US President Barack Obama is altering his message on his overhaul of the US healthcare system, readying a fresh pitch designed for those who already have insurance.
The White House is retooling its message amid polling that shows Americans — especially those who already have coverage — are skeptical of the Democratic proposals to expand coverage to millions. Instead, Obama will use a potentially boisterous town hall-style meeting in New Hampshire to highlight how his proposals would affect workers whose employers provide their health insurance. The US, unlike other developed nations, lacks universal healthcare; most working Americans get health insurance through their employers.
The shift comes as critics of the president’s plan have grabbed headlines by disrupting town hall meetings and the White House expected yesterday’s event to have a hiccup.
Concerns over Obama’s proposal are heating up meetings, chat rooms and radio shows, driving his poll numbers down and threatening the future of his top domestic priority. While Congress is in recess this month, lawmakers are hearing from constituents worried about divisive issues such as the government’s role in healthcare and the costs of an overhaul.
“There’s a lot of fear out there,” Democratic Representative Carol Shea-Porter said.
To calm that fear, Obama plans to spend the month highlighting the upside of health overhaul for Americans who already have insurance, starting in a state with 89 percent of its residents enjoying health coverage.
In New Hampshire, Obama will speak directly about his proposal to ban insurance companies from denying individuals coverage because of pre-existing conditions. During a trip to Montana on Friday, he will talk about how his plan would block companies from dropping an individual’s coverage if he or she becomes ill. And in Colorado the president will talk about how the Democrats’ plan would end high out-of-pocket costs in some policies.
His allied Democratic National Committee began running television advertising that asks, “What’s in it for you?” and then highlights those goals. Officials said the ad started running Monday night in Washington and on cable; it would follow as early as yesterday in states Obama planned to visit, including New Hampshire.
About 1,800 people are expected for that midday event in the Democratic-leaning Seacoast region of the Granite State. Of those, 70 percent were given tickets based on a random lottery — a potentially dicey crowd in a state known for its grass-roots political activism.
“Participating in government here in New Hampshire is like putting on socks for the average American,” said Ray Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.
Outside, a dozen grass-roots organizations plan a counter rally.
“We are against the blind-faith, fast-tracking approach being advocated by special-interest supporters of the bill, congressional representatives, as well as the president,” said George Lovejoy, a former state senator and chairman of the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition.
In an e-mail to Obama supporters in New Hampshire, an aide invited supporters to counter the counter-protesters and called them organized by “Washington insiders, insurance companies and well-financed special interests who don’t go a day without spreading lies and stirring up fear.”
Meanwhile, the White House returned to campaign mode, starting with sending members of the Cabinet to key states. The tech-savvy Obama team directly responded to what it considers misinformation through its Twitter and Facebook accounts online, as well as a new page of the White House Web site.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS