By Hans Nichols
April 29 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care.
The president’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had a hip replaced after she was diagnosed with cancer, Obama said in an interview with the New York Times magazine that was published today. Dunham, who lived in Honolulu, died at the age of 86 on Nov. 2, 2008, two days before her grandson’s election victory.
“I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost,” Obama said in the interview. “I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother.”
Obama said “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill.
“That’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues,” he said in the April 14 interview. “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.”
Obama promised during his presidential campaign that a health-care overhaul would be a top priority, and he said at a Missouri town hall meeting today that he hopes Congress will pass health-care legislation this year.
The issue has been divisive, and finding an answer that will keep costs down while extending coverage to the estimated 46 million Americans without health insurance has eluded past presidents.
‘Ruthless Pragmatism’
Obama also said his economic advisers aren’t constrained by ideology or connections to former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. “What I’ve been constantly searching for is a ruthless pragmatism when it comes to economic policy,” he said, in the interview.
Obama also pointed to Canada as an example of a country that has effectively regulated commercial and investment banking without requiring legal separation of those activities.
“When it comes to something like investment banking versus commercial banking, the experience in a country like Canada would indicate that good, strong regulation that focuses less on the legal form of the institution and more on the functions that they’re carrying out is probably the right approach to take,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 29, 2009 18:00 EDT
Neo, I spent many days at the Kings County Hospital when I was a child, while my Uncle, then my grandfather were there. They did keep patients there, but it was for the poor, you are right. Growing up we never had insurance for medical, or for Dental until my dad quit ranching and went to work for Cal-Trans, when I was a Junior in High School. When we had no insurance, my parents did just as you said, they paid payments. I remember when my little brother was born and the Doctor came to our home to make a housecall to check on my mother and my baby brother. I am sure they had to pay him for that call, but it was something our small town doctor did. My point is, that people did not shirk their responsibilities back then, and paid their bills even if it took them awhile. I never knew that there was “Welfare”
or help from the state. As ranchers, we even had to charge Groceries till the crops came in. It was something they just did, and people took care of them selves.
This article shows to me that Obama did not care much for his own grandmother if he was second guessing wheather she might have beat the cancer and lived long enough to need that new hip. So he would have had her lay there in bed with cancer, with a broken hip, and in pain, not be able to get out of bed, and been okay with that? How Heartless… If that is the way he feels about the elderly, then we who are aging, are in big trouble. Thank you for your commnets, and bringing back memories.
I remember when there were public hospitals, usually bearing the names of, and run by the counties in which they existed; Kings County Hospital, for example. Treatment was neither free, nor unlimited, but we were pragmatic in those days, and grateful to know that if one of our children developed high fever in the middle of the night, we could rush to the county hospital and have an attending physician administer life-preserving care without question.
We were asked to pay for emergency services rendered, according to our ability, and if any were able, and did not pay, the county would collect, as any creditor would do. However, if a person was broke or poor, payment plans were available to spread the cost of the emergency service over a reasonable period of time. Patients who returned for non-emergency care were asked for one of two things; (a) Cash, or (b) a birth certificate from each patient proving they were qualified citizens, and a signed agreement from the patient, or some responsible person agreeing to pay for treatment as quickly as the signer was able to pay.
We understood that if we needed major medical services, they would not be granted by the county hospitals, and in most cases, were not even available there. We understood that wealthy citizens would likely go to a for-profit hospital for treatment, and would receive unlimited or extended care, as long as they were able to pay, or had insurance to cover such costs. It was natural that, if you were wealthy and chose to exhaust your fortune staying alive a few days longer, that was your right. Everyone aspired to be that wealthy person some day, but no one begrudged those who were already there.
Obama commits the most heartless act possible of any so-called leader, when he offers the promise of unlimited free health care under principles of communism, which is an immediate and automatic lie. Under communism (national health care) the highest level of health care possible is promised for all citizens, and therefore requires draining of every possible asset of ALL citizens in a futile attempt to raise the mean level of treatment by even a tiny percentage point. In the end, the promise is impossible to deliver, overall health care quality wanes, and the wealthy are denied the right or ability to use their own wealth in their own self-preservation.
So Obama literally makes of himself, a false messiah. He promises what he knows he cannot deliver, and then counts upon his ability to lie convincingly, along with collusion of his “crew,” who share his communist dreams either willingly or in ignorance. Moreover, the single most indispensible element required in selling socialist decadence to the masses, is for the masses to yearn for government served comfort and bliss in their lives, and for them to be willing to accept such wisps floating in the corners of their eyes as reality, in fear they will vanish if peered upon directly. Unfortunately, that peripheral illusion is a sharp object that will put out our eyes if we allow it to come too close.
Obama is staking his career on the belief we will not “look,” and he is dismayed that any of us have the gall to insist upon it. Thank you for posting this article Marian! With Obama’s gall, we have to dogmaticaly point out his lies and inconsistencies, and we have to tell Congress over, and over, that if they go down this path with him, their political careers are OVER along with his!
RC, I hate to have it go that far, but I know you are right. Look how long we have been trying to tell people about this and none of them were believers until now. Now at least some of them are finally waking up and using their voices. I see real anger out there. We will do what we have to do, and I will be glad when it is over too. Thanks for the stopping by and for your comments.
Every time Pinocchio opens his mouth all we can expect is for his nose to grow another eight feet. As long as he has 9/10ths of the media on his payroll, it is almost impossible for anyone to hear anything except for Obama’s lies, and Gibbs’s explanations. I’m glad he is lying, and I hope all of his bills pass, just so the American people will learn to seek out a second opinion next time. People want to trust their President, so it is easy for them to automatically assume he is telling them the truth. Fox is the only network reminding people of what Obama’s past words were. The rest are to busy convincing the world that Palin should be hanged on the town square, or reminding anyone who didn’t already know, that Michael Jackson is dead. Still dead that is. Just like an alcoholic, we as a country will have to experience the coming catastrophe together before any new eyes will be opened. That is why I hope everything passes. I just want to get it over with, then reverse the damage done as soon as possible.