikki Stone1]

2. I hate getting this stuff. I don't send out political emails unless I know the person's politics

Nonetheless, glad to be of service. :)

[la la]

3. i got this

schitt from my uberconservative neighbor about 2 days ago, and i sent it back with the snopes link.

he drives me crazy---he thinks it's so hilarious to send me crap---today was a picture of Obama shining Palin's shoes-acccccccccck--i just deleted that one.

i'm not going to rant on, but.....

:nuke:

[ThoughtCriminal]

4. I have yet to get a RW Spam email

that could not be completely and unquestionably be debunked with just a few minutes of Google searches. But, I quit getting them entirely after I started using "Reply All".

[jbnow]

5. I saw this "quote" on some military forum.

I was googling something and got to the site where this "Obama quote" was posted in the thread with the urging to pass it on. Other posters asked for a link to the source because they did not believe he said it.
Someone noted it was satire and linked to that.
That didn't stop one poster from saying he was watching the interview and heard Obama say it with his own ears. Think he was lying? Good Lord

[niyad]

6. on the other hand, under cimpy, soldiers WERE being charged for their wounds.

[Nikki Stone1]

8. Link?

And I'm assuming you mean Chimpy.

[niyad]

11. yes, I did mean chimpy-- will look for links--there were more than a few stories about soldiers

being charged for their wounds, even made the local fishwrap.

[niyad]

7. on the other hand, under chimpy, soldiers WERE being charged for their wounds.

[galileoreloaded]

9. Explaining the potential for cost-shifting, yes. "Debunked", not really.....

did anyone actually read this???

[Nikki Stone1]

10. The quote is debunked. The cost-shifting....well, take a look at the health care bill

In my opinion, the suggestion that veterans have their own health insurance cover war injuries is actually part of the general pattern of trying to get all health care costs off the federal books. The health care bill now in front of Congress creates a health insurance "exchange" program which relies entirely upon a legal mandate for all Americans 18 or over to buy private health insurance if their employers do not do so. Considering how expensive health insurance is, the only thing that makes this law work at all is that young and healthy 18-30 year olds (who generally don't buy insurance) will be forced into the pool. This greatly increases the number of paying people who won't need much health care in the health insurance pool and allows average insurance costs to go down. (That is, if we believe the insurance companies. The fact that their profit margin has gone as high as 15% and is rising as insurance companies deny more and more health care is not promising.)

This legal mandate to buy their product is the only way the insurance companies will play ball, but in order to sell the program to the people, the government has to prevent the insurance companies from rejecting people based on pre-existing conditions, which the bill does. (There are also some other controls it puts on the health insurance industry, and some of these are being debated.) The government is also selling the bill to the working class and the poor by subsidizing (with middle class tax dollars) their payments to the health insurance companies. Some money will still come out of the pockets of the working class, but the government will supply the rest. The insurance industry will get this money, and they don't care where it comes from.

So this is the model for the national health plan. The government really doesn't want health care costs on its books, and it is willing to subsidize private insurance for the working class and the poor, which is far cheaper than running a national healthcare system. There is a so-called public option, but this is being clobbered by the health insurance industry which sees the option as a way of lowering costs and eating into their profits. My guess is that any "public" option will be so watered down as to be useless. (Lieberman has already said he will filibuster if there is a public option).

I have huge problems with this health care/insurance bill and I am hoping it fails. But, my guess is that is that some form of this bill will pass. Every American, cradle to grave, will be required to be privately insured by companies that are more interested in making a profit than in paying for health care. Every American, except the indigent, will be shackled with some kind of payment for life to a private entity under the penalty of a fine (at least for now) and possibly of prison (if the fine doesn't work.) My guess is that both Medicare and Veterans' health care will eventually be transferred to this system. When and if an American President makes the same kind of suggestion that the Obama administration made--to have veterans' own health insurance pay for their war injuries--it will be far more acceptable because of the presence of this "exchange."